Based om what I have seen so far this year I do not see either being a top 5 pick.

Bailey is inconsistent in scoring, not a good passer, poor FT shooter and only dominated in the Indiana game.

Harper is a 'tweener', not a true point guard and not a great outside shooter to be a very good 2 at this stage of his development.

The last four out of five games have reminded me of when sanders would try to do an insane amount while the rest of the team struggled. You can make pretty similar player comps too-

PJ Hayes- Justin Goode
Derkack - bishop Daniels
Dylan grant - Jonathan laurent
Sommerville - DJ foreman
EO - Ibrahima diallo

Don’t have a comp cause we only have two bigs but honestly could use a veteran guy like Greg Lewis lol.

(Freeman was hurt all season, doorson and Nigel Johnson were redshirts I believe)

Westfield, NJ kid. Did we ever get in the mix with him possibly coming to RU out of high school?

In the spirit of The Drive and The Fumble here’s a few key moments in RU history - I’m sure you will all figure them out - not in any particular order. Some are good events (+)many are bad (-) Please add to the list

Football
+The Kick
-The Drop
+The Catch
-The Timeout
+The Block
-The non-Fumble
-The Onsides Kick

Basketball
+The Block
+The Heave
-The Shutdown
-The Inbound
-The Clang
-The Flu
-The Early Exit
-The Out of Bounds
-The Knee
-The Free Throws

OSU won the first one in the 2014/15 season, and will most likely win this one in the 2024/25 season. Both after beating a vaunted SEC team to get to the championship. This year they beat 2 SEC teams. I at least love that part of it.

It’s only right.

I always look forward to sharing this news on here as so many of you helped me get through it when this was occurring. Tyler is now in his senior year of aerospace engineering at UVA. He finished up classes on Monday, is staying down down in VA until he comes up on the 23rd, and will put in some hours at the wine shop he works at. It's been a stressful semester, probably his toughest, but he's doing well both mentally and physically.

He celebrated his 21st birthday back in March, here he is enjoying a dram with me:



Happy Holidays to everyone!

Will we see a storm like this again in NY/NJ?

Login to view embedded media

So, over the years I have got my balls broken over me saying Cooperman was leaving...he left.Then I said Campolattano was coming here and got laughed at
...I was right.The I predicted my shitliner Suriano was leaving Penn State and coming to Rutgers,got hammered for that...he came here. Just got off the phone with my insider info buddy.Apparently one of Slingblade Sandersons top dogs on the team is jumping ship and coming here.I also heard that a top dawg at head bigger than torso Brands Iowa shithole is done there and coming here.These guys are the top of the heap ladies and gentlemen and you are gonna shit a sextuplet size bomb in your pants when they come here. Just sit tight.

via @Alec Crouthamel
Login to view embedded media

The RAC magic has been long gone. We might as well be comfortable watching future games.

Hope all of R Cali board members are currently safe.

From my rage research, and given the talk about how pike deserves infinite rope because of RU’s past, a couple of fun stats

*In the KenPom era*

Pikiell has now lost consecutive conference home games by 12+ points in three-straight seasons. That has happened one time in Rutgers history, sort of, a five-year stretch between 2007-11.

Pikiell is at risk of losing three consecutive home conference games by 12+ points in a single season. that’s happened just twice in Rutgers history, predictably during the 2016 Eddie Jordan season and in an acutely bad Fred Hill year.

While Pike might be the most successful coach of that era, he’s neutered the RAC in recent years in a way only few have managed

I’m guessing Jonah Jackson is the only Rutgers transfer to OSU? Nobody probably to Texas?

Should have been receiving IV fluids and IV antibiotics since he got sick.What kind of team doctors do we have? By the way in November the federal government rated NJ Hospitals. RWJ NB was only giving 2 stars out of 5. ST. Peter's received 4 stars.

I’ll start. I have faith in the talent assembled can pull it together

IN

Really thought Ace and Derkack were extremely poor in their shot selection and finishing. A lot of the shots they took were forced and not within the rhythm of the offense.

Ace and Derkack shot for a combined 2-of-12 from within the arc (close to mid-range). Ace was 0-of-4 from mid-range. Derkack was 0-of-5 on layups. Ace was actually better from beyond the arc at 4-of-9 than shooting 2 pointers. Derkack is one of the team's worst 3 PT shooters, so I'm not sure why he was even allowed to take a 3 pointer.

Both really hurt the team badly on the offensive end yesterday.

I will say with Dylan still not 100% it really showed. Dylan went 0-of-3 from deep and went 2-6 from close range. I know he's a warrior and tried to fight as much as he could. Hopefully the young man gets back to 100% soon.

Rutgers needs to focus on making it to the Big Ten Tournament HOWEVER right now, I don't think this team wins more than 4 Big Ten league games this year and and will miss the Big Ten Tournament.

It’s clear Rutgers does not maximize its offensive talent with the lack of offensive sets that other teams run to get the best out of everyone.

This has been a theme during his tenure and I’m not sure why. It just feels like he is extremely loyal to his staff and not will to bring someone on who has an eye for running an offense that can utilize different players. On one end, Rutgers can score over 85 points every game but on the other end, it feels like scratching claws with how much iso they run.

Idk how you fix this. The defense that Pike can lean on the past is no longer there.

Thought we would have had an announcement around midweek. @Richie O - are you hearing a date yet or is there a hold up?

I’m no basketball coach but under Pikell our defending of the pick and roll has been terrible and to me that’s on the coaches. Our centers and this goes back to Myles Johnson continuously overplay the pick and get caught 20 feet from the basket and this does 2 things it either leaves the opposing center wide open or it causes another defender to come down into the Key and rotate therefore leaving someone open at the three-point line. In my opinion the center should be hedging more and not automatically going out and playing the guard with the ball. When we set a pick and roll, we set the pick way too far out and our centers cannot roll because they start too far out.
I don’t understand why Pikell cannot teach our centers to Hedge more instead of just automatically committing to the ball handler and causing all these problems and defensive openings. Purdue abused us last night with a simple pass as our centers either Somerville or Ogbole overcommitted every time.