RUChoppin said:

In no universe would we have been better off without Bailey/Harper. That's silly, and "bargaining phase" talk.

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We are 10-10 with the exact same record as last year and we are 126th in defense. Our program culture has been completely thrown out the window. We aren't making the NCAA tournament.

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motorb54 said:

That is a huge "if"
He can' get on the floor for Nebraska. Where is the improvement?

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Gavin "as is" would probably have given us more than Hayes at this point, to be fair.

bac2therac said:

the problem is Pike striking out with a guy like J Will...and let me tell you we also were hamstrung in the past by Hyatt as well. These were two regular sit out a year transfers that really did not help the program

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JWill has been bad, like real bad. I thought he is a capable PG. I think we would have been fine with him as a PG and we would have just needed a 2 guard which are cheaper than a PG.

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Also, just as an aside, NIL should have nothing to do with collectives pulling small contributions from fans. The whole point of "Name, Image, and Likeness rights" are that someone is being paid for use of their NIL for advertising or selling a product in some way. A collective begging fans to chip in nickels so that they can somehow funnel that money to players under the guise of "appearance" money or whatever, is a warped contortion of what NIL is supposed to be.

Now, I know the horse is out of the barn at this point, and NIL is just a euphemism for "let fans pay player salaries"... but the average fan is negatively impacted by $30 parking, and they can't be relied on to foot the bill for millions in player payouts.

/soapbox

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koleszar said:

He has one more year on his rookie contract. It's so paltry (under a million) that they'll keep him, there's no risk for a contract that low. Then they'll kick him to the curb when it's time to negotiate the next contract.

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oh, I thought it was his final year this year...in that case...you're probably right.

essexknight said:

Losing Cliff and then bringing in nothing in the portal at the 5 has greatly damaged the defense and rebounding of this team. It also doesn’t help that a few shooters were brought in and they are all struggling to shoot.

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It is sad how few blocks Somerville gets

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bac2therac said:

This particular logo is used on homebrand and I think vintage. I do not understand why the Rutgers stores carry ZERO of this product.

Its a kick ass logo

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It’s so much better than the Hobbs power play secondary Mark.

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bac2therac said:

the problem is Pike striking out with a guy like J Will...and let me tell you we also were hamstrung in the past by Hyatt as well. These were two regular sit out a year transfers that really did not help the program

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JWill and AWill were desperation moves after Spencer/Mulcahy bailed late, well after the undergrad portal had closed. JWill was a huge risk, since we didn't even know if he'd be eligible for 2023-24 without a waiver, had the betting issue looming over his head, and was coming off a torn achilles tendon - but there were slim pickens in the portal at that point, and we had a massive hole blown through our roster after we'd thought it was largely set.

An executive order isn't a law.

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BTC holding $100 here would be significant imo.

billgumpper said:

I think if Gavin improved, he would’ve given us much more than Hayes or Martini

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That is a huge "if"
He can' get on the floor for Nebraska. Where is the improvement?

bac2therac said:

yes this...i dont know why people have a hard time seeing this

Rutgers didnt pay for Ace/Dylan...they got an enormous benefit and head start. Its an utter failure that even with their head start for "free" they could not cobble together a decent roster. The NIL argument really doesnt apply for this particular year....and if there is no nil at all, then why bother playing at this level, they shouldnt be in the Big 10

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It of course applies for this particular year. We couldn't keep Omoruyi around, for one - he was out of our range. Could Pike have gotten Ewin instead? Probably... but that's just another new face in a sea of new faces that haven't been able to build chemistry this year.

Part of this, imo, is that Pike was looking more at "value for money" rather than "market rate" for players. The NIL market is wildly overvaluing players - no portal player is worth what they are going for. He didn't want to "overpay" for someone like Ewin... but that's what the market was demanding. Hopefully this is a lesson learned - you need to compete with hungrier teams that are willing to overpay for your players, despite their flaws.

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Hard to argue for more NIL when we have two of the best players money can buy and are still garbage. There seems to be much larger issues at play that money won’t solve.

Would you continue to invest with a financial advisor that continues to perform below their peers? We’re dealing with a similar paradigm here.

Greene Rice FIG said:

You don't think we would have been able to fish from a better pool in getting a shooting guard and wing?

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I do not. The better pool was out of our price range.

We got Harper/Bailey from relationships and recruiting effort, and they came along with in-built NIL. The hype train around their arrival had some level of positive impact on the NIL available for the rest of the team - not least of which was Pike finally agreeing to a Thanksgiving tournament (Player's Era).

No Harper/Bailey, we'd have had even less NIL than we already had.... and we'd have need to replace 6 players, instead of just 4. Or we'd have had two other "need time" freshmen and have less money than we did to bring in 4 portal players.

In no universe would we have been better off without Bailey/Harper. That's silly, and "bargaining phase" talk.

We had Bailey/Harper and the rest of this class (primarily Sommerville), and we had Williams/Davis/Ogbole returning. We didn't have enough NIL to keep Omoruyi around, and we largely whiffed on the players we got out of the portal (I'd say Derkack has promise, the others have been a miss). To think we'd have had better player evaluations or more NIL money without Bailey/Harper already on the roster is not realistic.

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