Came out from the gym just now and it's snowing. Got a light covering on everything.

He's not getting fired. He has way too many years left on his contract.

The only hope is he accepts that he's not equipped to be successful in this new shitty age of college basketball, and negotiates some kind of settlement to do good by the program and hand over the keys to someone else. The anti-CVS.

He's clearly a good man, so maybe that actually happens.

If not, he needs to at minimum clean house with his assistant coaches. Replace them with people with fresh ideas. Who can actually coach a functional offense.

He also needs to embrace NIL. And he needs to get someone to help him evaluate talent.

$30 parking my ass

Pivetta to Padres. 4 years $55 million. Opt outs after 2 and 3.

Could be a sign of a Cease trade.

rpiseman said:

Given last year and the utter disgrace that is this season, what’s the rationale that Pike deserves to keep his job?

Yes…..I understand he’ll be here till 2030 because he’ll hold us hostage for the $3.5 million a year Hobbs promised.

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A) he’s not holding anyone hostage.
B) he has proven to be a very good coach over the course of his career.
C) Rutgers owes him a lot of money
D) this season was a failed experiment. Given the chance to do it again everyone would still take Dylan and Ace.
E) NIL funds were not there for this year. Schiano didn’t have much either. Pike needs to embrace NIL (Like Greg did the past few
months) to get the right roster.
F) 2023-24 Pike got screwed with 2 starters leaving in May and the Mag Injury.
G) 2015-2018 he improved every year. 2019-2023 he built tournament quality teams. The past two seasons were unfortunate and a step backwards with departures and injuries. Progress isn’t linear.

He’s not leaving, unless he wants to.

RW90 said:

That's what I can't figure out. Roster construction, recruiting and NIL aside, does the blame lay more with the coaching or the players?

Put it another way, could another staff get more out of this roster? I can't decide.

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In the end it doesn’t matter.

Was just terrible. 40-20 Iowa run after we were up 53-44. That should never happen. Did anyone notice that we build the 9 point halftime lead with DH/AB on the bench?

Shelby65 said:

Not lack of effort. It’s iso or two man game by design because our players are all piss poor passers. Pike doesn’t recruit the same skill set as Purdue and Iowa does.

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Not true on the ball movement. Our best games this year we had good ball movement.

KK1827 said:

At MINIMUM 2 more years. But I do wonder if Fran McCaffrey would wanna get back towards home. Fun brand of bball and yes, I do not care that hes a hot head

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No fran would not come here lol. Another losing season next year I think would be the last.

Caliknight said:

There isn't 5 guys on that team with any balls. Something is broken in that locker room. It's on Pike, but the players aren't helping at all.

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That's what I can't figure out. Roster construction, recruiting and NIL aside, does the blame lay more with the coaching or the players?

Put it another way, could another staff get more out of this roster? I can't decide.

RU84 said:

You forgot not making adjustments on defense and making inbounding the ball an adventure.

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Details...

FIJI'83 said:

Did it work last year ? What about 2 years ago? What about 3 years ago when they lost in the play-in? Old Pike was just as bad as he is now even the good teams he had under performed

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2 and 3 years ago weren't bad seasons. We've just raised our expectations. Last year and this year are bad rosters. We loss Cam, Paul, and Nodongo. This yr the whole team was made from scratch. Pike just hasn't figured out how to maneuver through this new era yet

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jerzeyguy said:

I hear you. But when he has a roster of guys that fits his image, it works. Nwuli and Mark - are going back to the old Pike

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Even with those guys our two best finishes in the Big 10 were tied for fifth with two other teams, and seventh, and if Geo never developed a step back jumper we may never have finished in the top half.

RUPete said:

Still on the ground in No. Plfd. and NB areas. Hoping it all gets washed away tomorrow.

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Some will, but not all, especially the 0.6" worth of liquid that fell as snow/sleet/rain (the equivalent of 6" of snow) that became one congealed dense frozen mass from Saturday - some of that should survive tonight's rain.

Ridge 22 said:

What coaching is he really doing? The roster sucks. So fail on player evaluation. We don't run an offense. It's playground basketball. So fail on x's and o's. And the same issues come up every game with no team or player improvement. This team is as bad now as game 1. So failure on player development. I don't get the love.

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You forgot not making adjustments on defense and making inbounding the ball an adventure.

RUGiddy777 said:

Think we played our best basketball at the end of the first half with Hayes, Acuff, Martini out there.

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Grant too and then he sat the bench the whole second half.

rubjk said:

Iowa never stands still on offense. We stand still on offense almost all the time. Total lack of effort.

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Not lack of effort. It’s iso or two man game by design because our players are all piss poor passers. Pike doesn’t recruit the same skill set as Purdue and Iowa does.

WhiteBus said:

Not a big storm unless you were Atlantic or Cape May Counties.
Everything that was on the ground this morning is gone already!

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That's odd for 3+" of snow to all melt in one day - we got 2" yesterday and more than half of it is still here, on top of the 1" or so of dense frozen concrete from Saturday - or are you just talking about paved surfaces, which makes more sense (same here for that).

rume said:

Next year is a pivotal year for Pike at Rutgers. Another year like this year, and his seat will be hot.

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His seat is already hot. Unfortunately we're stuck with it burning.
Wait till season Tix renewals and all the Tix available for game day sale next year.

I was just thinking about our team we put on the field with comments

Lindor - elite defense legit 30/30 MVP type player
Soto - elite hitter MVP type player
Nimmo- elite on base guy with 20+ HR pop
Alonso - elite power/RBI 40/115
Vientos - 30+ HR guy
Marte/Winker- combined .270 20 HR clutch
Alvarez- possibility of 25+ HR and funny to say- elite behind the plate
McNeil- should be .290 with 30 doubles 10-15 HR
Siri- misses the ball more than he hits it but for 70% of years we have been around, he would have been our 4 or 5 hitter with 20-25HR - elite in the field.

That is really a hell of a batting order