Rutgers basketball: Senior Night, Caleb McConnell and the value of loyalty

Sometime last spring, as Caleb McConnell explored the NBA Draft process, his phone buzzed off the hook with inducements to transfer from Rutgers for his fifth collegiate season.

One midwestern basketball program offered an eye-popping package of name-image-likeness money – exponentially more than he was going to make at Rutgers. McConnell, who has roots in Ohio, declined.

“I’m proud of him for doing that because he could have gone last year and been closer to home and made a lot more money, but he came back to win,” teammate Paul Mulcahy said.

It wasn’t just about winning. McConnell came of age here, forged a deep bond with head coach Steve Pikiell and his teammates, and earned his bachelor’s degree in December. He is and always will be a Rutgers man.

“I am so glad he stayed,” McConnell’s mother, Stefanie Meade, said. “He’ll always be able to say he went to one college, that this was his school. That means something.”

Last month, after Rutgers beat Michigan State at Madison Square Garden, McConnell, Meade and other family members went to eat at a midtown Manhattan restaurant and the place was packed. A group of Rutgers student-fans gave their table to McConnell and his party, and one of them told Stefanie about his interactions with Caleb around campus over the years – how friendly he was, even how he’d bought that student a drink at a New Brunswick bar as a thank-you for the support (normally that happens the other way around).

“I have heard so many stories like that,” Meade said. “Caleb has been part of something bigger than just basketball.”

Keep that in mind as McConnell, Mulcahy, Aundre Hyatt, Oskar Palmquist and Andrew Fulin are honored Sunday during a Senior Night ceremony prior to the crucial regular-season finale against visiting Northwestern (7:30 p.m., Big Ten Network). There have been ups and downs – witness the past week, when the Scarlet Knights rallied from a 19-point deficit to win at surging Penn State, then squandered a 10-point lead with 1:15 left to fall at last-place Minnesota. But these honorees, who have put a combined 16 years into the program, are leaving Rutgers basketball in a better place than they found it.

'You get to stamp your name'

A three-star recruit who was ranked as the No. 344 college prospect in his class, McConnell received a late scholarship offer from Pikiell after a more highly touted guard, Mac McClung, decommitted. A human highlight reel who went on to play at Georgetown and later Texas Tech, McClung never achieved much team success (he recently emerged from the G League to win the NBA’s slam dunk contest).

Former Rutgers standout Geo Baker hosted both McConnell and McClung on their recruiting visits. He remembers being bummed about getting McClung's text explaining the decommitment. Then he met McConnell.

"The thought of me and Ron (Harper Jr.) without Caleb, it just doesn't sound right," Baker said.

McConnell showed up that first summer with a broken foot and found himself buried on the depth chart -- and wondering if he belonged. Randi Larson, who works closely with Rutgers’ basketball players as assistant director of academic services for student-athletes, remembers him, fresh off surgery, hobbling down College Avenue to his first exam. On the court and in the classroom, it was far from a certainty that he was going to make it.

“Where I come from, there are not too many kids who even get to go to college,” McConnell said. “My freshman year didn’t start off as good as I wanted it to be, but I learned how to fight and I learned how to overcome things.”

That may happen less and less in today’s transfer-portal world. While noting that “in some circumstances, it’s probably the best option to transfer,” McConnell said he hopes his journey resonates with others whose phones are buzzing come April.

“I feel like kids, they don’t want to stay and fight, they don’t want to grow, they don’t want to go through the fire,’ he said. “The benefit of staying at a university like this is you get to stamp your name, you get to leave your own legacy.”

Mulcahy, who has one year of eligibility remaining but will wait until after this season to announce his future plans, echoed that sentiment Friday.

“Caleb and I, along with all the other guys who have stayed the course, I think long-term it’s going to help us more than anything,” he said. “In this day and age we live in, it’s sexy to transfer…especially with the NIL. But we’re staying the course. When (stuff) gets hard, we don’t run from it. We’ve never done that. There’s plenty of kids that, if they had our freshman and sophomore years, they'd hit the high road and chase that greener grass.”

Loyalty is a life skill that these guys have honed over the past four or five years.

“It’s cliché, but we’re watering our own grass and I think that will help us down the line in our marriages, it will help us raise our kids,” Mulcahy said. “That’s part of life. Basketball and life are similar – staying the course is huge.”

'We've done good here'

Sunday’s game has enormous implications. If Rutgers (18-12 overall, 10-9 Big Ten) can top Northwestern (20-10, 11-8), it probably will ensure the program’s third straight NCAA Tournament berth. Lose, and the Scarlet Knights will be sweating it out on Selection Sunday.

It’s worth noting that McConnell and Mulcahy have faced do-or-die regular-season finales in each of the past three seasons. They won them all, each by a sliver: at Purdue in 2020, at Minnesota in 2021 and home against Penn State in 2022. Those experiences should come in handy when the ball goes up.

But there is more going on Sunday. Senior Night is a reminder that collegiate sports, at their best, are about athletes coming in as boys and girls and leaving as men and women.

A couple of months ago, Larsen witnessed a tense situation involving another Rutgers team at the Athletic Performance Center, where men’s basketball and some other teams practice. Just when it was about to boil over, McConnell stepped in and mediated a peaceful resolution.

It was the perfect summation of McConnell’s journey: Five years as a Rutgers man did wonders for both him and for the school.

“I was like, ‘Yes, we’ve done good here,’” Larson said. “Caleb’s given me gray hairs over the years, but it’s been worth it because he has been such a tremendous representative of this program. We all are going to miss him.”

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Rutgers basketball: Senior Night, Caleb McConnell and value of loyalty