Thanks. I’m not familiar with the Euro leagues or pay. Based on the examples of marquis players noted in the league, a comparison to the BIG seemed reasonable to me. It certainly wasn’t a list of guys you’d think of as star NBA players. The marquis names are more like RHJ types.
BB Recruiting 2025 European Forward Denis Badalau commits to Rutgers Basketball
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Thanks. I’m not familiar with the Euro leagues or pay. Based on the examples of marquis players noted in the league, a comparison to the BIG seemed reasonable to me. It certainly wasn’t a list of guys you’d think of as star NBA players. The marquis names are more like RHJ types.
Fair - however the LBA is still regarded as one of the top European leagues - probably a step down from Euro but no 4-5 levels removed. Denis' pay/salary was not published - hard to guess - but probably not a lot. Point still stands however that what he is garnering in NIL is not an indication that the entire RU roster is making 6-figures - which was the point made in the post I was responding to.
Sure. Maybe. In Zrno’s case the competition level has been compared to D2. They are both unproven, but Zrno was in demand by other several other high majors based on his shooting numbers. If Richie’s statement is accurate - Virginia offered him north of 200k for a projected deep utility role and we beat them out. That seems insane to me.
I’ve been vocal about not liking the Francis pick up, but to be clear, these Euro leagues where Denis and Zrno put up numbers are probably not better than the American East.
Denis averaged 9 min per game in Italian series A.
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ESPN rates it as the 6th best league in Europe:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...-rankings-world-top-12-basketball-leagues-nba
This was basically an opinion piece by Fran Fraschilla written over 8 years ago. I'll give you that the LBA is not as good as the Euroleague and the players are not paid at that level - but ranking the in-country leagues is all subjective.
The point is - it’s nowhere near a clear farm factory for the NBA like the Euro league with all high rollers. Denis didn’t see meaningful time there. Similar situation to Fall except he’s not a center which comes at a huge premium regardless.
One way these lower level international leagues is very different from DII or the American East is that you get middle-aged men who are playing for $50K/year to feed their family. They take it serious. They set a tone. There are things you can get away with in American high school, NCAA, NBA, D-League that will get the crap beat out of you by your own teammates in a Turkish lockerroom. I like that they've been exposed to that end of the game.
That is not what was said.
The leagues compared to the American East are the ones where the two Euros put up meaningful stats and logged meaningful PT.
Actually, I believe I directly compared the Italian league to the BIG. Denis averages only 9 min a game there
I expect team to be one of slowest in league. Lots of turnovers. Our ceiling for offense probably 70 points or so.
Unproven Euro players.
No true point guard.
Small backcourt.
No 3-point shooters.
Two low-level centers.
This team is in serious trouble.
I really really hope I'm wrong but right now I still see 10-11 wins total next season. Maybe 3-4 wins in the Big Ten. Way too many question marks surrounding this team.
Sadly. You’re probably right.
But the question marks leave open the POSSIBILITY that a few players (and thus the team) surprise people.
We shall see.
… but you’re probably right :(
If Mark plays better than you expect him too as the lead guard and the bench performance is better than what is was 2 years ago and RU wins 15 to 16 games, is that considered a successful season, given that the bulk of the roster is underclassmen, with just 1 senior??
This roster is the 2018-19 roster on paper.....we lost the leading scorer and rebounder in Eugene Omoyuri to Oregon and played a bunch of freshman (Mathis, Harper Jr, Caleb McConnell and Myles Johnson). The supporting returning players were Geo Baker and transfer into the program Peter Kiss.
The 2018-19 roster also finished under .500 at 14-17 & 7-13 in the B1G tied for 12th place out of 14 teams.
There's more competition in the B1G vs 5 to 6 years ago so if RU finishes in the bottom 4 of the standings, no one will be surprised. The key is seeing the underclassmen develop and NOT all of them will immediately transfer after next year, so MOST will be back for 2026-27.
It is possible or probable that the 2026 recruiting class will have better talent than the 2025 class, in terms of quality or potential starters. And if that happens in the next 4 to 5 months, RU will not be in the bottom 4 in 2026-27......if RU is closer to 10th in the standings instead of 15th, 10th is a NCAA caliber roster, which is the goal.
The goal is recruit and retain....the next 4 to 6 months of players landed in 2026, will be the key.
The only issue here is that there has been no ability to retain in college basketball anymore. Ten years ago, I'd be with you, this is a develop for the future year.
