Twenty years later, Marcus Tony-El still feels the tension in the air from the day the RAC almost blew up.
The Seton Hall basketball forward committed a hard foul on a layup by Rutgers guard Mike Sherrod, who bounced off the post and then fell into the baseline bleachers in Section 118 (now the luxury seats). Sherrod, feeling pain from falling to the court, jumped up and took a step toward Tony-El, who was surrounded by Scarlet Knights fans.
Pirates guard John Allen and two Rutgers players rushed into the stands to protect their teammates, miraculously avoiding a full-scale fire.
“I made a play on the ball, but because it was going so hard and I was going so hard, it made it look worse than it really was,” recalls Toni-El, now a high school coach with Immaculate Conception in Montclair. “I had fans beating my chest; someone stole my headband and was waving it around. There’s just a different energy in this building.”
Those in the Rutgers-Seton Hall rivalry have long known that energy to ripple across the country as the RAC (now Mikes Arena in Jersey) has melted a number of ranked rivals in recent years. Seton Hall has been in the 8,000-seat cauldron for several coaching cycles, but Rutgers has won the last two meetings and will enter Sunday’s Garden State Hardwood Classic (6:30 p.m., Fox Sports 1) as a heavy favorite.
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“Always loud, always packed,” Tony-El said. “Fans, they’re on you. Rutgers can be 0-and-whatever, and when Seton Hall came in it was a championship game atmosphere.”
Now the shoe is on the other foot. Rutgers looks to be a fourth-straight NCAA tournament-caliber team under Steve Pikiello, while Seton Hall is rebuilding in its first year under Shaheen Holloway. But Tony-El is right: records don’t matter on Sunday; the place will be a circus no matter what.
Here’s what a group of ex-pirates and current pirates who have lived through it all have to say about entering the lion’s den as an arch-rival.
“oh my god”
Former Seton Hall wing Myles Cale went 0-2 at RAC. In 2017, the Scarlet Knights finished the game on a 17-2 run, coming back from 13 down to pull off the upset. In 2019, Rutgers went 14-0 en route to a 20-point outburst.
“Oh my god,” said Cale, who plays professionally in Belgium. “Rutgers is in the top three places I’ve ever played in the craziest conditions. There is tension in the gym. It’s so tight and so close and it gets so warm. They (the fans) make sure you hear them talk trash.”
Former Hall guard Shavar Reynolds experienced both of those games.
“They’re a completely different team at home,” said Reynolds, who plays professionally in the Netherlands. “This is the definition of a college basketball atmosphere. As a college basketball crowd, they are one of the best.”
Reynolds said the biggest key is sustaining Rutgers’ runs. It’s easier said than done there.
“It’s a great environment, one of the toughest to play in, but I think it has more to do with their mentality,” former Hola center Ike Abiagu said. “They are different players playing at home.”
A lot of that comes down to the early snaps, said Abiagu, who helped Florida State win the RAC as a freshman.
“You have to win the first segment, the first four minutes,” he said.
Point guard Jordan Theodore was one of two Seton Hall players in a 4-0 shutout at Rutgers (Jeremy Hazell being the other). Theodore, who is enjoying a distinguished professional career in Europe, said the key is matching the passion that Rutgers always brings back home.
“Winning in the RAC is never easy, especially when you understand how important the rivalry is to Jersey basketball,” he said. “For me, when I started the game, I always hated Rutgers … It was always a chance to compete against guys that I called my brothers as a kid. So it was important to always want those who can boast in the summer, when we competed with them during the summer races.”
The flip side of noise
The only current Pirate to face Rutgers on the road is senior forward Tyrese Samuel. He remembers how the Scarlet Knights’ very first series of the 2019 contest set the tone.
“They threw their foreheads at half court and it just went crazy,” he said, referring to Miles Johnson’s remark to Ron Harper Jr. – From that moment (the volume) never decreased. The continuity of the volume of the crowd was second to none.”
On the technical side, Samuel said, the biggest challenge in the game is communication. It’s hard to hear instructions from the bench and even among teammates on the court.
There’s a flip side to that noise, too: a very satisfying sonic reward for a resilient unit that manages to rise above the chaos. Two years after the fan ran off with his headband, Tony-El and the Pirates defeated Rutgers in perhaps the best game of the series. The Scarlet Knights were 16-1 at home in 2003-04, with the only loss coming by one point to top-ranked UConn before Seton Hall guard Andre Barrett hit a decisive 3-pointer from the R block at center court.
“I played there four years in high school (in the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions) and four years in college, and it was always loud,” Tony-El said. “So hearing the building go quiet was a surreal moment.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and college basketball since 2003. He is a top 25 pick by the Associated Press. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
