Back to our identity

[rubjk]

Our 3 bad losses are due to defense and rebounding. It’s our identity. We aren’t going to win when we get out rebounded by 20, 20 and 14 as we did vs OSU, MS, OSU.

Focus on both and start the game driving the paint and posting up.

Let the 3s come when the transition offense comes as the result of defense and rebounds.

We will not win being an offensively focused team.

 

[cm_13]

Our 3 bad losses are due to defense and rebounding. It’s our identity. We aren’t going to win when we get out rebounded by 20, 20 and 14 as we did vs OSU, MS, OSU.

Focus on both and start the game driving the paint and posting up.

Let the 3s come when the transition offense comes as the result of defense and rebounds.

We will not win being an offensively focused team.

I don’t get chalking the losses up to defense. Over our last 3 we held Iowa and MSU well below their PPG average and Ohio State finished this one right at theirs. Meanwhile we’ve put up 45 and 68 over our last two.

 

[new jersey1]

Our 3 bad losses are due to defense and rebounding. It’s our identity. We aren’t going to win when we get out rebounded by 20, 20 and 14 as we did vs OSU, MS, OSU.

Focus on both and start the game driving the paint and posting up.

Let the 3s come when the transition offense comes as the result of defense and rebounds.

We will not win being an offensively focused team.

Totally Agree.
And play Jacob as much as possible. He’s the engine that drives this team and his on ball defense creates points off turnovers. He’s averaging two steals a game... leading the B1G, I believe. That typically translates to a four to eight point swing, but equally important is the harassing of the opposing guard and taking time off the clock.

 

[bac2therac]

I don’t get chalking the losses up to defense. Over our last 3 we held Iowa and MSU well below their PPG average and Ohio State finished this one right at theirs. Meanwhile we’ve put up 45 and 68 over our last two.

have you watched our defense, its been atrocious 4 of the past 5 games, Vs Iowa we never ever got a stop, yesterday vs Ohio State they scored on 7 straight possessions early on. Our rebounding has been brutal of late.

Defense can keep you in games. It has nothing to do with keeping teams under their scoring average if they are outrebounding you by 20 and beating you by double digits

 

[mildone]

have you watched our defense, its been atrocious 4 of the past 5 games, Vs Iowa we never ever got a stop, yesterday vs Ohio State they scored on 7 straight possessions early on. Our rebounding has been brutal of late.

Defense can keep you in games. It has nothing to do with keeping teams under their scoring average if they are outrebounding you by 20 and beating you by double digits

Yeah, we can surely do better on D and rebounding. No argument.

But we also have some major offense problems at the moment. We're not going to win a lot unless we solve them. Izzo put out a template for stopping us from scoring and everybody, that can, is going to try to apply that template to us.

We aren't hitting 3s in part because teams are guarding 3s more aggressively and daring us to beat them inside. And when we beat the outside D on a drive, more often than not, our driving player is left on an island without pass options and forced to put up a weak layup.

Everyone's calling it out as selfish play. And here and there, it IS selfish play. But lots of the time, the driving player draws 2 or 3 defenders which is good, but then, instead of a teammate sliding into position to receive a dish from the driving player, our players are caught watching, or else they're moving way too late, or moving to the wrong location.

The result is we wind up getting stuffed or having to take a wildly off-angle layup.

IMO, until we solve that inside game issue, until our players operate more cohesively inside, we're just not winning a ton more games. Our outside weave isn't shaking much loose. All the east-west movement can help, but we need to mix in more north-south ball movement to break down the other team's high Ds.

And I'll beat the pick and roll drum some more. Easiest play in basketball (when the other team plays a high D). And we tried it a grand total of one time in the last game. And scored easily. I don't think we tried it even once against MSU.

I think fixing the D and rebounding is more about team energy (or mood) than anything else. I don't think it's tactical. We've lost our hustle (at least at times). And as I've said elsewhere, I think it's a team chemistry thing.

We had a few moments of really great team energy towards the end of the last game, led by the M&Ms (McConnell and Mulcahy). I'd have to watch again, but I think that, during most of that time, Pike had either Geo or Ron on the court, but not both at the same time. Hm.

I don't think fixing just the D or just the O is enough. Gotta fix both and gotta solve the team chemistry thing.

 

[mildone]

I wonder if going with a full court press more often is doable (might not be due to injuries). If it is, I think I'd try to mix it in more often throughout the game. Mix it with some occasional zone here and there.

