I’m assuming their head down drives are met with a whistle in practice, or not.
Who knows?
Be Honest, When did you first notice something was off?
- Thread starter rucook08
- Start date
Who knows?
It was a joke. I do think many fans think they have the answers and the reality is there aren’t any answers.
After the first half where we played our best defense causing a 20-0 run , you expected more of the same during the first 15 games and received almost none so far.
The second half we maintained a 10-12 point lead and rebuffed St . John’s everytime they tried to make a run for the first 15 minutes of the second half. Bailey went on one of his heaters causing a Pitino timeout. Then Dylan picked up his 4 foul and the year long problem of no paint defense and no rebounding leading to numerous second chance points allowed St. John’s back in the game and to take the late lead. Dylan and ACE were gassed andDylan couldn’t defend because of the 4 fouls.
If anything I knew how good St. John’s was and I was encouraged despite losing at the end. Figured we could clean up the rebounding and second chance points but it never has happened killing us in our losses to Ohio State , Princeton and Indiana and to a lesser extent Kennesaw State. The single biggest failure of the coaching staff , although figuring out the rotation had been another huge failure.
100% the St John's game. It was glaring in 2nd half how bad the defense was. On the other board I said it will be a long season and was heavily rebuked.....If you recall we were on fire scored in high 80s and still lost...Major red flag
Agreed…
Right or wrong, do you also agree it’s commonplace for a fan base to blame the coach and wonder if a coach from an obvious well coached offensive team could implement a cohesive motion offense?
This accusation against Pike has been going on for years, it’s not just because we aren’t winning currently
A couple years ago when finished like 3-7, lost to Minnesota.
Knew this guy couldn't win with these studs cause he can't put a complete team together and actually coach players to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses and demand 100% effort and focus 100% of the time.
He's too soft. Wonderful person but weal coach.
Knew this guy couldn't win with these studs cause he can't put a complete team together and actually coach players to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses and demand 100% effort and focus 100% of the time.
He's too soft. Wonderful person but weal coach.
The warning signs were there for sure with St John’s and the cupcake games, I likely buried my head in the sand with optimism and figured “oh, Pike and these guys will figure it out, they have a lot runway left in the season”……you and others definitely sounded the alarm bells even as early as St John’s. Vegas week did it for me as they stepped up the competition level and I saw they were not in fact figuring it out and man-oh-man were they in trouble as we now had to play predominantly real teams the rest of the season. My head popped out of the sand after Vegas, maybe even the Ohio State weak effort game.
Oh man, the "bless the rains" game against Minnesota was just brutal.
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The Kennesaw game, leading into Vegas and the whole tourney.
Like smols in a way. Preseason I thought we’d be bullied but hoped the offense could overcome it. St. Peter’s and Merrimack had me worried but kennesaw sealed it. I said that night we’d be lucky to make the nit.
I knew we were in trouble when we came into the season without a replacement for Cliff.
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Ohio State was when I was done. We had an erratic season before that, but I knew that we had to prove ourselves on the road in order to dig our way out of the mess we had created. OSU had just gotten smoked by Maryland and I believe they were down a player or two. So what did we do? The same garbage play on the road that we always do. After that, I was done and lost hope.
This is a big piece. Bailey can score, but not in flow of an offense. So their offense struggles sometimes and lacks continuity.
Pike couldn't pass up the shiny new objects, lol. Now he has them and is probably realizing he will have to change philosophy going forward, and maybe not pick these types of players that don't fit his mold. IDK.
Don't feel bad I was after you lol. Princeton for me.
Would never say anything after an exhibition. Early season struggles I thought was more Pike figuring out rotations and who were best to compliment Ace/Dylan. KSU was just dumb scheduling esp right before Vegas. Was encouraged by Vegas. Wasn't going to let one road loss (esp first B1G road game for Frosh) derail me.
But when I saw an average Princeton team score 83 on us and just make a game winner look about as easy as possible that was it for me**
**Except I still kind believe that when Dylan comes back full strength we're gonna start giving people a lot of trouble with right guys playing and playing better and maturing. It will almost certainly be too late, but we'll be a tough out last 40% of the season.
As a fan it’s natural to blind yourself to concerns. It started for me when we didn’t get a center from the portal.
Each game concern grew and the realization set in that this is the team. After the Princeton game I pretty much gave up hope of us making the tournament. I held on to belief that long because facing the reality that this is the product we are getting for our most hyped team ever sucks.
Each game concern grew and the realization set in that this is the team. After the Princeton game I pretty much gave up hope of us making the tournament. I held on to belief that long because facing the reality that this is the product we are getting for our most hyped team ever sucks.
The coach gets the blame when you lose. Which is fine. Many fans have complained about the offense for years and think it’s easy to run simple sets for points. The reality is it’s way harder to coach a new team every year on offense vs locking down on defense and recruiting to that. There is limited time to coach players and teams focus on their identity. At Rutgers, I believe Pike has done a good job and I mostly agree with his on court philosophy. In the NIL and transfer portal era, I would focus on defense, athleticism and length. I would run uptempo and get to the rim as much as possible. Obviously you need shooters who can play in the Big Ten but they aren’t easy to come by but you should be able to find a few each year. Getting players to run complex offenses takes time and continuity. Two things you don’t have now a days.
