Baye Ndongo (remember him?) RU commit who uncommitted and followed asst coach Karl Hobbs to Georgia Tech, well, caught a glimpse of Ga Tech/Duke game and he was dynamite finishing at the rim torching Duke for 21 points leading his team to the upset win! A huge paint presence that we could of used yesterday, just a shame we lost out on an outstanding recruit.
Baye Ndongo
- Thread starter 4theknights
- Start date
He’s a basketball player.
Well, it was pikes choice to let Hobbs go. It was his job to know what players would follow
Ndongo was not going to stay committed when Hobbs left and it's not as if RU didn't land THREE dynamic forwards in the 2024 class.....and a forward/center with offensive skill sets.
Ace Bailey.....decent player, looks like he had a chance to be good LMAO
Bryce Dortch......wiry player who can defend, score and rebound.....a likely 4 year player.....Top 125-150 player
Dylan Grant......strong athletic player ability to score in traffic.....looks like he will be very good down the road.
Lathan Sommerville....Top 100 kid in most places.....had a triple double the other day, kicking off his senior season in HS. Able to face the basket, pass....will need to get more development, but has a lot of tools.
Ndongo or Dortch or Grant or Bailey.....same skill sets, same firepower. RU will be more than fine in 2024. Ndongo was a flight-risk the minute Hobbs left for Georgia Tech and RU isn't building a program based on 1 sole recruit in Ndongo......and I absolutely love Ndongo talent, upside and game. But there are other players around the country folks.
Ace Bailey.....decent player, looks like he had a chance to be good LMAO
Bryce Dortch......wiry player who can defend, score and rebound.....a likely 4 year player.....Top 125-150 player
Dylan Grant......strong athletic player ability to score in traffic.....looks like he will be very good down the road.
Lathan Sommerville....Top 100 kid in most places.....had a triple double the other day, kicking off his senior season in HS. Able to face the basket, pass....will need to get more development, but has a lot of tools.
Ndongo or Dortch or Grant or Bailey.....same skill sets, same firepower. RU will be more than fine in 2024. Ndongo was a flight-risk the minute Hobbs left for Georgia Tech and RU isn't building a program based on 1 sole recruit in Ndongo......and I absolutely love Ndongo talent, upside and game. But there are other players around the country folks.
Made the change at assistant coach if you're gonna retain your important pieces. If that's not the case, don't make it. It's not like pike brought in some world beating recruiter to replace him. He made another vanilla hire and not a big man coach. Meanwhile, our guys can't rebound and cliff is regressing at an alarming degree.
So he successfully pushed off a top notch recruit AND failed to address the coaching of the big men. All at the same time. Amazing.
He brought in Marlon Williamson who has deep AAU ties to state of Michigan. We already signed Dylan Grant with help of Williamson. Quote from Dylan Grant
“It was a great fit for me to join Rutgers,” Grant said in a statement released by Rutgers communications. “I had a connection going way back with the assistant coach Marlon Williamson, so that also really helped me make it feel like home right away. Coach Pikiell was very welcoming to me on my visit, and he made me feel like he really wanted me. So, that was ultimately why I decided to commit to Rutgers.”
Williamson may pay off in big ways over the long haul to establish a pipeline of recruits RU can compete for. We may not sign them all, but we’ll get some of them. Williamson has us in the mix for two possible 5 stars, Trey McKenney and Darius Acuff. Hobbs and one recruit named Ndongo may be an afterthought compared to future players we land through Williamson’s connections and recruiting.
This year's team would be vastly improved with Ndongo. Everyone knows we have a super class coming next year
I absolutely loved loved lovedddd Ndongo as prospect and was beyond pumped for him to come here. Heartbroken when he left. Looks like I was right. He's a baller and the type of talent this year's team is sorely lacking unfortunately
The crap you post sometimes is head scratching. Ndongo just played his second or third game of the year and scored 21 as a true freshman to help Ga. tech take down Duke , not some lowly cupcake. You are minimizing his loss by focusing on 2024 and do not see how we are missing him in 2023 ? Are you kidding me. ?
Scangg and I were absolutely thrilled when he committed because we could see he could shoot , dribble , had offensive moves , could rebound and block shots . The minute he left was a bad day and I said so that day that it was a huge loss to go from having Gavin , Ndongo and JMike to just the latter 2. Our rebounding and defense has suffered incredibly and he surely would help that and guess what, he would really help our offense as well. Again , start using your basketball eyes.
Don't forget, Hobbs has more experience teaching the game in practice, something this team desperately needs. Hobbs might have been very instrumental in GT's upset over Duke. In the last 4-5 years we've replaced two experienced and outstanding floor coaches (Hobbs, Young) with two AAU guys for their recruiting ability. Look again at what you've seen so far this year.
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yea i felt same. I thought he was top 50 in his class and we were really getting a steal of the draft...
No doubt that Ndongo is a talented kid and he would have played major minutes on this squad. Certainly ironic that part of the reason Hobbs wasn't part of the future at RU was he was more of a bench coach in a time when recruiting "juice" is the priority from assistants. One of the only kids he was in on was Ndongo. It pains me to say it but Ndongo might already have more touch and feel around the rim than Cliff does in his senior year.
The reason we have a super class is because we replaced Karl Hobbs.
Love how people carry on about this stuff when it is not relevant.
Support the kids that stayed and wanted to play for RU.
We already had ACE and Somerville and likely Dylan when Hobbs was here. TJ got us Dorsch and Williamson who replaced Dobbs got us Grant and is in with some 2025 top kids. Ndongo was a huge loss , which I thought was the best of Gavin and JMike at the time we lost him. He is a tremendous loss for what this team is missing this year and unfortunately his connection was to Dobbs and he went with him.
