 class is incredible and Steve Pichle is a major reason for that and he's the head basketball coach at Rutgers and he joins us here on the Michael K Show. It's Don LaGrecke and I'm sure you're familiar with the work of Dan Grossa. Welcome to the show coach. Hey guys I appreciate you having me on and Dan it's good to see you. Coach always a pleasure my friend and congratulations on the big score of course with Dylan Harper and that recruiting class and you know this I mean you and I've talked many times for somebody who grew up as a fan of the program went to school there to see the college basketball national recruiting rankings Duke Kentucky and Rutgers all in the same sentence there I'll tell you myself and a lot of alums a lot of a lot of pride in what you've been able to accomplish here. Well I tell you what it really is it's a credit to this great it's a great university and we're the 15th ranked public university in the country right now so academically there's no better place and just great people here at the school and we play in a terrific league obviously and selling out every game certainly helps in the recruiting process and you know and I'm blessed to have great assistant coaches but you know we get some talented players coming into the program and like to think we have talented players right now in the program so excited about this year and certainly excited about the future but all the credit goes to a great university with some you know great people that surround our program. I live in the neighborhood coach so I know it's a great neighborhood it's a great school it's a great conference there's a lot that you can sell when you're in somebody's living room recruiting an athlete what are some of the other things that you sell them about Rutgers? Well I tell you you know I have two kids currently that go one is getting her master's at Rutgers and she's going to finish up here in a couple weeks and my son's a senior here so not only do I try to get their kids to come here my own kids who could have went to a lot of places come here and there's great people here and there's a great energy on this campus we have tremendous leadership for the president you know Pat Hobbs are great athletic directors so you got great leadership you know I always say to people if there was a stock you need to buy it now because Rutgers is really doing unbelievable things in the academic world and sports I mean the job Coach Hiano was done you know with our football program playing in the pinstripe bowl and our wrestling program you know sells out you know Jersey Mike's Arena our basketball teams our soccer teams have been the final fours our men's lacrosse team final four last year just just really some great times here at the university and just blessed to be a part of it and thankful that people come out and support us and if you want to go see Rutgers play basketball Saturday might be one of your better opportunities if you are in the area because Rutgers is going to be playing Mississippi State at the Prudential Center in Newark so go to Ticketmaster to buy tickets for the Gotham Classic this weekend as Rutgers takes on Mississippi State at the Prus Center in Newark because this is your last chance to buy tickets to catch Rutgers for tickets not on the secondary market because all games are sold out at Jersey Mike's Arena this season go to Seat Geek the official ticketing partner of Rutgers Athletics to buy tickets for all remaining home games at Jersey Mike's Arena I think it's a credit to you coach the administration the players everybody involved with the program and winning is also the help what helps this but the home court advantage that you have cultivated at Jersey Mike's Arena it is a place that opposing teams don't want to play it's one of the best atmospheres in college basketball that's also something that you could sell to recruits because that is a home court advantage I mean it's really becoming unbelievable the environment's fantastic and our students really show up and make it a loud environment and a tough place to play you know we got a lot to really brag about we've graduated every player since I've been here every kid has graduated a lot of them have gone on and got their master's degree and then you know Kayla McConnell's in the NBA you know Ron Harper was with the Toronto Raptors you know Cliff will be next on that list he led the nation in dunks last year I think he's second right now in block shots and you know we continue to you know graduate guys and and and produce great you know bros and guys that go on and sign contracts to keep playing basketball so there's a lot of advantages you know coming here and and it's the biggest media market as you guys in the country and playing in this league challenges you the michigan's the Ohio states the produce you know every night so you see some great great basketball and I'm glad you mentioned the Prudential Center because that is the last time you know you could see us play you know Jersey Mike's does not have a seat available so hopefully our fans will get a chance you know before Christmas to come out Mississippi State is excellent really good basketball team was ranked in the top 25 earlier in the year they're 92 right now so we need we need Rutgers Nation to show up uh in Newark Michael Davis has been such a great story for you tell us more about him now first of all like a great family a worker you know he's one of my old fashion kind of you know he's in the gym all the time he loves basketball um he's the current you know leader in the country as freshmen and assists to turn over ratio so it's a great stat as a freshman to get a lot of assist and not turn the ball over and and to do that in his first year has been really just amazing but you know blue collar tough kid um plays with a little chip on his shoulder fastest could be so I'm blessed he and Gavin Griffiths two two freshmen that we have that you know have really produced it you know at a high level for young players you mentioned Gavin Griffiths coach and he was you know before this class for 2024 he was your highest rated recruit and he's done a nice job here trying to get acclimated to the college game into the big 10 what about his progress so far here making that transition from high school to now big 10 basketball he's really done a really good job he's learned a lot in his first you know 10 games um he's improved his defense tremendously you know he's instant offense for us right now you know off the bench he was starting earlier now we have him a lot mag back you know in the lineup which we're very thankful for but Gavin's going to be a fantastic player and he's another guy he's in the gym all the time comes from a great family and his best