Rutgers last season seemed to be two different teams. On the one hand, there were the freshmen, the guys who Fred Hill recruited. On the other were the veterans, some of them talented. Those two units didn't meld often enough in 2007-08 for the Scarlet Knights to make much progress in the standings.

One year later, Hill has more players coming into campus, but he'll still be counting on the veterans if he hopes to get the team to the Big East tournament. That means that JR Inman, Anthony Farmer and Jaron Griffin, all of whom are rising seniors, will need to make their peace with Hill, and vice-versa.

That process will be critical, since the younger players should be much improved with a year under their belts in the Big East. Corey Chandler and Mike Coburn are returning starters in the backcourt, and Earl Pettis also played well at times a year ago. Junior shot-blocker Hamady Ndiaye will once again anchor the middle.

Freshman guard Mike Rosario is good enough to immediately challenge for minutes in the backcourt, and he leads a very strong recruiting class. He's the first McDonald's All-American in program history. Gregory Echenique could be in the frontcourt rotation from his first day on campus, as could Christian Morrow.

Rutgers has the pieces in place to take a step forward in 2008-09, but for that to happen Fred Hill is going to have to show that he's as good a coach as it is a recruiter. He has as much raw talent as the school has seen on campus in a long time. Now, it's up to him to figure out where all the pieces fit.

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