Yes, it's strange guards who won't be starters are coming but we haven't gotten a 5 who's guaranteed to start. Hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised.
Cliff omoRUyi
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Not really. Lot more guards available than bigs. The lack of quality big men is what drives the NIL offers sky high for the best available.
Pike probably has someone before the end of the month.
In fairness, that could probably be said about the whole Michigan roster under Howard.
Like I posted before. I’m a Cliff fan. But I’m not going to miss him. He was probably net zero overall. While he excelled weak side defense as a shot blocker. He was eaten up inside by big ten centers. He was undersized. Was pushed around. He was a poor defensive rebounder, depended too much on his athleticism than fundamentals (boxing out) . Was poor on offense. The guards missed many lay ups… he missed a lot of dunks and by a lot I mean … I’ve never seen a player miss so many. With all that said he’d probably excel with the talent coming in. But I’d like to see him in the R uniform I’m not going to cry about him leaving. And he also looked very indifferent out there … especially when RU was behind. Just jogging up and down the court. Like meh whatever.
He had the tenth best player efficiency rating in the conference, 5th in rebounding %, #1 in defensive rating and blocks, but was a net zero? Sure...
Stats can say what you mold them to.
Here is Cliff vs other big ten bigs
First big 10 game Ohio state he faced ok pats and put up same number 7 / 7 with 1 assist
He had 2 blocks to okparas 1
Next game Iowa. And I don’t know if I should compare him to Krikke or offerman the freshman who out muscled him for position few times
Points / rebounds
Cliff big 6 / 9 in that game 0 assist
Krikke 19 / 10 and 3 assists
Freshman 15/4/1
Indiana
Cliff 5/11 1 assist.
Ware 13/17 0
I’ll skip Purdue and I’ll skip minestoa and then I’ll do some random ones
Penn state
Cliff 8/6
Wahab 9/11
Maryland twice
Cliff 8/5
5/4
Reese 19/12
20/6
Bottom line he got outplayed by many big men in the league.
Again he was really good on weak side defense where he would come and block a shot …. But he wasn’t a good 1 on 1 defender of another big.
I’m a Cliff fan I just don’t think him leaving is that big of a deal. He was good at swatting the ball.
Also out of conference Mississippi state had those bigs… in 20 minutes Cliff grabbed 0 rebounds. Their one forward had 18 the other 11.
Against Princeton the one forward had 15 to Cliffs 7.
I can keep going. Lol
I’m just saying these advanced stats can be misleading but when you look at the on court performance , the guys who Cliff had to cover put up better numbers.
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The rest of the team matters. If Griffiths or whoever gets beat off the dribble, and Cliff slides to help, and their competent guards drop the ball off for an easy dunk to the opposing center, that's not Cliff's fault. If Cliff gets mugged down low because the opposing team doesn't respect any of our shooters, that's not Cliff's fault. He had a down year, but I think the team +/- with him on the floor is more significant than the 1 v 1 stats with the opposing center. So even in a down year with a shitty team, he was pretty damn good.
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Viewed in the narrowest prism of defensive presence, Cliff will be missed. Not worth $1M, or $750K. Keep negotiating and take somebody else’s big bag. Just move on, already.
Sure, but the TEAM was ranked as high as #2 in the nation defensively. Takes the entire team to get that ranking not just one guy. So while some easy scoring happened for big men , he was out scored. Out rebounded and out assisted by them more often than not. His monster games were vs… Bryant and Stone Hill.
Again I like Cliff but I think because of his dunks and great blocks we are left with an impression that he’s more than he is…. A complimentary piece on a team with 3 or 4 players that are better and more talented than him. Where he can roam for blocks and put backs. Get lobs. Thats it.
We were ranked as high as the number two defensive team. And on that team, the guy with the most positive +/- for his time on the floor was Cliff. I think that speaks for itself.
Cliff had an enormous positive presence over the past 3 years. Over the past 6 years the most important player on our team was either Myles or Cliff.
Might be the most absurd statement I've ever seen on this board. And it's an impossibly high bar.
Are you sure about that?
