It's not because of Mag... it's because the rest of the team can't make up the gap in production? Got it.
Basketball GAMEDAY: Rutgers Hoops set to face off against Illinois on Saturday
- Thread starter Richie O
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It's not because of Mag... it's because the rest of the team can't make up the gap in production? Got it.
Spencer is deliberate not dynamic It's not that he is flaming out. Hes going to get some tough matchups against bigger faster guys.
Dean Wolf and Oskar combined for 1-8 for 2 points plus significantly worse defense. That adds up to easily costing us 10 points today
That’s not the same as mag being worth 10 points though. Dean wolf and Oskar played like shit (for them). If Mag is healthy and plays like shit (for him) we still aren’t winning.
You were responding to a post about today's game and costing us the win
It's also extremely convenient to pretend Mag would play like shit when that is not the likely scenario. He was our best player of late
I think we’re talking past each other a bit here. I’m not saying there don’t exist universes where Mag plays great and we win. What I am saying is that our team, with Mag, if they play at the same point on their distribution as they did today, still loses.
If Mag is healthy the whole universe is different and maybe we win, sure. But no way is Rutgers - Mag 10 ppg worse that Rutgers with Mag. That’s not a slight on Mag, just virtually no player is worth nearly that much
Just cause we didn’t doesn’t mean we can’t……
How did we make up his gap of production at MSG on Saturday but now we suddenly can’t?
We only had to make up 14 minutes lost, not 25, and he'd already given close to his full game averages at that point in just 11 minutes.
Losing your most efficient interior scorer, and second best defender, and having to fill those 25 minutes without drop off in production, is a tall order for bench players. We need our bench to perform better than they have so far in their Rutgers careers compete with top 50 teams.
Our margin for error has gotten much slimmer.
Totally agree with everything you’re saying above.. certainly tougher, but Again…we CAN win without him. It’s not impossible
Fluox
Let’s agree to disagree
I really hope our leaders step up and the team and coaches can figure out the rest of the season
The loss of Mag is not just in the loss of offense and his defensive ability but the flexibility he gives Pike. He truly was the best player at the head of our press with his deflections making this an elite defense. He also guarded the top wing that Caleb wasn’t trying to shut down . That is just defensively not to mention his team defense.
Offensively he was really coming on and being that steady 8-10 points per game guy, the guy that cut when Cliff was getting doubled and finishing at the hole. His mid range shot was becoming more reliable , plus he hits the offensive and defensive glass as well as anyone on the team. On the play he got hurt against MSU he was going in for a layup that would have already given him 9 points. He might have had 15-20 points that day if he didn’t get hurt and his confidence on offense would have been sky high.
Plus we lose all his intangibles that don’t show up on a stat sheet , like deflections , being up on defenders forcing a tougher and inaccurate shot , and his clutch rebounds either for a put back or keeping possessions alive to be reset.
We are not getting any of that from any of his replacements. We got 3 threes out of Oscar in the first half of Indiana game to keep us in it but nothing in second half and against Illinois we got almost nothing. He impacts the game enough that 2-3 different possessions in a game could be the difference between winning and losing.
Offensively he was really coming on and being that steady 8-10 points per game guy, the guy that cut when Cliff was getting doubled and finishing at the hole. His mid range shot was becoming more reliable , plus he hits the offensive and defensive glass as well as anyone on the team. On the play he got hurt against MSU he was going in for a layup that would have already given him 9 points. He might have had 15-20 points that day if he didn’t get hurt and his confidence on offense would have been sky high.
Plus we lose all his intangibles that don’t show up on a stat sheet , like deflections , being up on defenders forcing a tougher and inaccurate shot , and his clutch rebounds either for a put back or keeping possessions alive to be reset.
We are not getting any of that from any of his replacements. We got 3 threes out of Oscar in the first half of Indiana game to keep us in it but nothing in second half and against Illinois we got almost nothing. He impacts the game enough that 2-3 different possessions in a game could be the difference between winning and losing.
For what it's worth Michael Jordan had the highest VORP season ever in the NBA at 12.5 points. You just have to be insanely, insanely good to have 10 ppg impact. So not slighting Mag at all saying this.
Any comparison over a "replacement player" is based on replacement with a statistically average player. If you replaced Michael Jordan with a player that was below average, you would see a wider gap.
So the question is whether you think the players taking up Mag's minutes are equal to the statistical average 25 minute player in the Big Ten conference.
Not exactly, it's an average bench player. According to Basketball Reference the replacement player has a box plus/minus of -2.0, and they have the scale of:
"To give a sense of the scale:
- +10.0 is an all-time season (think peak Jordan or LeBron)
- +8.0 is an MVP season (think peak Dirk or peak Shaq)
- +6.0 is an all-NBA season
- +4.0 is in all-star consideration
- +2.0 is a good starter
- +0.0 is a decent starter or solid 6th man
- -2.0 is a bench player (this is also defined as "replacement level")
- Below -2.0 are many end-of-bench players"
Also apparently those VORP numbers are per 100 possessions, not per game, so you need to multiply them by like 2/3 if we are looking at the length of a college game.
On the other hand, there is obviously more spread of player ability in NCAA than NBA so it's not a perfect comparison or anything.
On the other hand, there is obviously more spread of player ability in NCAA than NBA so it's not a perfect comparison or anything.
So, I looked a bit at who has taken Mag's minutes. I took the average minutes played across the first 11 conference games (I didn't try to tease out half of MSU) and compared to the minutes in the last two, to see who has seen the biggest delta.
+9.0 - Palmquist
+8.1 - Hyatt
+6.1 - Simpson
+4.9 - Reiber
+2.4 - McConnell
+0.7 - Woolfolk
-0.4 - Miller
-1.2 - Spencer
-1.8 - Mulcahy
-2.5 - Omoruyi
The four players seeing the most additional time are Palmquist, Hyatt, Simpson, and Reiber.
Comparing ORtg/DRtg per 100 possessions in conference play
Mag - 108.7 / 96.7
Hyatt - 105.4 / 101.6
Simpson - 94.3 / 101.3
Palmquist - 125.3 / 105.8
Reiber - 98.3 / 98.5
Mag's BPM for the year was 3.8. Palmquist is 1.6 (low, low sample), Hyatt is 2.6, Simpson is 0.0, Reiber is -0.7.
To keep it simple a simple average of those is 0.875, which is a difference of ~3 per 100 possessions or ~2 per game.
Unfortunately, this analysis is lacking because BPM is shit at measuring defense. I could see it being as high as 4 per game. I would guess more like 3.
To keep it simple a simple average of those is 0.875, which is a difference of ~3 per 100 possessions or ~2 per game.
Unfortunately, this analysis is lacking because BPM is shit at measuring defense. I could see it being as high as 4 per game. I would guess more like 3.
It also doesn't take into account combinations of players. We were probably in that 3-4 point range while Omoruyi was also on the floor.... but take BOTH of them off the court for an extended stretch, and it amplifies the impact.
Went back and looked at it again. Palmquist did a decent job on defense there. He contested the shot and kept his body/feet inside the arc the entire time. Mayer jumped straight up from behind the line, then moved his legs forward so that his feet would land where Palmquist was standing inside the line.
This is pretty much exactly what Hyatt got called for as a flop, in very close to the same spot on the floor - you can't initiate contact with the defender with your legs after you've left the ground and then fall and hope for a foul. Mayer absolutely got away with one there.
