After every loss it’s the same BS. Pike this, Pike that, when accountability needs to start by looking in the mirror. We are the biggest reason Pikes roster is inadequate because we haven’t done enough to support a Championship Caliber program.
Poor NIL is the 800 lb gorilla that no one wants to acknowledge, because then we would need to take accountability. We’re either ponying up or not ponying up. By looking at our roster, we can reasonably conclude that not enough was done.
If we had Cliff and a few more quality kids, we’d be looking forward to dancing. But we didn’t have the support, so we recruited whomever we could.
Now I understand why Danny Hurley took the UConn job and turned down the Rutgers job. Because unlike at UConn, he would never get the support to win big at Rutgers. Two National Championships later, and he no doubt made the right decision.
Now it’s on us to provide the support so Rutgers can realize its greatest potential. It should have happened this year, because by some act of God, we wound up with two lottery picks. Thank you to whomever it was that provided that support.
The rest of us didn’t do enough, and sadly I fall into that group because already I do what I can for football. Going forward, this will change.
We need 1,000 people donating $2,000 for Basketball NIL. I’ve got to believe that we have 1,000 fans capable of doing so, especially after seeing yesterday’s game at MSG. This provides us with a $2M warchest, which can be used to get quality recruits. Recruiting lower division kids, and hoping their ability will scale to this level, simply is not a path to success. Football also has to choose this path, due to lack of NIL resources, so they have no other choice. Our experience shows, that not all transfers like this will be able to contribute. So we have to improve our odds of recruiting contributors by increasing our financial support.
If you’re a teacher, retiree, or someone struggling to get by, you are obviously not expected to give. Those of us who are well off, need to absorb this burden.
This does not absolve Pikes recruiting and development. But at the same time, I feel we haven’t provided Pike with the support to be successful and think he will be successful with the right support.
So it’s time to pony up, or live with the mediocre consequences. Transfer recruiting will probably kick into high gear in April. We need to give Pike the support he needs to land quality transfers, to turn this thing around.
Go RU!
