For much of its history, the Rutgers basketball team has been a laughing stock. For the longest time, the Scarlet Knights were the worst team in the Big East, and cheap Rutgers basketball tickets were so widely available that they were practically free. However, most people don’t realize that the Scarlet Knights are on the rise, and finding last-minute Rutgers basketball tickets is now a treat for hoops fans in New Jersey.

Once Upon a Time

The 1970s and 1980s were a good time for Rutgers basketball under head coach Tom Young. The Scarlet Knights made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 1975 and reached their first Final Four the following year. Young took Rutgers back to the Sweet 16 in 1979 before the program started to fall off. Joining the Big East in 1995 seemed like a blessing, as it gave Rutgers a chance to compete in one of the best conferences in the country. But one coach after another failed to turn Rutgers into an NCAA Tournament team.

A Sign of Hope

Nearly 30 years after their last NCAA Tournament appearance in 1991, the Scarlet Knights got a glimmer of hope when Steve Pikiell took over as head coach in 2016. In the program’s third season in the Big Ten, Pikiell doubled the team’s win total in his first season. He slowly gathered the talent needed to move Rutgers up the pecking order in the Big Ten, culminating in a 20-11 season in 2019-20. If the NCAA Tournament hadn’t been canceled that year, the Scarlet Knights would have broken their tournament drought before it reached 30 years. Nevertheless, the 2019-20 season gave Rutgers a reason to believe that brighter days are ahead.