Seton Hall at Rutgers: 'the definition of a college basketball atmosphere'

Twenty years later, Marcus Toney-El can still feel the tension in the air from the day the RAC nearly exploded.

The Seton Hall basketball forward committed a hard foul on a breakaway layup attempt by Rutgers guard Mike Sherrod, then tumbled into the baseline bleachers in Section 118 (now luxury seating). Sherrod, in pain from crashing onto the court, popped up and stepped toward Toney-El, who was engulfed by Scarlet Knights fans.

Pirate guard John Allen and two Rutgers players rushed into the stands to defend their respective teammates, and by a miracle, a full-scale conflagration was narrowly avoided.

“I made a play on the ball, but because he was going so hard and I was going so hard, it looked worse than it actually was,” recalled Toney-El, now a high school coach with Immaculate Conception in Montclair. “I had fans punching me on my chest; somebody stole my headband and was waving it around. There’s just a different kind of energy in that building.”

Long known by participants of the Rutgers-Seton Hall rivalry, that energy is making waves nationally as the RAC (now Jersey’s Mike’s Arena) has melted a litany of ranked opponents in recent years. For several coaching cycles Seton Hall held its own in the 8,000-seat cauldron, but Rutgers has won the past two meetings and will go into Sunday’s Garden State Hardwood Classic (6:30 p.m., Fox Sports 1) as a substantial favorite.

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“Always loud, always packed,” Toney-El said. “Fans, they’re on top of you. Rutgers could be 0-and-whatever, and when Seton Hall came in it was a championship-game atmosphere.”

The shoe is on the other foot now. Rutgers appears to have a fourth straight NCAA Tournament-caliber team under Steve Pikiell, while Seton Hall is rebuilding in Year One under Shaheen Holloway. But Toney-El is correct: Records don’t matter Sunday; the place will be a circus no matter what.

“It’s what it’s supposed to be, college basketball," said Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway, who went 4-1 against Rutgers as a Pirate player, including an epic double-overtime win at the RAC as a senior in 2000. "Whatever the records are, you put all that stuff aside. There’s a lot of pride in these games.”

Here’s what a bunch of former Pirates, and a current one who’s lived through it, have to say about entering the lion’s den as an archrival.

'Oh my goodness'

Former Seton Hall wing Myles Cale went 0-2 at the RAC. In 2017 the Scarlet Knights ended the game on a 17-2 run, roaring back from 13 down to pull off an upset. In 2019 Rutgers jumped out to a 14-0 lead on the way to a 20-point blowout.

“Oh my goodness,” said Cale, who is playing professionally in Belgium. “Rutgers is in the top three places I’ve ever played in for craziest environment. You can feel the tension in the gym. It’s so tight and so close and it gets so warm. They (fans) make sure you hear them talking trash.”

Former Hall guard Shavar Reynolds experienced both of those games.

“They’re a totally different team at home,” said Reynolds, who is playing professionally in the Netherlands. “It’s the definition of a college basketball atmosphere. As a college basketball crowd, they’re one of the best.”

Reynolds said the biggest key is weathering Rutgers’ runs. Easier said than done there.

“It’s a great environment, one of the toughest to play in, but I think it’s more about their mentality,” former Hall center Ike Obiagu said. “They’re a different set of players, playing at home.”

Much of that is established in the opening moments, said Obiagu, who as a freshman helped Florida State win at the RAC.

“You’ve got to win the first segment, the first four minutes,” he said.

Point guard Jordan Theodore was one of two Seton Hall players who went 4-0 at Rutgers (the other is Jeremy Hazell). Theodore, who is enjoying a fine pro career in Europe, said the key is matching the passion Rutgers always bring at home.

“Winning at the RAC is never easy, especially when you understand how important the rivalry is to Jersey basketball,” he said. “For me going into the game, I always hated Rutgers…It was always a chance to compete against guys I called my brothers growing up. So always wanting those bragging rights in the summer while we competed against them during summer runs was important.”

A flip side to the noise

The only current Pirate who’s faced Rutgers on the road is senior forward Tyrese Samuel. He remembers how the Scarlet Knights’ very first sequence of the 2019 contest set the tone.

“They threw a lob in the half-court and the place just went crazy,” he said, referring to an alley-oop from Myles Johnson to Ron Harper Jr. “From that point on (the volume) never went down. The continuity of the crowd’s loudness was second to none.”

From a technical standout, Samuel said, the game's biggest challenge 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, a deeply satisfying audial prize for a hardy unit that manages to rise above the chaos. Two years after a fan made off with his headband, Toney-El and the Pirates edged Rutgers in quite possibly the best game of the series. The Scarlet Knights were 16-1 at home in 2003-04, with the lone loss coming by one point to top-ranked UConn, before Seton Hall guard Andre Barrett sank a decisive 3-pointer from the block R at midcourt.

“I played there four years in high school (in the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions) and four years in college, and it was always loud,” Toney-El said. “So to hear that building go quiet was a surreal moment.”

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-Seton Hall basketball: RAC a challenge for visiting Pirates