More than 4,000 fans attended the Rutgers-St. John's men's college basketball exhibition last Thursday. About 20 NBA scouts were there at Jersey Mike's Arena, too, and the postgame news conferences were standing room only. The Scarlet Knights received more media credential requests than any game since coach Steve Pikiell arrived in 2016. And the result and statistics didn't even count.
Everyone, or at least most people, primarily spent the night at Rutgers' home court to witness the college debuts of Scarlet Knights freshmen Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, the No. 2 and No. 3 prospects in the 2025 NBA draft, according to ESPN and The Athletic. Duke freshman Cooper Flagg, who shined against the Olympic team in practice this summer, is the only player ranked higher.
Under Pikiell, the Scarlet Knights have transformed in recent years from a laughingstock to a legitimate Big Ten conference program. Still, with Bailey and Harper aboard, the expectations have skyrocketed. Rutgers enters the season with the most hype since the late 1970s. The No. 25 Scarlet Knights are ranked in the preseason poll for just the second time in 45 years even though they only return three players from last year's team that finished 15-17 and tied for 12th in the 14-team Big Ten.
Pikiell, for his part, has preferred to publicly discuss the team as a whole rather than the two star freshmen. At this month's Big Ten media day, he praised Bailey and Harper as coming "from great families" before citing the leadership of Jeremiah Williams, the team's leading scorer last season, and Zach Martini, a graduate transfer from Princeton. He also said the fans have "been tremendous," citing the program's home sellout streak, which has reached 64 consecutive games.
Pikiell had a similar tone after Thursday's game when asked about Bailey and Harper. Bailey, a 6-foot-10 wing player, missed his first four shots but made 8 of his final 14 field goals to finish with a team-high 25 points, including 4 of 9 3-pointers and 5 of 7 free throws. Harper, a 6-foot-6 point guard, had 20 points on 8 of 16 from the field, including 2 of 6 on 3's.
St. John's coach Rick Pitino compared Harper's playing style with that of Walt "Clyde" Frazier, the former New York Knicks guard and Hall of Famer, and called Bailey "a great talent." Pikiell was more measured.
"They're great kids, first and foremost, and they're really good passers," Pikiell said. "They've got to learn some things. College defense is something that they're going to continue to get better at. But they're exciting."
He added: "I'm thankful for them, and I'm thankful for this whole group. They've been great since day one. They come to work every day. They're a very unselfish group. And those two fit right in perfectly."
Bailey and Harper, who were ranked second and third in the high school Class of 2024 by 247Sports, are by far the highest profile freshmen Pikiell has recruited to Rutgers. Before them the highest ranked player was Clifford Omoruyi, a 6-foot-10 center from Roselle Catholic in New Jersey who was 62nd in the Class of 2020, according to 247Sports. Omoruyi averaged 10.3 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game in four seasons with the Scarlet Knights before transferring to Alabama in May.
While Harper held scholarships offers from Duke, Kansas, Indiana and numerous other elite programs, it wasn't a major surprise that he ended up at Rutgers considering his ties to the area and the University.
Harper played in high school at New Jersey's Don Bosco Prep, where his mother is an assistant coach for the boys team. And his brother, Ron Harper Jr., was a four-year player at Rutgers and helped the Scarlet Knights make the 2021 and 2022 NCAA tournaments. That was the first time Rutgers played in consecutive tournaments since 1975 and 1976. The Scarlet Knights may have qualified for the 2020 tournament, too, when they went 20-11, but the event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"The connection I have with the coaching staff at Rutgers goes way back and it's a very special day," Harper said when the Scarlet Knights announced his signing on his 18th birthday in March.
Bailey, meanwhile, is a native of Tennessee who moved to the Atlanta area before his sophomore year of high school in 2021. That summer, he received scholarship offers from Ole Miss, Tennessee and Auburn. Rutgers offered him a scholarship in October 2022, as did Georgia, Memphis and Kansas. Three months later, Bailey and his high school teammate, Jamichael Davis, visited Rutgers for its game against Ohio State. After the Scarlet Knights won, 68-64, in overtime, Bailey told Pikiell in the victorious locker room he would play for the Scarlet Knights alongside Davis, who had committed the previous month. Davis is now a sophomore guard at Rutgers.
"I just said, 'Coach Pik, I gotta tell you something,'" Bailey told the Pro Insight website in November 2023 shortly after signing with Rutgers. "I said, 'I'm coming!' He just jumped and the locker room went absolute bonkers -- like, it was nuts! Everybody was screaming. Even Coach Pik was screaming. It was just the greatest experience. My Mom was crying. It was just great."
Tremayne Anchrum, Bailey's high school coach, also gives credit to Rutgers associate head coach Brandin Knight, a former All-American guard at Pittsburgh who grew close to Bailey throughout the recruiting process.
"(Knight) did a great job of getting to know him," said Anchrum, who played basketball at USC in the 1990s. "In today's day of recruiting, where it's not about relationships, it's about the check, Brandon did it old school and came through, and he built a relationship with him."
Although Bailey lives more than 800 miles from Rutgers and doesn't have the longtime connections Harper does to the school, he committed before Harper and helped convince him to sign with the Scarlet Knights. The two were friends on the grassroots/AAU circuit and even played a few games together for Athletes of Tomorrow, the Atlanta-based program that Bailey has played on since he was in eighth grade.
In April, Bailey and Harper were also teammates and starters at the McDonald'a All-American Game and the Nike Hoop Summit, two of the most prestigious youth events. Sharman White, who coached Bailey and Harper's team at Nike Hoop Summit and against them at the McDonald's event, said both players were impressive in practices and the game. They impressed NBA scouts who were able to watch them play in-person.
"They're not so tight to where they can't be loose, but they are focused on the goal of what they want to do," White said. "For them, right now, the present time is to be the best for Rutgers University and try to bring Rutgers into national prominence, which I think they've already kind of done...I think once the games start, you're going to see what kind of impact players they really are."
White said Harper reminds him of a taller Chris Paul, the future Hall of Fame point guard, while Bailey plays like Celtics star Jayson Tatum. While that may be hyperbole for now, Bailey and Harper come from basketball families: Harper's father, Ron, played 15 seasons in the NBA, while Bailey's father and mother played at the University of Houston and West Virginia University, respectively.
If, as expected, both players are first round picks in next year's NBA draft, they will join only three other Rutgers players who have been picked in the first round: James Bailey (no relation to Ace) in 1979, Roy Hinson in 1983 and Quincy Douby in 2006. Still, for all of their talent and potential, Bailey and Harper are just 18 years old. They will be playing in one of college basketball's best conference and against players who are in some cases a few years older than them. And yet, there will be times, perhaps most of the time, when Bailey and Harper will show why they are so hyped and why a typically overlooked Rutgers program will have plenty of fans and NBA scouts paying attention this season.
"I don't know where we sit," Pikiell said at the Big Ten's media day. "If you came to our practice yesterday, you would say, 'Oh, boy.' And if you came a couple of days earlier, you might think, 'Hey, they're going to pretty good.'"