Ron Harper Jr. & Geo Baker headline Big Ten honors for Rutgers basketball

The Rutgers men’s basketball team had four players earn All-Big Ten honors on Tuesday afternoon, which is a program high since joining the league seven seasons ago. The only other conference team to have that many players honored was Iowa.

Ron Harper Jr. was named to the Third Team by both the coaches and media, while Geo Baker was an Honorable Mention All-Big Ten selection by the coaches and media. He is the first Rutgers’ player since James Bailey (1976-1979) to earn all-conference honors for three straight seasons. In addition, Jacob Young and Myles Johnson were named Honorable Mention All-Big Ten by the media, with Johnson also being named to the Big Ten All-Defensive Team.

Harper Jr. tied for 10th in scoring in the conference at 15.3 points per game and scored in double figures in 18 of 24 regular season contests. He also shot 45.6% from the floor, which is 10th best in the Big Ten. The junior had the 8th lowest turnover rate in league action and had the 19th best free throw shooting percentage (76.4%) and 20th best two-point shooting percentage (52.4%). He is one of five finalists for the Julius Erving Award for the nation’s top small forward in college basketball.

Baker finished ninth in assist-turnover ratio (1.94) and ninth in steals (1.29) in Big Ten play. Geo had the 12th best steal rate and 19th best assist rate in league action. He won the program’s first ever Big Ten Player of the Week award after his heroic performance in the win over Indiana on Senior night at the RAC.

Johnson finished second in the Big Ten in blocks (2.5) and fifth in rebounds (8.6 rpg). He also finished with the top defensive rebounding rate, second best block rate and 11th best steal rate in conference play. Along with Evan Mobley of USC, Johnson is the only other college basketball player to have 200 rebounds, 60 blocks and 25 steals this season. He also shot 63.8% from the floor overall.

Young led the Big Ten with 1.83 steals per game, was ninth in shooting 47.3% from the floor, and finished 14^th in scoring at 14.5 points per game. He 4th best steal rate and 15th best assist rate in league action. Young led the team with 20 double-digit scoring performances this season.

In addition, Paul Mulcahy earned the team’s Sportsmanship Award from the Big Ten.

Rutgers is the no. 7 seed in this week’s Big Ten Tournament and will play no. 10 seed Indiana this Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. ET.