After carrying a seven point lead into the half, the Rutgers men’s basketball team had its first Big East victory since last season in sights. That was until Cincinnati rallied off a 21-4 run in the first nine minutes of the second half. The Beatcats held a 51-43 with nine minutes to go when junior center Hamady N’diaye fouled out of the game.

The Scarlet Knights (9-9, 0-5) were lit up on defense by Cincy’s Deonta Vaughn and Mike Williams who combined for 44 points and 14 rebounds in the game. For Rutgers, senior guard Anthony Farmer led the team in scoring with 12 points and freshman guard Mike Rosario yet again led the team in shots taken as he was four-for-15 from the field for 11 points. Freshman forward Gregory Echenique set a new career high in rebounds with 14.

With the exception of how flat Rutgers came out at the half, fouls proved to be the downfall as the Knights committed 24 personal fouls in the game. N’diaye along with senior forward JR Inman fouled out in the loss.

Rutgers also committed 17 turnovers as opposed to just six by the Bearcats.

A few notes at halftime of the Scarlet Knights’ (9-8, 0-4) game against Cincinnati (10-6, 0-3)

Chance to breathe: After consecutive games against No. 1 North Carolina, No. 3 Pittsburgh, No. 2 Connecticut, No, 16 Marquette and No. 9 Syracuse, Rutgers has its first game against a non-ranked opponent since their blowout of NJIT three weeks ago.

Unfamiliar Territory: That’s right folks. The Rutgers men’s basketball has a lead at halftime of a Big East game. It only took five games to get one, but the Scarlet Knights lead the Bearcats 36-29 at halftime.

Seniors setting precedent: As opposed to the freshmen and sophomores doing all of the scoring work like they have all season, seniors Anthony Farmer and JR Inman have stepped into the scoring spotlight so far as the Farmer has six points and Inman has a game-high nine points going into the half. Both seniors, however, need to be careful in the second half seeing as they both have three fouls already.

After keeping it close in the first half against No. 9 Syracuse, the Rutgers men’s basketball team completely fell apart in the second half and lost their fifth consecutive game 82-66. The Knights truly lived and died by freshman Mike Rosario’s jumper in the game as he made just six of his 22 shots in the loss.

The Orange outscored RU by 15 points in the second half as Syracuse point guard Jonny Flynn contributed 15 points including two spectacular dunks, seven rebounds and a game-high nine assists.

For Rutgers, senior guard Anthony Farmer led the way with 18 points, followed shortly by 15 from Rosario despite the fact that he was 3-for-15 from three point range.

The Scarlet Knights finally get a bit of a break Tuesday as they face Cincinnati, their first game against an unranked opponent since Jan. 29 against NJIT.

Behind the slick shooting of freshman Mike Rosario and dominance on the boards, the Rutgers men’s basketball team trails the ninth ranked Syracuse Orange by just one point going into halftime.

 Yet again, Rosario leads the team in scoring, with 12 of the team’s 38 points, followed by eight points from Anthony Farmer and seven from Corey Chandler.

 Although the Rutgers post has been dominant in terms of rebounds with 20 in the first half to just 10 for ‘Cuse, the Scarlet Knights’ forwards have a total of 11 points.

 RU has committed just five fouls so far to 11 by Syracuse, whose leading scorer at the half is Paul Harris with 12 points.

After dropping consecutive games to No. 1 North Carolina, No. 3 Pittsburgh and No. 2 Connecticut, the Scarlet Knights made it four in a row with a 81-76  loss to No. 15 Marquette at home.

Rutgers trailed by 19 with 16 minutest play and had just three assists to 11 turnovers but managed to put together a 31-17 run in he second half to make the game close, much like the Knights did in their near-win against Pittsburgh.

Rutgers cut the lead to 73-71 and decided to put Marquette on the free throw line where they were shooting just 57 percent, but the Golden Eagles made the shots that counted and escaped the RAC in the same fashion that Pittsburgh did last week.

RU was yet again powered by its young talent, getting big performances from Big East Freshman of the Week Mike Rosario (22 points to lead Rutgers) and sophomore guard Corey Chandler (19 points and seven rebounds in his fifth straight game as a member of the starting lineup).

Despite the loss, Rutgers outshot the Golden Eagles 30 percent to 15.4 percent from three-point range and outrebounded them 37-25.

Despite leading 55-50 with eight minutes to go and holding a lead throughout the majority of the half, the Scarlet Knights could not pull off the upset over the Pittsburgh Panthers and send Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy out on a high note on his last day at the RAC.

The Scarlet Knights lost a close contest at a sold out stadium 78-72 behind an 18-point from Pitt’s Sam Young. For Rutgers, freshman Mike Rosario – who was named Big East Freshman of the Week after his 26-point performance against North Carolina – stayed hot and led all scorers with 22 points. The Knights also got help from sophomore guard Corey Chandler who had 17 points and eight rebounds after struggling mightily in his last few games.

The downfall for Rutgers came in the second half when their shooting percentage dropped from 61.5 percent in the first to just 29 percent. Junior center Hamady N’diaye also played just 24 minutes and had zero points because of severe foul trouble.

Yet again, Rutgers head coach Fred Hill Jr. turned to his two star freshmen – Mike Rosario and Gregory Echenique – to carry his team over a sub-par opponent. The Scarlet Knights beat Bryant College 67-37 minutes ago at the Louis Brown Athletic Center for RU’s third win in a row.

Rosario led the team yet again in scoring with 18 points to go along with a career-best seven rebounds and Echenique provided another double-double from the power forward position with 11 points and 11 boards.

Sophomore guard Corey Chandler continued to struggle, missing all six of his field goals and scoring just one point. Rutgers’ next game is again NJIT, yes that team that didn’t win a single game last year, and will need to use the game to figure some things out because they hit Tobacco Road to play No. 1 North Carolina next weekend.

After averaging less than one minute per game on the young season, Rutgers freshman forward Christian Morris will pursue a transfer, looking for additional playing time.

“Christian wants to join a program that will provide him a significant increase in playing time,” said head coach Fred Hill in a press release. “We support Christian and our staff will aid him in the pursuit of this opportunity. He has worked extremely hard during his time at Rutgers and we are very appreciative of his contributions to our program.”

After the 66-56 loss to Binghampton, freshman guard Mike Rosario called out the rest of his team for not having enough scoring ability.

According to Jerry Carino’s Hoops Haven blog, Rosario said:

 “This is a new challenge I have to deal with. Basically in high school that couldn’t happen because I had six other players, seven other players who could score and do the same things I could do. With this team, what the other team does is they shade a player over to me, so my teammates have to step up. That’s just one thing we’re going o have to work on basically throughout the whole season, so when things like that happen I can have trust in my teammates that they can put up shots too and keep us in the game.”

Rosario led the Knights in scoring yet again with 14 points in the loss.

Inman out: Rutgers senior forward JR Inman was unable to play in the game after he rolled his ankle at the end the Rutgers win over Rider Wednesday. In his stead, forward Jaron Griffin saw increased playing time and scored nine points in 18 minutes.

Farmer still out of starting lineup: Senior guard and team captain Anthony Farmer did not start again as sophomore Mike Coburn started again in his place. Coburn scored 14 with four assists in 17 minutes and Farmer played for 29 minutes off the bench and contributed four points and three boards.

Fans losing steam: After the newly found “RAC PAC” started the season off strong, filling the student section for the first few home games, the student section has not even filled up half way in the last two games. In fact, the loudest cheers in the game (not including the 200 strong Binghamton fans) came as members of the Rugers football team exited the Louis Brown Athletic Center.