Rutgers served notice at Jersey Mike’s Arena Wednesday night.

It’s time to stop asking whether the Scarlet Knights have a good enough resume to reach the NCAA tournament. And it’s time to start wondering whether Rutgers is good enough to win the whole stinkin’ Big Ten.

To be clear, I felt the latter possibility was possible in the preseason. Wrote about it in this very space. But even that was in the context of “which dark horse team could win the Big Ten tournament?”

The Scarlet Knights might not need to wait that long.

After knocking off Illinois 70-59, Rutgers has surged all the way to a game out of first place. To top it off, the Scarlet Knights already have wins over everyone else in a tightening title race — Illinois, Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Michigan State.

Rutgers, which has not won a conference championship since the 1991 Atlantic 10 title, may legitimately be the best team in the Big Ten.

This argument makes me feel a bit like the meme where the guy is drinking a coffee with a sign that says “PROVE ME WRONG.”

And that’s the thing with Rutgers right now. You can’t prove the Scarlet Knights aren’t the best team in the Big Ten. Not after 4 straight wins over ranked opponents.

So how the heck did Rutgers transform from a team that lost to Illinois by 35 points in the conference opener to Big Ten title contender?

It starts with a case of Miracle-Gro from the two non-seniors in Rutgers’ starting lineup.

Paul Mulcahy, Clifford Omoruyi have transformed Rutgers

Illinois is the ideal barometer for measuring Rutgers’ growth this season. There was a whopping 46-point difference in margin from when the teams played in Champaign on Dec. 3 to their meeting in New Jersey on Wednesday night.

The box scores show exactly what’s changed.

At Illinois, sophomore center Clifford Omoruyi had a modest 8 points and 3 rebounds. Guard Paul Mulcahy had 4 points and 4 assists. And senior Geo Baker did not play.

Earlier in the season, the Scarlet Knights were only going to go as far as Baker and fellow seniors Ron Harper Jr. and Caleb McConnell could take them. Now the old guys have some help.

In the rematch against the Fighting Illini, Omoruyi outplayed potential Big Ten player of the year Kofi Cockburn. Omoruyi was the best player on the floor for a night, recording a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds.

And that wasn’t even as impressive as his maneuver to get off the floor near the end of the first half.

But I digress.

The point is Omoruyi has been on fire since the Northwestern game on Feb. 1. He’s averaging 15.4 points per game in February.

Mulcahy is on the same hot streak in Rutgers’ backcourt.

Though the Scarlet Knights lost that game in Evanston 71-70 in overtime, it clearly sparked something within this team. Rutgers rallied from a 24-point deficit to force that overtime, led by Mulcahy’s 31 points and 7 assists.

Mulcahy had scored 37 combined points in the 5 games leading up to that one, but he hasn’t stopped producing since. Mulcahy’s averaging 14.5 points and 7.5 assists per game during Rutgers’ 4-game winning streak.

Purdue’s Jaden Ivey — a probable top-10 NBA draft pick — is the only combo distributor/scorer in the Big Ten playing better basketball than Mulcahy this month.

The midseason development of Omoruyi and Mulcahy has to be among the biggest reasons Rutgers fans are ecstatic with March approaching. Neither player has peaked yet. And when you combine that element with veteran leadership, you’ve got a very potent formula for postseason success.

Can Rutgers really win the Big Ten?

If we’re being honest, there’s no program a regular-season Big Ten championship would matter to more than Rutgers.

Culturally speaking, Rutgers is the Big Ten’s black sheep. There might not even be a single Rutgers student who understands the meaning of “knee-high by the Fourth of July.”

Not much has happened to prove the Scarlet Knights belong from a competitive standpoint, either.

The Scarlet Knights haven’t won a Big Ten championship in any men’s sport since joining the conference in 2014. Sadly, the most recent conference title any men’s Rutgers team can claim is the 2012 Big East football crown. And that was shared with 3 other teams — which amounted to literally half the league.

Pulling this off would be the most seismic event in program history since reaching the Final Four in 1976.

And that makes Sunday’s game at Purdue the most significant men’s basketball game in Rutgers history since losing to Michigan in the ’76 national semifinals.

If the Scarlet Knights win, they’d pull even with the Boilermakers in the standings while owning the tiebreaker. A loss would give Purdue a 2-game edge, meaning Rutgers would need to run the table and get plenty of help in the final 2 weeks of the regular season.

Winning at Mackey Arena is not easy. But Baker missed the first game between these teams, and having him back in the lineup gives the Scarlet Knights a real chance.

Granted, this time around Rutgers could potentially be without Harper, who left the Illinois game with a still unspecified hand or finger injury and did not return. His leadership will certainly be needed in a frenzied environment.

Hopefully Harper will be available, because Big Ten fans deserve to see these teams squaring off at full strength.

The way things are going, they might even have a Part III in the works in Indianapolis.