Timothy Eatman’s coaching career started at his mom’s request.

Eatman was a 19-year-old point guard at Talladega College in 1985, but he already realized his future in basketball wasn’t as a player. His mother, Shirley Eatman, was the head girls basketball coach at Aliceville High, and Alabama state high school rules prohibited her from coaching her players in AAU competition. So she asked her son to handle the team.

Eatman agreed with a question and a realization. He asked if they could go find a few more good players to make the team better, and decided he needed to start working on his craft as a coach. So he hit the road for a clinic in Nashville.

One of the featured speakers? C. Vivian Stringer, the head coach at Iowa then.

“I saw her speak, and said, ‘That’s who I want to work for,'" Eatman recalled earlier this week. After Stringer was done, he approached her and told her. Stringer asked Eatman how old he was. When he told her his age, she informed him he should graduate college before they started talking about a job.

Then, an invitation to work her camp later that year. So Eatman did that, hopping on a Greyhound bus in Alabama and riding it all the way to Iowa, resting and sleeping as much as he could along the way to ensure he’d have as much energy as possible to make a good first impression once he arrived.

“That’s how our friendship and relationship started," he said. Eatman would eventually join Stringer’s staff at Iowa for a year in the early 90s, and then reunite with her at Rutgers four seasons ago. Now, he is not just working for her, but filling in for her and, he hopes, about to win a conference championship for her.

Eatman, who is 3-1 as the Scarlet Knights’ acting head coach since Stringer took a health-related leave of absence, will lead third-seeded Rutgers into its first Big Ten Tournament game on Friday night against Purdue. Tipoff at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis is expected to go off around 8:55 p.m. Eastern; the Scarlet Knights eked past the Boilermakers at home, 65-63, in their only meeting this year back in January.

“She said, ‘I’ll be back for the NCAAs,' Eatman said, recalling his conversation with Stringer before she took her leave. “I thought, ‘We’ve got to make it to the NCAAs.’”

That looks like a sure thing now. But when Eatman took over, it was not. When Stringer took her leave, the Scarlet Knights appeared to be in freefall. A team that had been ranked No. 14 in the country at one point had tumbled out of the Associated Press poll with four losses in its last five games and was reeling from not just Stringer’s situation, but the dismissals of point guard C.C. Cryor and leading rebounder Caitlin Jenkins. It was hard to not feel a late-season collapse akin to the one that kept the Scarlet Knights out of the Big Dance last year was well underway.

Rutgers lost at Michigan in Eatman’s first game at the helm, but it has run off three straight wins since, including a comeback from a 16-point deficit at Ohio State in the regular season finale. The Scarlet Knights are the 3-seed in the conference tournament and should be comfortably in the NCAA field for the first time since 2015 regardless of how they play in Indy.

“I think they’re playing hard, playing together,” Eatman said. “They’re starting to believe in the 55 (defense) enough that we’re going to be better with it. They understand we’re not going to give up on it, even though we may get down by 10, 12 points. It’s what we do, and it’s what we’re going to continue to try to do.”

The 55, a stifling full-court press approach that Stringer has used throughout her career, has been key for Rutgers during its recent surge. The Scarlet Knights have a plus-15 turnover margin during the three-game win streak and have held the three opponents an average of 11 points under their respective season scoring averages.

“I was trying to decide how we could be the best we can be, and that’s the thing Coach is known for. I figured that if that’s what our foundation is, let’s get back to our roots,” Eatman said. “I like doing it. It’s something I believe in. I’ve been fortunate to learn from her, and we’re implementing what she would want to do.”

Eatman said he and his staff have done everything they can to make sure Stringer can get her rest and be ready to return after the conference tournament, which Rutgers said was expected when her leave was announced. The team sent Stringer a package earlier this week, but there have been no calls or texts otherwise, Eatman said.

The Scarlet Knights won four Big East regular season titles and the 2007 Big East Tournament earlier in Stringer’s tenure, but they have not won a Big Ten title yet. Nor have any other Rutgers programs since joining the league. So this could be the first, and it feels more realistic than it has with other teams.

Rutgers split the season series with regular season champion Maryland and lost to second-seeded Iowa on the road by six points in the only meeting this year. The internal belief in the program is two Big Ten teams will be awarded top-4 seeds by the NCAA selection committee and host the first two rounds of the national tournament, which begins on March 22.

The Terrapins are likely a lock for one host spot, but Rutgers could push past the Hawkeyes with a win over Iowa in the semis were the two teams to meet. Or by winning the whole thing and making history - something Eatman said he would remind his team about.

“If you don’t understand what you’re trying to get accomplished, then why go? We want them to understand that we’re going to win,” he said.

James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.