days are ahead of him what are some of the things you like to see your team improve on as you go down the stretch of the season here you know we've really been harping on a few things like you know health is a big part of it and how they eat and how they sleep and all those kind of things um plays a big role I've been disappointed with our rebounding quite honestly you know it hasn't been up to our standards um it's been better lately you know obviously a guy like Moab Mag who's one of the better rebounders on our team helps us now that he's healthy um we're getting another big guy um back playing very shortly here Emmanuel Ogbel who's uh seven feet he's about 280 pounds he'll help us too in that area but um you know we've had to really focus on that we've got a lot of new pieces too so we're kind of figuring out you know the rotation and and those kind of things but rebounding really has been a thing we've really harped on and we got to do a better job of taking care of the backboards and um that'll go a long way especially here in this Mississippi State game too. Coach Steve Pichela Rutgers joining us here on 9870 ESPN and you know you were nice enough to have me up there at practice and hang out in your office over the summer and when we were talking about the team you said you think or you thought that you guys were going to be better this year with the with the incoming players that you had and there's a tremendous amount of transition now in college sports from one year to the next with the transfer portal everybody moving around here and it's taken some time but 11 games in 10 games into the season where do you think you guys are now in terms of incorporating all the new faces into playing how you would like to play? Yeah I mean I think for everyone it's a huge challenge I mean we're seven and three and we had some games we didn't play as well as I would like but I'm also learning that other teams are you know really good too and they're old you know we played an Illinois team with a lot of you know veteran guys and you know we played a really good Princeton team to start the season and I feel better 10 games later if we played them now I think you know we would be in a lot better place too so it's always when you play teams and who you play at the time but we learned a lot of lessons from the different games we've shored up we've returned the ball over a lot now we're now we're not I think our defense is getting better in a lot of areas I think our offense is also starting to kick in a little bit so you know it's it's always a journey with the seasons I like the journey everyone thinks you can go undefeated I think there's only a couple teams in a country that are undefeated but there's a lot of teams like seven and three and and unlike we are have a chance to have a really good year and have a lot of season left to do that. Yeah Steve I'm born and raised New Jersey so I've got a lot of pride in this state and there's so much talk about you know Pennsylvania basketball and and what those those schools have done in the state of Pennsylvania certainly New York but you you think in New Jersey the way Seton Hall is playing now St. Peters runs a couple of years ago where you guys have been able to accomplish I mean there's so much good basketball here in the state of New Jersey. I mean it really is a really good coach it's too fantastic I mean FDU makes a run last year in the tournament you know St. Pete's the job that Shaw's doing at that Seton Hall and then you got great coaches at Momet and that Ryder and obviously Princeton you know they're good every year they were sweet 16 team last year so you have a lot of really good coaches a lot of really good rivalries a lot of coaches come into our area and try to steal our recruits too and you know college basketball very healthy in New Jersey and I'm thankful that Rutgers is a big part of that. And Seton Hall actually did you guys a favor last night coach they had a great win upsetting Yukon at the Prudential Center but you beat Seton Hall a couple of weeks ago so that only looks better for your resume moving forward with Seton Hall getting a big win like that. Yeah I mean congratulations they played great and I think you know University of Connecticut is awesome you know I went to school there and the job Danny Hurley's done there is fantastic and you know but Shaw's team is good they went to you know Missouri and won you know I never get caught up at wins and quadrants and all that there's there's so many analytics now you know like you know there's 14 different analytics I get dizzy reading about them all and you know you just got to win enough games and be NCAA worthy and you know we won every metric last year that you can imagine they picked one out that they you know people didn't love but there are 13 other great ones you know you got to be good enough to get in that tournament and you know all the rest of this is you don't know who's going to win or lose on a given night you don't know how you're going to be on a given night you're still dealing with 18 19 20 year old you know kids so you try to get them ready for all the obstacles ahead and you know you do the best that you can with them and you're excited about the journey that the season usually takes you on real quick coach I was just going to ask you you know you mentioned last season in the snub for the NCAA tournament one of the teams that did get one of those first four spots and one of the final at large you're going to be playing on Saturday in Mississippi State is that a message you convey to your guys going into this game here on Saturday afternoon I mean you know we don't talk to really to be honest a lot about last year different team different you know circumstances and but we did talk about Mississippi State being very good and being a lot for the NCAA tournament this year so you know they have some really good players and he does a fantastic job you know coaching and and so you know it'll be a real challenging game at a neutral site you know for us we want it to be challenged in the you know non-conference and this team looks exactly like you know some of our teams and in the big 10 big physical athletic basketball team so this will help us as we prepare for you know league play well Steve good luck the rest of the way and we love having you it's good to get to know you and go are you guys I appreciate it I see you have me on happy holidays yeah both you too to coach and get get out to the rock check that game out man because you can't get to the rack you're not going to be able to see him so and Don that's the truth I mean there ain't a seat to be had believe me and I'll be there Saturday looking forward to it here so hopefully you get a nice win