Rutgers is all too familiar with Selection Sunday misery. It didn’t need to wait long to figure out this year’s experience would be a little different.

The Scarlet Knights were one of the first unseeded teams to appear during the selection show, setting off a celebration in Piscataway as a 17-year postseason drought came to an end.

“One of the best feelings ever,” attackman Kieran Mullins said. “As a team, it was awesome because I’ve been a part of a couple of those selection shows where we didn’t quite make it. It was just great to be a part of one where we worked so hard and were actually able to get in.”

Rutgers (8-3) will meet eighth-seeded Lehigh in Charlottesville, Va., at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

It is a major milestone for coach Brian Brecht, who is in his 10th year with the Scarlet Knights. He got a struggling program to .500 in 2014, his third season, but Rutgers took a step back the following year as the Big Ten began sponsoring the sport.

The Scarlet Knights went 11-5 in 2016, only to just miss out on a bid. A 10-4 season in 2017 was similarly unrewarded. And while Rutgers then slipped to 9-6 and then 7-8, belief within the program remained strong that a breakthrough would come.

It did this season as Rutgers swept Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State behind a tested attack unit of Mullins, Villanova transfer Connor Kirst and seventh-year graduate student Adam Charalambides.

“We’ve really talked about how that 2018 class really laid that foundation,” Charalambides said. “I’m kind of that connection to those O.G. classes that really set the foundation in terms of culture and doing the right things. It’s been special being able to connect with [guys] who are our alumni now who helped us get to where we want to be.”

Still, it wasn’t an anxiety-free experience. Rutgers lost to sub-.500 Johns Hopkins team in the Big Ten semifinals, hardly an ideal final impression — especially in a year when Big Ten teams played league-only schedules and were difficult to compare to other opponents.

Those concerns evaporated when Rutgers landed its first NCAA berth since 2004.

“You hope the body of work throughout the whole season, not just the last week, but the middle and the beginning is good enough in the committee’s eyes to get that at-large berth,” Brecht said. “Playing an all-Big Ten schedule, that’s certainly challenging. The Big Ten in its existence has been 1 and 2 in RPI as well as non-conference wins. That certainly wouldn’t have changed if there wasn’t a pandemic going on.”