Steve Pikiell punched in Jim Calhoun’s number—his standard routine after receiving any job offer—and waited for a familiar New England inflection to bellow out from the other end.
Pikiell had just been pitched the coaching vacancy at Rutgers, a devastated program with little to offer besides a vision and administrative support. He sought the advice of his usual confidant and mentor of nearly 30 years.
Calhoun comes about as close as you can get to college basketball royalty. His CV includes three NCAA tournament championships, seven Big East titles and nearly 1,000 wins, naturally becoming an oft-tapped well of perspective for Pikiell, who played under Calhoun in the late 1980s.
The dynastic UConn boss was also famously reverent of Rutgers’s Jersey Mike’s Arena. Known then as the RAC, the name most Scarlet Knights fans still default to, he equated his experience playing there with the homophonous medieval torture device before a road tilt in 2004. So when Pikiell reached out to Calhoun about the Rutgers opening, men’s college basketball’s third-winningest coach didn’t mince words in describing the home court advantage Pikiell could build in Piscataway.
“Calhoun was the one guy who said, ‘[The RAC] is as tough of a place as I’ve ever had to coach,’” Pikiell says. “So, when you hear that from a guy who’s coached in every arena in the country and has won national championships, you really respect that statement.”
Pikiell ultimately took a gamble on Rutgers, which had finished its most recent season ranked 279th in KenPom, beginning as coach in March 2016. And as the Knights’ fortunes have changed over Pikiell’s tenure, Calhoun’s once laughable statement now reads like Nostradamus—Jersey Mike’s Arena might just be the toughest place to play in the nation.
Since November 2019, with full-capacity crowds, Rutgers men’s basketball has enjoyed a dominant 8–1 record against ranked opposition at Jersey Mike’s Arena and a 32–4 home mark overall, the fifth-best among Power 5 teams. Rutgers hasn’t enjoyed nearly the success of the four teams (Kansas, Baylor, Kentucky and Auburn) above it, narrowly sneaking into the NCAA tournament each of the last two seasons with a 6–21 record at road and neutral sites during the aforementioned stretch.
This remarkable home/road split substantiates the arena’s recently popularized “Trapezoid of Terror” moniker. It’s loud, it’s cramped—the 8,000-seat capacity filters out all but the most passionate Jerseyans—and it’s a terrifying place for opposing teams.
“[The fans] are just very involved, the acoustics in there are great, it’s loud and I don't think there’s a ticket left for the [2022–23] season,” Pikiell says. “I think it’s the toughest place in America for people to come and play.”