This was supposed to be the Scarlet Knights’ year.

Last year, the Rutgers men’s basketball team vaulted itself from Big East laughingstock to conference respectability. This year, it was supposed to prove that none of it was a fluke.

Instead, they’ve reverted to the Scarlet Knights of old. The ones who have never put together a Big East winning record. The ones who finished .500 in the conference just two times in the last decade.

When Rutgers faces No. 24 Syracuse (13-2, 4-1 Big East) tonight at 7:30 in the Louis Brown Athletic Center, the Scarlet Knights (8-9, 0-5) will be the final Big East team searching for its first conference win.

‘They’re the same team or better than they were last year,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘Their record is no indication of how good they are.’

Maybe so, but it appears last year’s Cinderella may have left both slippers behind. On Dec. 21, the Scarlet Knights lost, 61-57, to Virginia after missing six straight free throws late in the game. Two weeks later, Rutgers lost to La Salle in overtime after the Scarlet Knights’ final shot in regulation spun around the rim and out.

‘We’re not playing as well as we should be,’ Rutgers coach Gary Waters said. ‘But we could easily have only one loss in the Big East.’

In addition to battling every opponent on the court, last year’s Rutgers team battled to vanquish RU’s losing mentality.

Their arena, dubbed ‘the RAC,’ was a den of horrors for opponents. The Scarlet Knights featured a powerful inside presence from graduated-senior Rashod Kent and explosive outside shooting from current guards Jerome Coleman (17.9 points per game) and Ricky Shields (13.4 ppg).

But in winning 18 games, the Scarlet Knights expended their most powerful weapon — surprising teams caught up in Rutgers’ losing mystique.

‘We probably overlooked them last year and thought we were going to get an easy win,’ SU forward Hakim Warrick said. ‘The RAC’s a tough place to play.’

Said Waters: ‘We had a chance to surprise people last year because we had two strong players inside. This year, we don’t have that.’

And if RU doesn’t find some answer soon, the losing tradition will continue.

‘We’re struggling now,’ senior center Kareem Wright said. ‘We can’t get down on ourselves.’

The Orangemen enter tonight’s contest with a pair of struggles of their own. During its 54-49 win against Miami on Sunday, SU was outrebounded, 44-38, and managed a season-low point total.

A trip to Rutgers, though, may prove a temporary cure for both problems.

The Scarlet Knights’ defense has allowed Big East opponents to shoot 52 percent, worst in the league. Their leading rebounder, 6-foot-10 Herve Lamizana, has a body resembling a broomstick, while their second-leading rebounder, Shields, is a guard.

‘We put all the emphasis on the offensive side,’ Waters said. ‘We need to put more on the defensive side. We need more of a commitment from that. We need to do a better job rebounding the ball.’

The root of both problems lies in the graduation of Kent. In SU’s visit to Rutgers last year, Kent gobbled up 15 rebounds, blocked five shots and went to the free-throw line 12 times.

‘He took up a lot of space, got a lot of rebounds and cleaned up a lot,’ Warrick said. ‘He’d go and bang with anybody. When you lose a guy like that, it’s really hard. You can see they really miss him.’

Published on January 28, 2003 at 12:00 pm