Rutgers' MidKnight Madness

A graphic illustrating the Rutgers basketball programs' MidKnight Madness event.

(ScarletKnights.com)

PISCATAWAY -- Steve Pikiell is a basketball coach at heart, which means that if you give him a basketball, a court and a basket he will be talking fundamentals faster than it takes to read this sentence.

His Rutgers men's basketball team is scheduled to practice Friday afternoon, which, he says, "is great.'' The Scarlet Knights are also hosting a MidKnight Madness event Friday evening, which Pikiell considers a reward for his players who, he says, have "worked really hard'' during the first week of preseason practice.

The event features a dunk contest, shooting and dribbling competitions, but it's safe to say he'd rather be teaching his players how to box out or defend on the other end of the floor.

"Our kids love it so, really, it's for them,'' Pikiell said Thursday on the eve of MidKnight Madness, which takes place Friday night (doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the action starts an hour later) at the Rutgers Athletic Center and is free to the public.

"I want fans to watch us really practice. I want them to leave saying, 'You know what, those guys work. They're organized and they play hard.' They won't get that tomorrow. It'll be six-minutes of drills, dunk and skills contests. To me, tomorrow is all about the kids having fun. We'll have some recruits here, but really it's for the fans and the players.''

Pikiell says the event kicks off an important weekend for his program, which will be hosting 50 of the top high school basketball prospects from the area.

While Makhtar Gueye (a 6-9 forward at The Winchendon School in Massachusetts) and Geo Baker (a 6-4 point guard from New Hampshire who already committed for the 2017 recruiting class) will be making their official visits, Roselle Catholic's Nazreon Reid and Kahlil Whitney, Hudson Catholic's Jahvon Quinerly, Louis King and Luther Muhammad, and Montclair Immaculate's Jalen Carey will be among prospects visiting campus Saturday night when the Rutgers football team hosts Michigan in a Big Ten clash at High Point Solutions Stadium.

"You're talking about the best high school players from the state of New Jersey will be here this week,'' Pikiell said. " It's a big weekend for us. Big-time coaches will be here. We're looking forward to all of it.''

Now in his seventh month on the job, Rutgers has one scholarship to fill for the 2017 class and Pikiell says he's "1,000 percent'' confident that he land a recruit to go along with the highly touted Baker during the fall signing period.

He believes Rutgers has plenty to offer the latest crop of recruits. As he spoke about the changes he and his coaching staff have implemented early in their tenure, one only had to look at the architectural drawings littered throughout his RAC office to see why he's optimistic about the program's future.

Top university officials say a ground breaking for the Multisport Training Compex -- which will include locker rooms, practice courts, strength-training rooms, sports medicine suites, coaches offices, and meeting rooms for the basketball program -- is expected within the next six-to-eight weeks.

In the meantime, the team's locker room inside the RAC is undergoing a $500,000 makeover.

"Everything is being upgraded, from the paint, to the seats to the lockers (and) the (layout) of it,'' Pikiell said. "We have a film room, a fueling station for food, a PlayStation area, and a place where they can watch NBA games and European games on several TVs. They had showers that were 6-feet (high), which didn't make a lot of sense, so they're raising it to 7-foot-5 inches.

"We're in the midst of that right now. But it's completely different.''

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