On Saturday, the Bonnies will be in the missionary position of converting the non-believing Canadian masses into college basketball fans. Yes, the season has started with an 0-3 record for the Brown and Silver and White, but it'll only be 0-1.6 when you exchange them to Canadian losses.
Bona's will feel at home in Toronto: the land of Andrew Nicholson, Matthew Wright, Nelson Kaputo, drinking Blue Light, fried foods covered in unusual sauces and bad hockey teams. The two hour drive up the Quid Pro Quo Way from the Peace Bridge is nothing compared to the journey for the peasants from Piscataway. I know teams complain that going to Bona's is like going to Canada, but we are literally going north of the border folks.
A classic description of how to get to Allegany.
People forget that Rutgers is the "birthplace of college football," winning the 1869 Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl over Princeton 6-4. Since then, it's been nothing but success for the red, white and black. They went on to lose game 2 of the 1869 college football playoff to Princeton, so at 1-1, they said screw it and claimed a national title. The Bonnies went 1-1 in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, so I'm claiming that as a national championship.
After that, Rutgers took a nice 137-year break from being relevant before Jeremy Ito made a field goal and pointed at the sky cam. He was nicknamed "the judge" after Lance Ito, in honor of Lance's impeccable job not convicting a California man wrongly accused of murder. I'm just sayin...
There's a reason why it took this long to mention Rutgers basketball: they don't matter. Their only claim to fame is a 1976 Final Four appearance. They wouldn't have even made it if Lanier didn't get injured against Villanova 6 years before, stopping us from winning the first of would have been 10 straight titles. They followed up that 1976 Final Four with a loss to... *checks notes* St. Bonaventure in the 1977 NIT first round.
Since then, it's been a whole lot of nothing. They haven't made the NCAA Tournament literally since before the fall of the Soviet Union. Rutgers actually helped found the A10 and stayed until we kicked them out in 1995 to play in a worse basketball conference with the likes of South Florida, DePaul and St. John's. They haven't even played in postseason since 2006, proving that the housing market collapse wasn't all that bad.
Even by New Jersey standards, Rutgers is an embarrassment. The state literally won't put its name on the school. Rutgers is named after Henry Rutgers, a colonel who organized troops during the the War of 1812. I like war heroes who didn't tie the British, folks.
Greg Schiano is going back there. Mike Rice, the guy who failed to replace Schmidt at Robert Morris and fled to Rutgers, was fired because his players couldn't catch his passes. Sure, many so-called experts like Seth Davis and SBUnfurled may say things like "Rutgers isn't a joke this season." If I learned anything from the ongoing Bona's-SUNY Buffalo feud on the Bandwagon, it's that if a team has always sucked, there's literally a 0% chance they'll ever beat you. Scoreboard, Amherst.
Seven Steps to Victory:
A&W burgers in Canada. More life altering than a Fortune 500 company.
Don't let Justin Trudeau wear face paint to cheer for the Bonnies.
Maybe get a rebound? idk
Check if Nicholson has any more eligibility.
Get Drake to sit courtside, so the crowd boos him instead of us if we start losing.
Pretend to knee the ball, so a Rutgers player tries to unnecessarily tackle you and gets a technical.
Bah God, that's Eli Carter's music!!!
Bona Bandwagon Commenter's Score on #a102k20: Rutgers 83, Bonnies 73
Unrealistic 2k Stat of the Game: Bonnies +12 rebounding advantage
LesterGreen Quote of the Day: "Nah man nah buddy the wolf the bonga wolph he is to the big time reanimated corpse juss like the Boris Karloff bud the frackingstines"
Rutgers Message Board Quote of the Day: "RU isn't going to make their NCAA resume by beating Seton Hall and St Bonaventure..."
In a battle of two schools who play in RACs, it will be who can drive to the rack who will win this one, folks. Poutine is on me at Bier Markt if we win.