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Julie Hermann's message to the Court Club, a group of Rutgers basketball diehards, was far more depressing than any loss this season. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media)

PISCATAWAY — It was another Big Ten game and another double-digit blowout, this time an 84-54 drubbing by the visiting Indiana Hoosiers, but the remarkable part? This wasn't close to the most depressing moment of the month for the most loyal Rutgers basketball fans who suffered through it.

That happened not at the RAC, but down the road at the visitors' center six days earlier. That wasn't a game, but a Court Club meeting where the message from Julie Hermann, as summarized by one person in the room when the athletic director address a hundred or so diehards, was essentially this:

"You can forget about having any hope for your program for the next decade."

There was no vision offered, let alone blueprints, and Hermann made it clear none was coming any time soon. Rutgers won't get its full piece of the Big Ten revenue pie for another five years, and even when it does, Hermann made it clear that there are priorities more important than fixing the outrageously outdated basketball facilities. It could be 10 years before those are finally addressed. Ten years!

It was an incredible surrender that left even the most optimistic supporters in stunned silence. All around in this new conference, all around the country, universities are engaged in what one Division 1 coach described as "a facilities arms race." They're doing it with creativity, with aggressive fundraising, and yes, in some instances public money.

At Rutgers? With a president that only wants to see that $29-million athletics subsidy disappear, with an AD who apparently doesn't think that fundraising for major projects is a viable alternative, there's nothing.

Hermann once said she isn't happy unless there are cranes in the air, but the only thing she's raising is a white flag.

Look, the RAC — or more accurately the lack of a dedicated practice facility that has become standard for major (and even some mid-major) programs — isn't the only obstacle standing between the Scarlet Knights and an end to the near quarter-century NCAA Tournament drought, and to be fair, Hermann isn't the first AD unwilling or incapable of addressing it.

But it's a major one. This isn't just about keeping up with the Michigans and Ohio States, either. Look at Illinois, where a $165 million arena upgrade is underway. Look at East Carolina, which is going to spend $17 million on a practice facility. Or better yet: Look up the Turnpike at NJIT, which just unveiled its plans for a gleaming $100 million multiuse facility that will elevate all aspects of its athletic program, especially its men's basketball team.

Let that sink in. NJIT is building a basketball facility. NJIT is raising $50 million in private funds to make it happen. NJIT, without a conference at all, much less a revenue windfall coming in a few years, is doing what Rutgers keeps insisting it can't do.

So Eddie Jordan will head onto the recruiting trail, not only lacking a facility that's standard virtually everywhere, but with no prospects that a shovel will even hit the dirt in their careers. There is a reason a feeling of hopelessness hung over the RAC court like a cold, dense cloud on Sunday night as the Hoosiers pulled away .



It falls on Jordan to find a way to pull the rabbit out of his hat now, and this season hasn't offered any signs of that. Jordan benched his senior leaders Myles Mack and Kadeem Jack for much of the second half in a loss at Iowa, and while it's commendable to demand a better effort, it was also a glimpse of life without them.

Mack and Jack are the best two players on a team that ranks 340th out of 351 Division 1 teams in scoring. They play their final home game on March 3 against Maryland, raising the scary prospect that this 10-win team, in the throes of its longest losing streak in 27 years, could actually get worse.

"Every coach I've shook hands with at the end of the game, every one of them said, 'You're rebuilding. It's a heck of a thing to build,'" Jordan said after the Indiana loss. "And I understand that. I hope everybody understands that. And when you're losing by 30 to a good team, that's what it is. ... We are in our infancy in this league in building our program."

Jordan has his first big recruit in Corey Sanders coming next season, the point guard his defenders say he needs to run his offense. But that only leaves him a mere six recruits shy of fielding a competitive Big Ten team, because there aren't many players on this roster who could crack the rotation anywhere else in the conference.

Indiana offered the latest reminder of just how far the Scarlet Knights have to go, just the latest embarrassment of uncontested 3-pointers on one end of the court and bricked free throws on the other. There was a moment in the second half when backup center Shaq Doorson came charging down the lane on a fast break, preparing to make like his famous namesake ... and clanked his dunk off the back of the rim. The score was 71-47 Indiana at the time.

The home fans didn't even groan, really. What's the point? They've seen this movie before, and they know they'll see it again. Rooting for Rutgers men's basketball is like signing up for a dull pain that never goes away.

But, then again, what should any one expect when the athletic director raises the white flag over the RAC?

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.