I thought that even when Mag wasn’t rebounding, he made it easier for others.
Defense Up to #2 on kenpom and bart
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It was....especially for me given my liking for defense. Willard must hate us. The defense we played last year at the RAC (especially 1st half) was off the charts good. a f ew level above the elite D that was played by us last night
I told my boys if they take those shots in their travel game they deserve to go to the bench. I wish they went 0-8 so it would discourage them from hoisting.
This has been discussed elsewhere...but players only have so much bandwidth. If Noah is very focused on absorbing Pike's teaching on D, and meeting Pike's demands there, in theory it can impact performance on the other side of the court. Same for Gavin and others.
All our guys , especially Hyatt , get the ball on a 3 and then they hesitate for a second and have to pass it off. SHOOT THE DAM BALL RIGHT AWAY WHEN YOU ARE OPEN FOR A THREE !!! Driving me crazy.
Do you why our efficiency remained at 300 offensively after 2 wins ? Because of the damn turnovers. We have shot like crap all year hovering at 30%. But our second halves at Michigan and Maryland reduced the turnovers , like to 2 and 3 , and guess what our shooting was almost 50 % in both second halves. It is not a coincidence . It is directly related because no turnovers result in shots , that even when missed can result in an offensive rebound and score that helps the efficiency. Asked a question in another thread but what was the offensive efficiency numbers for the second half of Michigan and Maryland ? Got to think going forward that duplication will give us a much better chance to win games .
Not even a comparable discussion Derek takes the most shots on the team almost every night and misses a ton of them shooting like 33% and most are uncontested shots. People are frustrated because he made 40-42% of those shots , he would impact winning the games because of him.
Caleb was the best defender and best team defender covering up for others shortcomings and things that do not show up on the stat sheet or box score. His shot changed from earlier in his career and he struggled to shoot but he never took the most shots on the team on any night but made sure his defense gave us a chance to win every game. People got frustrated because he missed the few shots he took.
You cannot even put Caleb’s defense and Derek’s defense in the same plateau. That is comical.
It was 1.13 points per possession in the second half last night and 1.22 point per possession against Michigan.
First half was .647 against Maryland and .882 against Michigan.
Those are winning basketball offensive efficiency numbers. Stop the damn turnovers and we have a shot.
Wow those numbers are even better than I thought in the second half and just as terribly bad for the first halves.
I disagree. He is more suited this year until he gets stronger hopefully in the off season to shoot 2’s than 3’s. The problem is he misses way too many open uncontested 2 point shots whether they are layups , drives for a layup , 10-12 footers or foul line extended jumpers. Those shots going down at a 40-42% clip make us a different team and reduces the constructive criticism of Derek because he is taking the most shots on he team on most nights.
One thing I have noticed over the last 5-6 games is that he is making a concerted effort to grab the defense rebounds and go, which is a great development because earlier in the year none of the guards were rebounding.
You disagree, but taking less twos is what he's more suited to do? He's not a great finisher at the rim since he hasn't gotten much stronger. He's shooting 36% from 3 as a starter (think 0% in the games he came off the bench) and 35% from two, but he takes a low % of 3's. I'd like to see a slight increase in his 3 %, see what happens.
Need to watch tape and see if that's because he's getting beaten or because he's boxing out his man and a guard is scooping it up.
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Huge drop off
Caleb never took the most shots because we had Geo and RHJ. Before Jwill arrived, Simpson shot a lot because there were not a lot of other options. You put Simpson down for shooting at a low percentage. What about Gavin? They are shooting similar percentages, however Simpson is rebounding and defending at a very high level. I would bet Simpson’s plus/minus is pretty good compared to the rest of the team. He also is a great free throw shooter and gets to the line a lot. Simpson is going to be much better now that Jwill is playing
At what point does Simpson's poor shooting become concerning? If he doesn't improve the rest of season with a strong finish over the next month.... that's half his career...
If Gavin is shooting this bad at this time next season that will be extremely disappointing for sure
I would hope your wish happens with good results , but we will never get the 8-12 or 7-12 good shooting nights we have gotten 2 times from him mostly from 2 but unfortunately you will get a lot of 1-9 or 2-9 games from 3 and 2 with more 3 attempts and highly unlikely we ever get a 5-6 from 3 night from him. I wish it happens but the chances are slim and none and slim has left town
It’s a catch-22 with Simpson’s shooting.