It does have to be the goal though. Because if it isn't...then the program is officially sunk until the rules change. The only other way to even a top half of the B1G roster is to find a team of undervalued gems in the portal. Not impossible as a one off, but as a model for success...good luck.
If I was Pike one thing I'd be looking for when recruiting HS players is team/loyalty guys. I'd rather take a lesser ranked kid that I felt was a good teammate and would be open to taking a discount to stay and play with a core roster/coaching staff. If a kid has played at four high schools in for years that is a "no thanks" for me.
I hear you, don't disagree. He's already got to be recruiting a certain kind of kid that will put that 100% effort in on D. Then narrowing it down even further, limit's the pool of recruits quite a bit. It's not an easy chore for Pike.
I think you are taking an extremely negative view. I get people have a bad taste in their mouth but every team is dealing with changes. No one is saying this team is filled with big time players but all of those statements are all opinion. Every Euro player is unproven otherwise they would be going to the NBA. The PG position is small (common) but the shooting guard is not. Plus they do have many shooters and I really think Fall is going to breakout. Every team now has tons of turnover so it’s very hard to gauge how this team will perform. As of now I think they have the pieces to compete. What does that mean? No one knows. I could see a 2-3 game below 500, or 2-3 games over 500. The schedule alone will be easier and Pike is a Big Ten veteran coach that knows how to compete in that league. I would be shocked if they only won 3-4 Big Ten games. Anyway, this thread is completely derailed so I’ll end with that.
Didn’t we lose Eugene after the 2018-19 season? Entering that season, Eugene would’ve qualified basically as a much more experienced version of Grant. Personally, I think it’s beyond optimistic to assume Grant can match Eugene’s production from that year. But heck - let’s assume a perfect situation and he does it. 13 ppg for Grant. At the center position, yes you are right at least on paper. Similar situation with the Shaqs and MJ as a redshirt sophomore lacking any game experience. But for the sake of this discussion let’s call of this an even stet. All of it. Heck let’s even assume J Mike is going to match Geo’s sophomore production. Huge assumptions.
So then the problem as I see it with your comparison is that it realistically requires that among Buchanan, the Euros, Francis and the frosh - we have enough hits to match the production of RHJ, Tez, and Caleb along with Peter Kiss and returning starter Thiam who ended up getting beat out by the other guys. Again - that’s on top of assuming Grant takes off like Eugene did, and one of the BIGs has as much defensive impact as MJ did. And then J Mike matching Geo’s productivity too. It’s a lot of big time ifs just to match the production level of that team which didn’t even make the NIT.
By the way - you won’t like this, but at this point Grant is enough of a question mark where it’s fair to say his role on next year’s team could span from Thiam’s role to Eugene’s. His 18 mpg alongside Dylan offers no conviction at all that he will become a go to scorer next season. Sure - it could happen. But it also may not.
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In addition to playing in Italian Serie A, Denis' team also competed in the Eurocup this year which is actually run by the Euroleague and is considered its second division. He apparently averaged 9.4 minutes per game across both leagues (Serie A and Eurocup), but he was still a young guy playing with men. The kid faced good competition.
So first you assume we will get nothing from the 2 European players . That does not jive with what other teams get from European players , who just happen to be playing professionally for years.
Then you say no true point guard. I agree with you saying we have no true good point guard and the backcourt is small , but you assuming JMike makes no improvement , which is possible , but you give no weight to Lino Mark as a freshman who has played some very decent California competition . Expect something out of those 2. Francis size ability at this level is definitely a huge unknown.
No 3 point shooters. How do you know the 2 Europeans and Dylan Grant or Buchanan will not be decent 3 point shooters. We might get 1-2 of them to be decent. Plus Chris Nwuili is not of a slasher but he can hit a 3 and is a legitimate 2 way player.
2 low level centers. Pike has had centers especially early in their careers that hardly made an impact offensively but did make an impact defensively. I think Fall has a chance to impact defensively and be a rim protector that every Pike team had except last year’s team . Plus unless he has forgotten how to play basketball , he was a McDonald’s All American in2023. So I assume he can catch a lob or two and get a few put backs a game and get you 8 points a game. Which is the type of center Pike had with the winning NCAA teams.
So overall you think everything will be a zero and there is no hope but the reality is we do not know. We do know there are some pieces that have the potential to change your opinion so that it will not be 100% negative and maybe get you to 50/50.