 

[bac2therac]

yes good points, I am tired of watching Mathis get stuffed with 3 defenders on him, where is the guy he can dish it off to...thats what Im talking about selfish play...yesterday Young made a steal and then took a stupid ass 3 while the game was still close and the rest of the team was in no position to try and rebound. Mathis thinks that because he drives in he is going to get a foul called, how many times do we have to see him on the floor while the other team is headed down court for an easy basket.

We have former guards on our coaching staff, why are they not teaching him to stop doing this or are they encouraging him to do it. When is there any accountability. Perhaps that is why Mathis minutes have been cut

yesterday Caleb seemed to be the only one truly buying into his ROLE on the team which was big improvement because his shot wasnt there the two previous games and I thought he was trying to do too much.

 

[mildone]

yes good points, I am tired of watching Mathis get stuffed with 3 defenders on him, where is the guy he can dish it off to...thats what Im talking about selfish play...yesterday Young made a steal and then took a stupid ass 3 while the game was still close and the rest of the team was in no position to try and rebound. Mathis thinks that because he drives in he is going to get a foul called, how many times do we have to see him on the floor while the other team is headed down court for an easy basket.

We have former guards on our coaching staff, why are they not teaching him to stop doing this or are they encouraging him to do it. When is there any accountability. Perhaps that is why Mathis minutes have been cut

yesterday Caleb seemed to be the only one truly buying into his ROLE on the team which was big improvement because his shot wasnt there the two previous games and I thought he was trying to do too much.

People are getting a little pessimistic about the team, and I understand that. But I'm not near ready to give up on them.

Early season games were a little off as Pike tried out different lineups and so forth. Then we started to show improvement and even a bit of greatness as the games progressed and the uninjured players, some of whom were getting more minutes than they might otherwise have done, developed some good chemistry. Players settled into roles and Harper's role was expanded due to Geo's injury (and maybe for other reasons).

Then, over a relatively short period of time, we had Cliff's injury, Geo's first games back, Young's injury, Harper's injury, and Caleb's first games back). And we had Myles let some awful foul calls in the first OSU game get way too deep in his head. Finally, mix in all the ranking hype, which can be distracting as hell especially when players start thinking about that crap instead of focusing entirely on playing each possession.

That's a lot of change all coming over a short period of time. That's gonna mess with team chemistry.

But if everyone can stay healthy, and if Pike can get the players to ignore everything but the possession at hand (including ranking and the refs), then I really think the team will start to gel again. When the chemistry and mood improves, so will the rebounding and D.

And I think Pike will make the necessary adjustments to improve inside play, which will unlock outside shooting again.

 

[cm_13]

have you watched our defense, its been atrocious 4 of the past 5 games, Vs Iowa we never ever got a stop, yesterday vs Ohio State they scored on 7 straight possessions early on. Our rebounding has been brutal of late.

Defense can keep you in games. It has nothing to do with keeping teams under their scoring average if they are outrebounding you by 20 and beating you by double digits

Rebounding has been brutal of late, but I think that is also a symptom of the poor showing on offense. Look how many more shots we’ve attempted than our opponents over the last two, and our shooting percentage over those two games. Against MSU we finished with a 9-8 edge on the offensive glass, against OSU they had a 9-8 edge on the offensive glass. Defensive rebound totals were lopsided, but we also attempted 10 more field goals than MSU, and 17 more than Ohio State. Taking more shots and shooting at a low percentage is going to make the defensive rebounding totals lopsided.

I agree the defensive intensity has been lacking compared to what we’re used to seeing from recent Rutgers teams, but if I’m picking the biggest issue over the last two games, it’s the lack of scoring.

 

[ChasRC69]

Rebounding has been brutal of late, but I think that is also a symptom of the poor showing on offense. Look how many more shots we’ve attempted than our opponents over the last two, and our shooting percentage over those two games. Against MSU we finished with a 9-8 edge on the offensive glass, against OSU they had a 9-8 edge on the offensive glass. Defensive rebound totals were lopsided, but we also attempted 10 more field goals than MSU, and 17 more than Ohio State. Taking more shots and shooting at a low percentage is going to make the defensive rebounding totals lopsided.

I agree the defensive intensity has been lacking compared to what we’re used to seeing from recent Rutgers teams, but if I’m picking the biggest issue over the last two games, it’s the lack of scoring.

Another issue is that Tez has been off the past 2 games. It seems that he's not going to the hoop as strongly as before. He seems off balance. In the past 2 games, he's had 7 shots blocked, and after each attempt, he ends up lying on his back on the floor.