Where Pike has struggled the most is roster management. He’s also been dealt a few bad situations that really hurt. Next year, he will have some money (not sure how much, but should be a lot more than last year) and I’m curious to see how much money other teams have/spend. Can Rutgers compete in the middle tier for players. Ultimately it’s all about adding players every year (which takes $$) and successfully building a roster he can coach to. So hopefully he’s able to make that happen. If he can’t, then the seat gets warm.
The vegas tournament against bama and TAMU were 2 of our very best games all season against top 15 teams
The problem was we didn't build off that
Commitment to rebounding happened briefly then vanished
Great thread.
The St. John’s game worried me. But I didn’t know for sure until Nov 30. And I posted about it and got criticized by some for it
The St. John’s game worried me. But I didn’t know for sure until Nov 30. And I posted about it and got criticized by some for it
Is it okay if I say years ago? Seriously though, the amount of talent is irrelevant that pike has because he just doesnt do anything on the offensive end to put his guys in positions to succeed. Its been the case his entire tenure here.
Not blowing out those first few teams the way I thought we could had me worried.
But then Vegas wasn't that bad to me, beat a meh ND and were respectable against Bama and a&M. I thought we'd figured some stuff out. Shows how wrong I can be.
And unlike many of you I was actually encouraged after St Johns...given it was just a scrimmage.
But then Vegas wasn't that bad to me, beat a meh ND and were respectable against Bama and a&M. I thought we'd figured some stuff out. Shows how wrong I can be.
And unlike many of you I was actually encouraged after St Johns...given it was just a scrimmage.
For me it was actually seton hall despite the awesome ending. (A) because it was first game I went to this season and saw how troubling certain aspects were in person and (B) I watch a decent amount of seton hall games and know the quality (or lack thereof) of their squad this year
First active week or two in the portal well before the season started
I agree with you, they may pull off a few upsets, but I know there will be stinkers mixed in with either bad stretches with offensive slumps, bad defense or bad rebounding and sometimes all of these things in the same game. I can’t see this group doing better than 8-8 over last 16 games, could easily see them with a below .500 record over their last 16 games. They are currently 4-7 in their last 11 games with losses to Kennesaw and Princeton and needed a buzzer beater to beat Q4 SHU, 8-8 doesn’t even seem likely.
Uh, we had the 5th best defense in the country last year. Unless you mean last fall i.e. the beginning of this season?
Easily. You just take them out of the game. He did it to Dylan against Wisconsin (for different reasons obviously). There is literally nothing stopping him. Except...
There is no one else to play and people are not going to be happier if we are losing by 25.
A little of both. While coaches' performance can definitely fluctuate I don't buy that they are overall changing too much from year to year. So I'm not going to believe that a guy who has given us a top 10 defense 3 out of the last 5 years (and top 20 one of the other years) is not properly teaching defense and defensive rebounding. That is very likely on the players. At the same time I'm not going to believe that a guy who has never given us a good offense is adding much to the offense, and that is apparent in the fact that Bailey just jacks up those midrange shots over and over and over off of isos. He's a bit like Geo on steroids in that he is very talented at making those difficult long 2s but you basically can't be talented enough at that to make it a good idea for it to be the main strategy of an offense.
If Pike has gotten worse since 19-23 it would be in the roster construction; the environment has actually changed there so it's a place where coaches could quickly get better or worse.
The interesting thing is that if you adjust for the teams we've played our rebounding is not really bad.. on average across the season. It's just average. But it fluctuates wildly between games.
Criticized? Here??? Well I never!
He is responsible for constructing the roster .
We returned one big (4or5) and had 3 freshman 4 or 5s coming in .
From the portal he brings in 3 wings and an undersized 4
When I saw teams out rebound us so easily and I watched the St John's center abuse us
I thought something wasn't right
Ok. So then who needs to be pulled?
And who replaces them?
Unless Grant and mythical Dortch are playing 30mpg starting tomorrow, there isn't some magic bullet waiting on the bench.
The defense can't be fixed because we already playing our "best defenders".
Should we play Acuff and Hayes more? Is that the rebounding answer?
Current MPG:
Ace 33.3
Dylan 32.9
JWill 24.8
Derkack 23.3
Lathan 19.5
Davis 18.1
Martini 16.6
Ogbole 13.8
Acuff 13.5
Hayes 12.7
Grant 9.0
Sorry, I was referring to pulling them for a teachable moment rather than sitting them for good.
Kind of like what Pike appeared to do to Ogbole last game after screaming at him.
That’s called coaching. Or, used to be called coaching..
Mike Cronin of UCLA is right - new players these days and attitude/desire is just not there with some. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...ch-mick-cronin-calls-bruins-soft-blowout-loss
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