Exactly.
We needed an elite defense to compensate for our terrible offense.
The moment that defense dropped even a bit - the offense couldn't compensate and win games.
18 min 12 pts
- Thread starter snowboarder
- Start date
Exactly.
We needed an elite defense to compensate for our terrible offense.
The moment that defense dropped even a bit - the offense couldn't compensate and win games.
$30 to park and now I'm being asked to pay players. I will critique how long it takes them to take a shit if I want.
to your point...I don't see 2023-24 having elite defense so we will have to score more.
The season is young. The bart efficiency numbers with preseason omitted. We are talking a sample size of 4!
adj offensive eff .952 274th (points per possesion)
adj defensive eff .886 23rd
in raw form we have played 271 possessions and have outscored our opponent 267-230
off eff 267/271 .985
def eff 230/271 .849
i am thinking more how thorough they are at wiping is a better metric
Gavin will have plenty of chances to score points in his 20-24 or so minutes per game. The bigger issue is the opposing team scouting report based on what Styles from.Georgetown did. Take it right at him, score or get fouled. Then, crash the boards because he doesn't defensive rebound well enough yet.
Big test against Howard. Their perimeter players are from 6'0 to 6'6. Perimeter defense will be really tested
Big test against Howard. Their perimeter players are from 6'0 to 6'6. Perimeter defense will be really tested
AND.. it is a long season for a freshman.. though, really, these days, kids play ball all year round.. so maybe that doesn't apply anymore.
Griffiths D was there the prior game.. and took a step back to what we saw earlier in this recent game. Maybe its a matchup kinda thing.
BUT.. what Pike is doing is finding out what he has. If he keeps getting those Wins, I don't care by how much. He is developing a cohesive defense and discovering what rotations and pairings work in real games. Let Pike do his thing and see what kind of team we have for 2024 and the Big Ten season (Illinois game notwithstanding).
His two, cannot-experiment, cannot mess around games are Illinois and SHU... he may need to do a lot of experimenting before then.
Last edited:
No way. It didnt go down that way at all. First of all - they made the score look closer than the game was in the last few minutes of quasi garbage time (at which point Gavin was in the game.
Bottom line is that the real narrative goes like this. We had a 6 point lead at half. Gavin did not play in the first 7 minutes of the second half during which time we built an 18 POINT LEAD. He checked back into the game and quickly allowed an offensive board put back that reduced the lead to 16. Then he went to the free throw line and bricked 2 free throws. Pike subbed him out after one minute of playing time. We maintained that 16 point lead until the 5 minute mark of the game (to that point the closest Georgetown ever got was within 14). Getting it down to 11 happened in garbage time while Gavin was playing.
The notion that we played better in half one because we won by 6 instead of 5 is ridiculous and grossly inaccurate assessment of reality.
That is a great question.
Not sure how the saying goes about taking something out of the man but you cant….
Ru scored 8 points in 11 minutes
Are you really dissecting losing 2 points off the lead..wow just wow
His play got dissected because some expert looked at a very small sample run rate and proclaimed that he should be playing many more minutes. Ignoring the fact that 25 of his 46 points were scored in one game. He is four games into his college career, it is way too early to judge if he is being used properly.
No - I’m not. It was one basket. He wasn’t benched for that (or the missed free throws). He was benched because we had built a 16 point lead and Pike saw at the end of the first half how quickly that gap could close if Georgetown made a run. he figured they didn’t have the horses to make a run on our better defenders the way they did with Gavin in there at the end of the first half. He played a Schiano ball of sorts - and in this case it worked (yeah - I know, Minnesota game… I’m still having nightmares about it).
My point in breaking down the time stamp was that you absolutely cannot compare the 6 point MOV in half one to the 5 point MOV in half two in a vacuum and conclude we performed better in half one when we played all but the first 2-3 minutes of the second half nursing a double digit lead (and it was a 14+ point lead for at least 15 of the 20 minutes).
All about a handful of crazies complaining because he did not play more in the 2nd half in his 4th college game...smh.
Pike has been doing this for a long time. I don't think he needs to be told by any of us what to do.
Just curious - for those of you complaining about Gavin’s playing time. Where would you like to have seen his minutes come from against Georgetown?
This is not entirely accurate. Pike has already stated that Gavin is the most gifted recruit he’s ever had. In other words, he’s different than the guys in the past so he should be treated accordingly. No one is saying that Pike doesn’t know how to coach. We’re merely saying that: (1) when you have a gifted offensive player he should have a longer leash to develop on the defensive side; and (2) if the team is struggling to score now that Pike has a weapon he did not have in the past he should use it to potentially stop scoring droughts.
Thank you for putting it this way, because I think that’s actually the disconnect. Nobody is denying that it makes sense to use a strong offensive player like Gavin to stop scoring droughts that are hurting us.
The point is - there are only 20 minutes in half 2 that everyone is complaining about. There was no offensive drought in the first 4 minutes when we went up 18 so nobody in their right mind could complain about having the starters on then - correct? So that leaves 16 minutes. When the “drought” (as you call it) kicked in and we didn’t score the next 3 minutes - Pike actually DID put Gavin in even though the drought wasn’t actually hurting us because we were up 18 and simply trading empty possessions in the second half of the game. After a minute in the game (and 2 bad free throw misses by Gavin), we didn’t score but Georgetown ended their drought.
Up 16 with 12 minutes to go - Pike made the decision to stick with defense in this situation because we had a comfortable lead and Gavin didn’t come in and provide instant offense to blow open the game. You can nit pick and say he should’ve stayed in the game another minute or 2 to see if he could make a field goal, but the risk there was Georgetown gaining some confidence on the other end. Again - 12 minutes to go in the game and we’re up 16. When the game was safely in hand, he did give Gavin more minutes - 4 out of the 12 available. You guys are complaining here about what - him not instead getting 8 or so of those 12 available minutes? Come on.
Last edited:
1 thing I find brutally obvious. Pike really wants to win these games today. He isn't worried about tomorrow. If we are up 10 with 10 to play he will want to get us up 20.
I disagree slightly. I think his philosophy is about winning today, but he doesn’t much care whether or not we win by 10 or 20 (probably wants it to be by double digits though for NET). But he saw how we blew a big lead in the first half and didn’t want to chance that happening in the second half as a trade off for frosh development.
Thought gavin looked a lot better with his help D. Other than a bad 3 possession stretch in the 2nd half his D was ok. Counted 4x in 1st half he made a play as a helper.
Very good to see
Very good to see
Yes it was very encouraging. Watching him it doesn’t seem like an effort thing or a fundamentals footwork issue. It genuinely seems like he’s learning to play help defense for the first time and has taken considerable steps already since game one. Nobody teaches D like Pike and it seems like Gavin wants to learn it (not a situation like Jaden at all). There will be games where he gets pulled for defensive confusion but Pike knows what he’s doing on this. Have to point things out as they happen - real time feedback is important.
We see this exactly the same.
I have zero explanation though how this can be true. 5th grade rec 1st practice this is what we do. Kids are running around at all times pointing to tgeir man with one arm and the ball with the other. Obviously my love of defense shows.
So it took three pages but we all agree.
He will get better on defense .
He needs to play a lot.
He's the most talented offense player to come to Rutgers in a long time .
The takeaway of the game for me was Gavin on defense. I frankly didn't see progress from 1 to 4, but game 5 he looked like a fish (slow fish) in water.
Progress definitely isn't linear
I could be wrong but it seemed like this was the first time we played the same defensive schemes in back to back games. The first couple games we were really switching things up which has to be challenging for a kid whose confused on the defensive end.
Similar threads