Not sure if link works
EvanMiya CBB Analytics
Advanced college basketball analytics, home of the Bayesian Performance Rating
evanmiya.com
According tho evanmiya +\- this year
Hyatt +36
Simpson +25
Davis +23
Woolfolk +9
Mag -14
Griffiths -20
Cliff -29
Will you miss Cliff next season when we replace him with an inferior player?
I agree with GRF's statement. Those two weren't the best players on the team. But they were the most irreplaceable. We needed the role they played, would not have been good without that role, we had nobody else to do it, and in terms of recruiting, that's the hardest position to fill.
Not sure. Someone else said it in this thread.Are you sure about that?
Not sure if link works
EvanMiya CBB Analytics
Advanced college basketball analytics, home of the Bayesian Performance Rating
According tho evanmiya +\- this year
Hyatt +36
Simpson +25
Davis +23
Woolfolk +9
Mag -14
Griffiths -20
Cliff -29
Sure I will. Again I like Cliff. I just don’t think he’s a “missing piece” I hope he gets paid well, seems like a nice guy.
Fun fact since 2008 only 5 players have attempted at least 200 dunks in the big ten, in their career.
Edey 301
Jackson Davis 280
Cliff 273
Aaron white 218
Mike Watkins 207
Cliff has the worst dunk % at 85%
He has missed 39 dunks in those 273 attempts.
Tjd missed 19 of his 280
Edey missed 20 of his 301
How many of those baskets he gave up are when he's had to step over to stop a driver who had been funneled to him and the man he steps away from is dished to because nonweakside help came. Our defensive strategy relies very little in one on one man d. It's a system of changing, rotating, and help. Advanced #'s try to look past some of that.
It's also true that 4 or so of the guys rated ahead of him were centers themselves.
Cliffs not perfect, but he's pretty damn good.
How many of those missed were ridiculously thrown lobs that superman would have trouble finishing, but Cliff got them on rim?
It would require a Hawk or Bac type manifesto to explain, and I'm not getting sucked in. Geo and Ron were infinitely more valuable and impactful over the course of their careers.
You just called him a role player after agreeing he was the most important / irreplaceable player. This makes no sense.
For figs statement to be somewhat correct , it should be
Cliff was very important to Rutgers as a key role player during his time here.
He certainly was not the most important player during that time. Rutgers would be much worse losing other players than Cliff.
Eh, I think you are misunderstanding what "role player" means. Virtually every player fills a specific role / need on a team (at least if it's a team / lineup that makes some sense). That doesn't make them "role players" in the colloquial sense (i.e. a player that generally plays limited minutes in specific situations).
Disagree. I think it's easier to get a Geo/Ron caliber player at their position than a quality 5 like Cliff or Myles. Just look at the valuation of such players in the transfer portal. Quality centers are the most valuable and hard to get. That's the point.
the most important player is by definition the best player. best isn't easy to replace. someone who can't get single rebound in a key game, can't shoot, dribble or pass and gets outplayed in most matchups is very easy to replace.
Guess you forgot about 2 guys named Baker and Harper
There is a sense in which this is true but I don't think it is true in the way that most people define or talk about the "best" player.
neither was a good center. they were very limited overall, almost always outscored (and MJ probably every single game in his career). getting 10 rebounds in a game means a lot less if the guy you're defending outscores you 18-3.
But players are not purely interchangable parts. Two things:
(1) Player A can be better than player B with surrounding cast C, but B > A with surrounding cast D
(2) Player A can be better in an absolute sense than player B, but there can be fewer available players that do what player B does
Now you could argue that in (2) that means player B is actually better. And this is what I mean when I say it's true "in a sense". But most people will just be looking at who directly impacts the game more, not doing detailed WAR type calcs.
Feel like if you have to go this far into defending Cliff… he wasn’t. It’s like we are moving goal posts at this point.
I’m a simpleton I guess. You’re either the most important player or you’re not.
If I have to compare supporting cast / weather / lights / time of day… you probably are not the best / important player.
In the post I responded to you said you weren't going to miss Cliff. Now you say you are. Which is it?
I think it's ridiculous people acting like Cliff leaving is a good thing.
he’s a good player of course I’ll miss him …..
But I’m not going to miss him as in crying about what could have been.
while you think about his missed dunks I will think about our team defense over the past 5-6 years especially some of those teams littered with poor one on one defenders.
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