http://www.app.com/story/sports/college/.../82012216/

Quote:Rutgers athletics director Pat Hobbs has decided to hire the Stony Brook men’s basketball coach to replace Eddie Jordan, Gannett New Jersey has confirmed. The news was first reported by NJ.com.

Pikiell built Stony Brook into a champion virtually from scratch, capturing four America East Conference regular-season titles. His Seawolves won 22-plus games in each of the past five seasons. This year’s squad went 26-7 and won the America East Conference Tournament to earn its first NCAA Tournament berth before falling to Kentucky 85-57 Thursday.

Pikiell's contract is expected to be five years at an average of $1.6 million per year, a source with knowledge of Pikiell's situation told Gannett New Jersey. Relative to Big Ten coaches' salaries, it's on the low end but competitive. Richard Pitino was the league's lowest-paid coach in 2015-16 at $1.6 million. The average salary as of 2015 was $2.2 million. Jordan would have made $1.45 million in 2016-17.

It's a huge raise for the 48-year-old Pikiell. According to a Newsday report, he made $372,550 in 2014-15.

The hire is expected to be rubber-stamped by Rutgers Board of Governors at a 9 a.m. meeting Tuesday. Pikiell will be introduced shortly thereafter.

Looks like a solid hire. Not too shabby.

We're hoping for the best. He has area ties since he coached at Stony Brook, and if he can get some defense out of a healthy roster, we should at least win 10 to 12 games next year. That would be an immediate step in the right direction.

It will be a long term build, unfortunately. He still has one scholarship spot to fill for the current class, if possible. Here's to the future!

Its going to be a long slog. My thinking is not a typical 2 year turnaround as expected with basketball. I think if its going right we should see progress each year until a 3rd or 4th year turnaround.

With the number of post season tournaments, Rutgers will have the ability to have their squad play decent competition without having to qualify for the Big Dance. Las Vegas is a nice place to be in Late March

Matt Bullock from Roselle Catholic committed to RU. Pikiell is already paying dividends on the recruiting front.