By Keith Sargeant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Give a frizzle-haired Steve Pikiell a lab coat, goggles, black rubber gloves and a beaker, and the Rutgers men's basketball coach will begin experimenting.

“I’m like a mad scientist in practice,’’ Pikiell said.

The reason for Pikiell’s madness?

Corey Sanders.

Let Pikiell explain.

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"We can move him around a little bit,’’ Pikiell said, referring to his team’s star play-making point guard. “He’s had a tough job for the last few years. He’s had to bring the ball up, he’s had to score every point, he’s had to defend the best player. He’s had to do a lot of things.

"I'm excited about now I can change roles for him, which I couldn’t do last year. He was one of our only guys who could bring the ball up the floor. So now we can do some different things with him. I can move him and make him harder to guard than last year, where he was, I think, easy to guard. A lot of different things that I can do with him this year that I wasn’t able to do with him last year, because of our personnel.''

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An All-Big Ten honorable-mention choice from both the coaches and the media after leading Rutgers in scoring (12.8 ppg.), assists (3.2) and steals (1.3) last season, Sanders put his name in the NBA Draft for the second straight offseason.

Just when it appeared that Sanders was on the verge of leaving early, the 6-2, 176-pounder from Lakeland, Fla., announced his return.

Sanders went in depth on his decision with NJ Advance Media on Thursday during a question-and-answer session at Big Ten Media Day:

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Pikiell on Big Ten Tournament in New York: 'We're the home team'

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What went into your decision to test the NBA waters and put your name in for the draft for the second straight year?

“Just to get feedback, to see if I had any teams interested in me. I had one workout with Sacramento. That worked out pretty well. But I decided to come back because I wanted to work with my teammates. I felt like we had unfinished business and to work on myself still, to get my stats back up. And really the big thing was to get to the (NCAA) tournament. I have tournament dreams, and I don’t want to just something that’s always going to be there and I can wait for.

“After I talked it over with my family and with Coach Pikiell, it was just the best decision overall.’’

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I'm not going to lie to you -- when we watched the video after your Sacramento, we thought you were gone. How close was it?

“It was very close. But when I sat down with my family, we just prayed on it. And my grandma told me, ‘It’s really your decision so whatever you decided I’m going to be behind 100 percent. But I feel like I had unfinished business. I got 150 points to 1,000, I have milestones that I can reach just for myself and for my team. Knowing we had a better team coming back this year, it just felt right for me to stay.’’

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Obviously with the rules you can test the NBA waters every year -- is that a goal this year, to put yourself in a position to maybe stay in the draft?

“My goal is to be an NBA player. Everybody knows that. Coach Pikiell knows that. So if it comes to that, yeah, of course. But right now I’m just focused on this season, getting out tree with the guys, and proving everybody wrong. … I’m just trying to build my own legacy and get out there and fight. When that comes around, it comes around.’’

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Big Ten basketball preseason poll: Is improving Rutgers out of last yet?

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When you did decide to come back, what was the area of your game where you said, 'I need to get better here'?

“Everything. You can never be too good at one thing. I worked on my shooting, basketball I.Q., being a better teammate. Everything on the court and off the court. So I’m just working on myself and basketball skills.’’

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The coaches have talked about how much more mature you've been. What has clicked?

“Going through that second year of the draft process I just saw how focused you really have to be to get to where you’re going. One of my best friends (Duane Bacon, Charlotte Hornets now) is in the NBA now so I watched the nothing-but-hard-work that he put in night in and night out. So that’s just something that stuck with me. You put the work in, it’s going to work out. So right now I’m putting the work in, and the results have been good.’’

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You're almost three weeks into preseason practice. How's it going?

"It's been great. High-level practices. We’re working hard. I feel like we’re better than last year already. We’re just coming in every day with the mindset that we know everybody’s counting us out again. But we made a big step last year, and I feel like we’re going to make another big step this year. It’s been looking pretty good for us.''

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Who is the most improved Rutgers player?

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Rutgers is picked to finish last again. Thoughts on that?

“We talk about it all the time. Yesterday we talked about it. We knew when that (poll) came out we were going to be in 14th place but that’s not where we’re going to finish. We’re not going to let where they’re placing us get to us. We’re just going to come in, work hard, and like Coach Young always tells us, ‘we have to overachieve.' We can’t just come to practice and have a bad practice because we’re not that good of a team to just have bad practices. So we have to buy in. Everybody has to practice hard, be enthusiastic. I feel like it’ll work out for itself.’’

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How much more serious are you taking the leadership aspect this year?

“Having some freshmen come in and transfers, I just try to do the best that I can to lead them and show them the system. Because I’ve dealt with the coaches for a year now and I’m pretty accustomed to what’s going on. So I just try to help them the best way I can.''

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Corey: “Our team motto is defense. Defense wins games. We are going to work hard and play hard.” #B1GMediaDay pic.twitter.com/a9SxuNY3eA — Rutgers Basketball 🏀 (@RutgersMBB) October 19, 2017

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WATCH: Sanders channels Michael Jordan with switching hands layup

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Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.