 

[goru7]

It is hard to put your finger on exactly what ails us except maybe they are not healthy. Earlier with Geo out, but with Cliff in, Ron , Jacob and Tez, really established chemistry with Jacob getting 5-10 assists a game. The team looked to Ron to take over and he did and was shooting 60% from the field and 50 % from 3. Ron dominated the second half of the Illinois game and that game Cliff got hurt . With Cliff and Myles we were outrebounding teams as well. Geo was eased back in but still obviously hurt . The same formula worked for almost 30 minutes at Ohio State as we were dominating , then the refs screwed Myles and without Cliff , Duke couldn’t handle Lindell , then Jacob fell with 7 minutes left and the unhinging and one on one selfish play without sharing the ball started. We then gutted one out without Ron , as Tez carried us to the win with some help from Geo against Purdue. The Iowa game was a terrific game but you still saw ball movement sharing of the ball , cutting to the hole and dishes for 3. But it was obvious Ron was not himself.. But we played good team ball. We were even on the glass , Iowa shot only 7-18 from 3. We were playing like a top 15 team.

Then Izzo put together a great game plan and challenged his guys to play tough man to man defense which they did. Very obvious in that game that both Ron and Geo were not healthy enough . We got stuffed or took terrible off balanced shots without anyone cutting to help out with no crashing of the glass . Ron stopped playing defense or rebounding and could not plant off his feet for his shooting or his rebounding. Assists almost disappeared with Geo getting the only 2 in a row with the nice bounce pass to Paul, who converts but of course missing the foul shot , and the pass back to Ron for the 3. But we stopped rebounding , especially offensively , and all the guards failed to crash the boards to help Myles . Our elite defense disappeared as MSU literally threw 10 turnovers to us, but we did nothing to stop any of their shooters. Then yesterday against Ohio State , again missing our elite defense , failing to rebound, stopped passing to one another after taking a 26-20 lead on Caleb’s three. Again selfish one on one play with no crashing of the glass , especially offensively.

So have we lost our identity. Defense and rebounding. Yes and yes. We haven’t played elite defense this year compared to any tough defense we played last year. From a distance , it appears we have not tried hard enough to play elite defense nor tried to rebound like we are capable. The lack of guard rebounding especially defensively to help Myles is inexcusable. The offensive rebounding or being in position to rebound is missing. We are more than capable.
Offensively , missing Cliff has hurt Myles on both ends , but we have to play inside out now that our outside shots have cooled down. Put Myles on the block and the guards have to give him the damn ball. The wings can crash or cut as Myles will find them if doubled , plus he can dish out to a now open three point shooter that can get the shooters back on track. Myles can come up and do pick and roll with Jacob once in a while but bringing him away from the basket every time , plus risk the moving screen , is not worth it. Guards have to move , run some down screens , and stop standing around doing crap which has occurred for big parts of Michigan State , first half Ohio State , end of second half first Ohio State game . Post the guards , Geo, Ron , Caleb on the block as well. Trust them to hit a short shot or make the right pass. Jacob can still break down almost everyone and should continue to do so. Another reason guards should crash the defensive glass , is they can all get the board and lead the fast break , which teams are taking away from us. All of them can rebound and all can lead the break. The offense will improve. We have to get our guys healthy. Geo and Ron have to get healthy and then have to step up and we will get back on track.

Most disappointing thing , is our seniors, Geo and Jacob, and our grizzled juniors who have been through the Big 10 wars , Myles, Tez, Ron , did not say enough of this crap , and say we are not losing this game against Ohio State first game , MSU, and Ohio State yesterday. We have an experienced team that you would think this crap would not happen. Really disappointed in Geo and Ron in those 3 losses.

 

[rudad02]

Our 3 bad losses are due to defense and rebounding. It’s our identity. We aren’t going to win when we get out rebounded by 20, 20 and 14 as we did vs OSU, MS, OSU.

Focus on both and start the game driving the paint and posting up.

Let the 3s come when the transition offense comes as the result of defense and rebounds.

We will not win being an offensively focused team.

Right on. And we can run off rebounding. It increases the tempo & that's how we win.

 

[Scarlet Shack]

Our 3 bad losses are due to defense and rebounding. It’s our identity. We aren’t going to win when we get out rebounded by 20, 20 and 14 as we did vs OSU, MS, OSU.

Focus on both and start the game driving the paint and posting up.

Let the 3s come when the transition offense comes as the result of defense and rebounds.

We will not win being an offensively focused team.

While i agree that we need to get our defensive and rebounding fixed...In a HUGE WAY....in NO WAY, ..does it mean that that we need to compromise offense in that process

Focusing on fixing the D doesn’t mean sacrificing offense. Winning programs are good at BOTH