The post was an exaggeration but there is some truth to parts of it. Supposedly, Zrno is a natural wing, not a two (Denis is supposed to be the better ball handler of the 2). So it’s true we will be very small at guard outside of choosing to play 3 wings/forwards with a center instead. J Mike is a natural PG so I don’t agree with that comment - he’s a true PG just not necessarily one that’s proven yet to be up to the task of playing starter minutes at this level. But he could certainly make the jump and/or Lino could come in and surprise. I’m not willing to put Francis in the conversation, because he’s much more of a long shot for him to play more that role player minutes at the point unless we’re awful. But the point is while its possible we’re decent at PG, we don’t have a true veteran there. And certainly what he said is true about us not having a dominant center. We’re hoping for what you said as a realistic best case scenario. Taken in combo - hoping your PG can make a jump to be able to play starter minutes and hoping your centers can at least be ok defensively isn’t great. I agree with you that everywhere else (outside of possibly playing a wing out of position at the 2) we have decent potential to be pretty good. But those are important positions.
I'm not sure what fans want......if we take someone with height or size, then people say the player is out of position.....if we take a true guard and he's not 6'3" and shooting 40% from 3, then it's trouble.
I keep saying Kaden Powers is an option, just as much as I stated Dylan Grant would be helpful to RU last spring. We have Powers to work with and he will be a factor at SG, his size is the prototype guard we have claimed we needed via the portal. Ideally, Powers and Zrno give us good options at the wing or SG spot.
I keep saying Kaden Powers is an option, just as much as I stated Dylan Grant would be helpful to RU last spring. We have Powers to work with and he will be a factor at SG, his size is the prototype guard we have claimed we needed via the portal. Ideally, Powers and Zrno give us good options at the wing or SG spot.
Powers may be an option, like Grant was, but that doesn't really mean Grant helped, he was just different than what we were putting out there. 5 games under .500 w Grant shooting 20% from three and poor defense. We'll need better help than that out of one of them this year. Footspeed is my only concern with Zrno.
Except it has nothing to do with height. Dylan was listed at like 6-7 wasn’t he? Most of us would love for the scouting report to be decent ball skills on Zrno, but that’s not what any of the pods have suggested. They have all been consistent unfortunately - saying he’s a catch and shoot type wing. Buchanan’s ball skills could very well be next best on the court most of the time (I’m expecting a Hyatt level handle from him and would love to be pleasantly surprised that he’s better). Hyatt was no 2 either by the way.
Nobody except you expects Powers to play much at all. He’s a true frosh and all the scouting reports on him suggest he’s a project on D which doesn’t usually earn you early PT on a Pike team.
Everyone would love for you to be right as the lone predictor of the optimistic unexpected and, sure, there are always positive surprises so if you pick a ton of them every year all the time, eventually one will hit and you’ll be right. But unfortunately we need more than one or two pleasant surprises to be decent next year.
I expect Powers to play rotational minutes, if only as default minutes at 2G.
At PG we have Davis, Mark, and (in case of emergency) Francis.
At SG we have Powers and Zrno.
That's pretty much it for guards.
Zrno, as you say, projects as a catch and shoot wing who is not especially athletic defensively. But even if he gets 25 minutes at the 2G spot, that still leaves 15 min for Powers/other. I don't think Pike wants to run many sets with both Davis/Mark on the court at the same time - but we may have to, similar to the Simpson/Fernandes/Davis small backcourt rotation we had a couple years ago.
We don't have enough guards for Powers not to get 10+ mpg, imo.
Unfortunately, it’s not out of the question that Buchanan turns out to not only be a better ball handler than Zrno and Powers (or comparable) but also the best option of the 3 to defend 2 guards. I truly hope this is not the case, but it might be. If it is, a rotational line up of J Mike, Buchanan, Grant, Nwuli / Bryce and Ogbole could be in our future.
Which is why I’ll continue to hold my breath until J Mike makes an official announcement that he’s returning because thank goodness ball handling is one thing he’s reliable at. We’re going to need that and we have no idea what we’re getting there with a frosh. If J Mike were to leave, we would be in big trouble at this point. Why hasn’t he announced yet? When I say in trouble - I mean there would be a real possibility the team could be Eddie Jordan level bad without J Mike. We need to have a reliable ball handler.
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Yeah - I mean unless he comes in and just shoots completely lights out, Pike will probably play mostly PG, 2 wings, forward, center with a possible shift to 2 forwards (Bryce getting spot minutes at the 5). When the scouting report states out right needs work on D, I’m picturing Jaden Jones level. Hope I’m very wrong but defense first is the only path to staying competitive so it’s going to be extremely difficult to play major projects on D. I expect his best 7 defenders to see the bulk of the minutes regardless of position. We’re probably going to be pressing and trapping so lots of guys would get used by default.
