The home team was making an unexpected rally, and the 400 or so fans who came to watch on a rainy Saturday night started to clap and holler and, for a precious few minutes, allow themselves to hope that this match might be different than all the others.

“Point Rutgers!” the announcer yelled.

The Scarlet Knights had taken a 1-0 lead to start the first set, then promptly dropped 15 of the next 16 points. They had lost the first two sets but had pulled within striking distance in the third, and now Minnesota – the No. 3 team in the country – was on the ropes.

Could this be a program-shaping upset? Could this be a score that would turn heads around the country in volleyball circles? Could this one night validate all the tough times and setbacks over the previous five years in the nation’s fiercest volleyball conference?

“We are still alive!” the announcer yelled.

Then, just like that, it was over. Minnesota threw down one final, powerful spike, and the Scarlet Knights lined up to shake their opponents’ hands. With the song “On Top of The World” playing on the sound system, the players huddled on their side of the court and then waved to the fans to thank them for coming.

This was the 100th Big Ten volleyball match for Rutgers.

Its record in the conference had fallen to 1-99.

# # #

On Nov. 19, 2012, calling it a “transformative event” for the university, Rutgers announced it was joining the Big Ten. This much is clear: Not a second thought was given to how that move would impact the volleyball team.

You think the football team has had its hands full with Big Ten competition? That program, at least, has had millions of dollars poured into practice fields, a weight room and coaching salaries. That team hasn’t faced anything close to this level of consistent excellence, week after week, season after season, as this one.

No program at Rutgers faced a more daunting task than volleyball. And no program had fewer resources when compared to the new competition.

“I don’t think people understand that the Big Ten is the conference of American collegiate volleyball,” said Karysa Swackenberg, a junior from Brighton, Colo., and one of the team’s captains. “I don’t think they know that it’s a powerhouse. I don’t think they realize that we’re playing against future Olympians every weekend.”

I certainly didn’t, and that’s why I went to the College Avenue Gym last weekend. Like a lot of outsiders, I saw the results – 0-20, 1-19, 0-20, 0-20, 0-20 – pop at the end of the season and wondered what, exactly, was wrong? “Be better, Rutgers!” I wrote this spring, citing those records as part of the university’s overall 23.4 winning percentage in Big Ten competition in the 2017-18 academic year.

Rutgers averaged 359 fans a match at its home games this season, a far cry from its volleyball-crazed rivals in the Midwest like Nebraska and Wisconsin.(Ben Solomon/Rutgers Athletics)

The reality: They are getting better in volleyball. They were just dropped at the very bottom of a cliff and told to start climbing.

The Big Ten has claimed nine of the last 12 NCAA titles, with Penn State winning six (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014) and Nebraska three (2006, 2015 and 2017). Six of the final top-12 teams in the American Volleyball Coaches Association rankings this season were from the Big Ten, and those teams are hugely popular.

Nebraska averaged 8,202 fans – for volleyball! – to lead the nation last season as one of nine Big Ten programs ranked in the top-25 nationally in attendance last year. Courtside seats in Nebraska require a $2,000 donation along with the $225 price of the season tickets, and they are in such demand that the team has a waiting list on its official website.

Rutgers averaged 359 fans a match this year. Admission is free, and the athletic department has given away raffle tickets for prizes like a pair of Beats headphones to bolster attendance.

“I have friends from the Midwest who don’t believe I can walk into a Big Ten match for free,” said Mara Domanski, a self-described volleyball “super fan” who played at Rutgers in the ‘90s. “These girls are walking into arenas with thousands of fans on a Tuesday night.”

These are teams that take chartered flights on every road trip, programs that have dedicated facilities for their team. Indiana is building one for volleyball and wrestling now that will seat 3,000 fans and cost $17 million, and Indiana isn’t even one of the better teams in the league.

Rutgers, meanwhile, plays in a gym built in 1931 that also serves as a recreational center for the student body. Chartered flights are becoming more common for the team, but Swackenberg remembers a road trip her freshman year when the team bused from Iowa to Nebraska.

This is the first season that CJ Werneke, in his 11th year as head coach, has had a full allotment of 12 scholarships to give to athletes. Because volleyball isn’t as popular a sport in New Jersey as it is in the Midwest, he must recruit internationally. He has four players from Russia, two from Serbia but none from Rutgers’ backyard.

“Every single kid we recruit, we have to get on a plane to recruit,” Werneke said. “In the Big Ten footprint, they can (drive) an hour and be at the highest-level club practice in America recruiting the top 100 kids in the country. That’s a challenge.”

# # #

The challenge was evident from the very beginning. Rutgers won its lone Big Ten match on Oct. 21, 2015, when 206 fans saw the team defeat Maryland in five sets. It has lost 71 straight since.

The team broke eight different school records this season, a sign of how far it has come. And it still won just eight sets against conference competition, a sign of how far it still has to go before breaking that losing streak.

“We’re not going to be the winning program, but hopefully, we’ll get it started for future generations,” Swackenberg said. “It’s already a different program than it was in my first year. I can’t give you a year when the wins are going to start coming, but we’re definitely more competitive.”

Swackenberg was sitting behind the bench at the College Avenue Gym after the loss to Minnesota. The team presented its lone senior, Sahbria McLetchie, with a cake to celebrate her final home match, and then invited all the fans who stayed to the end to have a piece.

I told Swackenberg that I was most surprised – impressed, even – by the enthusiasm that she and her teammates carried with them on and off the court. I would have expected the losing to have worn down the team at the end of a long season, but she said it had a liberating effect.

Rutgers hopes a new court and a full complement of scholarships will help the team catch up to the Big Ten competition.(Ben Solomon/Rutgers Athletics)

“The middle of the season is the hardest,” she said. “We get beat, we get beat, and we realize we’re only halfway through. We’ve got to play these teams again.

“I think, especially tonight and the last couple weeks, we’ve gotten a different outlook that, okay, we’re not going to win. I think we have to realize that we’re not going to win but we have to go in and set different goals.”

Werneke praised Rutgers athletic director Patrick Hobbs for “doing more over the past couple years for volleyball then over the past 10 years combined.” Recent upgrades include bleachers that improved the atmosphere in the College Avenue Gym and a state-of-the-art Taraflex court that cost about $100,000.

It isn’t what Nebraska has. It isn’t what Penn State and Minnesota and all the rest have. Rutgers is still closer to the bottom of that cliff than the top, and the climb isn’t getting an easier against unrelenting competition. That’s the reality for this program in its new home.

“We’re not there yet,” Werneke said. “We’ve been in this conference for five years. If we’ve been in it 15 and we don’t have those similar things (as other programs), then I’m worried. We’ve made improvements each year from joining the Big Ten.

“This conference will chew you up and spit you out. Then it’s how you react to that.”

The old Bill Parcells quote still applies here: “You are what your record says you are.” The Rutgers volleyball team is 1-99 in the Big Ten. But that record doesn’t tell the entire story. The steepest climb in college sports had to start somewhere.

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