Caleb McConnell was sitting in the interview room, fresh off his first collegiate double-double. The sophomore combo guard posted 10 points and 12 rebounds, including a whopping seven offensive boards, during Sunday’s takedown of Minnesota. A reporter's question made him smile.

Who else recruited you, Rutgers and who?

“I can’t really remember,” McConnell with a chuckle. “I’m just glad I had this great opportunity to play in a power-five conference.”

The answer: West Virginia and a bunch of mid-majors. McConnell was a three-star recruit who was rated as the 335th best prospect in his class. He might forget the details but the concept is stuck in his veins, serving as a motivational sledgehammer.

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“It gives me a chip in my shoulder, being under-recruited, not highly rated, whatever,” McConnell said. “It’s about working hard. Whoever works the hardest is going to come out on top. Even if other guys started on top, it doesn’t matter.”

Rutgers is enjoying a breakthrough season at 14-4 overall and 5-2 in the Big Ten, making the program’s first appearance in the Associated Press Top 25 (at No. 24) since 1979.

This is a hidden reason why.

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It’s been well-documented that head coach Steve Pikiell specializes in recruiting under-the-radar players and coaching them up. But how do you assess heart, toughness, desire? And how does being overlooked by the recruiting industrial complex motivate those who get the short end of the stick?

Rutgers, which can take another step toward ending a 29-year NCAA Tournament berth drought Wednesday at 19th-ranked Iowa (9 p.m., Big Ten Network) is a perfect case study. Most of Pikiell’s nine-man rotation was lightly recruited. All of them work their tails off.

“You try to do a good job evaluating people and their families, their ability to get better, and we’ve been able to do that,” Pikiell said. “You always have to factor in a kid’s ability to sacrifice. It’s a team sport. Everyone has to sacrifice to win at this level. Maybe you’re giving up some of your offense for defense. Maybe it’s giving up shot attempts because you need to be a rebounder that night.”

But how do you assess these intangibles during recruiting?

“The ability to sacrifice, and toughness, you look at their families,” Pikiell said.

Go back to Sunday’s game. Rutgers’ starting center, sophomore Myles Johnson, picked the Scarlet Knights over Yale and some other Ivy League offers. He was rated the 371st best player in his class. Against Minnesota his task was defending fellow sophomore Daniel Oturu, who was ranked 50th.

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Oturu certainly has lived up to the billing. He’s one of the Big Ten's best postmen. And he tallied 19 points and nine boards against Rutgers, but he shot 6-of-16 and didn’t come on until the Scarlet Knights opened a double-digit lead.

In one telling sequence, Oturu caught the ball in the high post and, with the rugged Johnson between him and the hoop, declined to challenge his opposite number. He stepped back and missed a 16-foot jumper instead.

“It’s a good feeling,” Johnson said. “I definitely felt like in a game like this, not being a five-star or whatever, it makes you want to play harder against people of that caliber. We have a lot of people on this team who have that same mindset.”

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Johnson expended so much energy on defense and the glass, he attempted just six shots while grabbing 10 rebounds, including seven offensive. He sacrificed, and that helped Rutgers outscore Minnesota 34-12 in the paint and outrebound the Gophers by 10.

“No matter what your ranking was in high school, you have to come to play,” Johnson said. “That’s what we do.”

McConnell and Johnson sat next to each other at Sunday’s postgame interview dais. They were fending off questions about what it means to be ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 — and embracing questions about recruiting rankings.

“To answer your question, yeah,” McConnell said. “It gives all of us a big chip on our shoulder.”

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.