Jersey Strong
Leave it to Rutgers fans to deliver the loudest “REFS YOU SUCK!” chant in college basketball history
We still have a few weeks to go until the NCAA Tournament. NBA All-Star weekend, the Daytona 500, and The Players Championship are all on the docket between now and then ... and yet the madness is already starting to seep in. In the past 24 hours alone, we’ve seen a miracle D2 comeback and even a little donnybrook action between Old Dominion and North Dakota State, but nothing sums up the increasingly manic state of college basketball quite like Rutgers.
The Scarlet Knights have been one of wildest yo-yo teams in college basketball history this season, becoming the first unranked team in college basketball history to take down four straight top-25 teams with their 70-59 upset of twelfth-ranked Illinois on Wednesday night. At the start of the month, Rutgers looked like a mid-pack NIT team but have played their way into the NCAA Tournament conversation. Perhaps more impressive than the performances, however, have been the fans, who are finally starting to believe. JK, this is Jersey. They just hate the f—king refs.
The Cameron Crazies get all the hype, but their mania is carefully orchestrated. Rutgers fans are organically deranged—pupils dilated, spit flying, ready to send the zebras to sleep with the fishes at the first soft call. As the tweet points out, the maximum volume of Jersey Mike's Arena topped out at 115 decibels on Wednesday night, and we wouldn't be surprised if it were this very chant, which occured with Rutgers up 13 points with 2:58 remaining. They weren’t getting hosed. The game was effectively over and yet fans were still bringing this level of heat. Jersey Strong, indeed.
The feeling is "The Ranked Reapers" will need three wins in their final six regular season games (or a deep run in the Big Ten tourney) to clinch a spot in The Big Dance. Let’s hope they get it done, because March needs this kind of madness.