I have a feeling as the season moves on we will see some 2 PG, 2Wing, Center looks as well. I'm including Francis in the PG category but assuming he can play off the ball offensively too.
Well yeah, that’s the thing. Being a few inches taller is definitely helpful, but only if you come in with a playable level of D to begin with. If Powers defends like Jaden Jones, his height isn’t helping him see the floor over a Lino / Francis combo with J Mike. J Mike is 6-2 and would likely slide over to defend the two guard slot in that case. Both frosh are question marks that will likely depend on their defensive starting points relative to Francis unless one of them are simply amazing on offense (which is rare for a frosh). I’ve seen enough film of Francis to be confident he won’t take much (if any) time from J Mike. He’s not going to offer materially more on offense at the next level and his D is much worse.
So with all this intense analysis the one thing becomes evident --- the NIL money we have to spend building a team is not enough. As was said months ago, if more contribute with their pocketbooks rather than their mouths we'd be so much better off. And don't give me this crap about finding a whale.
Agree, it would be JMike guarding the 2 when Francis is out there.
People have really high hopes for Mark, but think it's very premature, he looks just like JMike to me.
Defensively, I have limited expectations for the two foreign kids, Mark, Powers, Francis, and not convinced Fall is what people want him to be. I expect to see a lot of Davis, Grant (who needs to improve his D too), Buchannon, and EO.
To be fair to Fall, I’m not sure how much PT EO would’ve gotten in the situation Fall was in either so the PT at the 5 is mostly a crap shoot wait and see.
I think wing / forward is a big free for all and in more of a positive way than negative. I’m excited about what Buchanan can bring and I think Nwuli is a good fit and was brought in specifically because of his stand out D. The two Euros are wild cards but certainly not out of the questions they could surprise. Bryce is a good defender too so he’s another guy who could make strides.
In my opinion, J Mike is the only safe bet on the team to log 25+ minutes per game (I like Buchanan but there’s depth at the 3/4 so who knows for sure). I’d be shocked if J Mike plays less than that and it will probably be more. To start - we’re going into the season knowing for sure that outside of J Mike, Lino Mark is the only other player on the team who might, in a best case scenario, be able to play minutes at the point as a primary ball handler. Francis isn’t that - he wasn’t even that in the American East. We didn’t recruit any ball handlers other than Lino. That’s the starting point. It’s almost a guarantee that J Mike will be the best defensive player among all the guards. Even if Lino Mark comes in with decent D and it turns out he’s a good offensive player from day one, the odds that he is would be able to handle major minutes of primary ball handling responsibilities alongside only wing/forwards and a center seem low. And finally, J Mike is the tallest of the guards after Powers who is not not a ball handler.
When you put all of this together, it’s hard to imagine too many rotations without J Mike in them.
I give Schiano a lot of credit for what he's been able to do with NIL and transfer portal.
What's the disconnect with Pike? The roster is the worst possible scenario, poor construction, and IMO the worst we've had since the Eddie Jordan days. It's scary bad, smurf bad. Closer to 6-25 than 16-15.
What's the disconnect with Pike? The roster is the worst possible scenario, poor construction, and IMO the worst we've had since the Eddie Jordan days. It's scary bad, smurf bad. Closer to 6-25 than 16-15.
Regarding Fall…. Yes he played limited games and minutes last year. The 3 guys in front of him were high level bigs. In the minutes he did play, he was an athletic rim protector on defense. He got blocks, changed shots and got multiple goaltending calls. He was way more active than I expected him to be. If he was on Rutgers last year, there is no doubt in my mind he would have taken every one of EO’s minutes and then some. On offense he moved really well. K State had him constantly setting high ball screens and rolling hard to the basket. I really think he breaks out with Pike because he will be the rim protector they didn’t have last year. I could see him averaging 6-7 points, 6-7 rebounds and 1-2 blocks. Granted, that is a positive spin but I think he gets 15-20 mins per game.
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We’re paying Francis a lot more than “in case of emergency” money, unfortunately. I bet he plays >20 mins a game, at least early on.
It sounds like we’re paying everyone what Francis got except maybe the frosh. Richie said we beat out VA for Denis who offered in the 200s.
I know Richie has put out some guesses but do we really know how much he’s being paid? Lots of speculation here presented as fact.
Fair point on Fall, EO. Hopefully, somehow, they can provide a serviceable tandem.
Agree on the rest.