Ideally, I’d like to see him be a facilitator more than a shooter. Better if he shoots 1-4 with 6 assists than 2-10 with 2 assists.
However, it’s obvious that he can create a clean look for himself almost anytime, shooting off the dribble and elevating the way he does. And sometimes we need that, especially when we’re in a funk and nobody else is making shots or taking good shots.
Also, he’s very athletic and fast, gets downhill very quickly which tends to have him outrunning his teammates and trying to score a contested layup too often.
I noticed that he pulled back from doing that in each of the last two games (maybe a JWill influence?), so if he can continue to pull back at times, or learn to draw more fouls at the rim, it would be a huge step in his development as a scorer, especially because he’s money at the FT line.
This. Derek Simpson does things that don’t show up on the stat sheet, like his insane pressure defense which leads to turnovers. Rutgers is actually #1 in “unforced turnovers” defense in the country - travels, bounce ball off foot, backcourt violation, etc. by the other team - it’s “unforced” but it’s because of our tight pressure that those things happen
Perspective is needed here - our fans complained about Caleb’s offense routinely last year. And he was DPOY.
Caleb made 39.5% of his shots in 2022-23. In 2021-22 he made 39.7% of his shots. As a team - Rutgers is currently shooting at only 38.8% on the season. That would make him an above average shooter on our current team. Meanwhile, Simpson’s current shooting percentage is 32.8% - good for quite literally the worst on the team outside of Chol. His inability to put the ball in the basket has been significantly worse than Caleb’s.
There is a reason Derek plays a lot of minutes. Yes, he needs to improve shot selection and make more shots, however he should be the last person people pick on. As you correctly mentioned, he brings so much to the table defensively and rebounding. He is statistically the third best rebounder on the team and he wasn’t really concentrating on rebounding the first part of the season
On the other end of the B1G spectrum
Torvik's Defensive Efficiency rankings
Michigan 104.7 158th
Iowa 103.6 132nd
Penn St 102.3 101st
Ohio St 102.3 100th
Nebraska 101.5 96th
Indiana 101.5 92nd
Northwestern 101.1 82nd
That's half the league that play mediocre to below average defense for a power 6. Northwestern won last night and is 6-0 at home but they were giving up way too many open looks and layups to Nebraska, Nebraska didn't hit enough open looks to keep it close. I can see why NW is 1-5 on the road in league. Nebraska is 0-7 on the road in league. Iowa is 3-3 at home and 2-3 Road, can beat anyone or lose to anyone depending on how the offense goes, because they aren't stopping anyone. Michigan 8-15, Penn St 11-11, Ohio St 13-10, Lost 8 of 9, and Indiana 14-9. Wisconsin even struggled to stop Michigan in their loss @ Michigan last night, they are ranked 42nd overall but don't play stifling defense and rely on pacing for their defense.
Torvik's Defensive Efficiency rankings
Michigan 104.7 158th
Iowa 103.6 132nd
Penn St 102.3 101st
Ohio St 102.3 100th
Nebraska 101.5 96th
Indiana 101.5 92nd
Northwestern 101.1 82nd
That's half the league that play mediocre to below average defense for a power 6. Northwestern won last night and is 6-0 at home but they were giving up way too many open looks and layups to Nebraska, Nebraska didn't hit enough open looks to keep it close. I can see why NW is 1-5 on the road in league. Nebraska is 0-7 on the road in league. Iowa is 3-3 at home and 2-3 Road, can beat anyone or lose to anyone depending on how the offense goes, because they aren't stopping anyone. Michigan 8-15, Penn St 11-11, Ohio St 13-10, Lost 8 of 9, and Indiana 14-9. Wisconsin even struggled to stop Michigan in their loss @ Michigan last night, they are ranked 42nd overall but don't play stifling defense and rely on pacing for their defense.
There is no question he needs to improve shot selection and make more shots but look at Caleb’s made free throws vs Simpson’s. Simpson has 62 made free throws compared to 39 for Caleb for all of last year. Simpson will probably have 100 before end of season.
Stop. Caleb only played 28 games last year. Derek has already played in 22. If you gave him his average FTM per game in 6 more games Derek would only be at 77 through equal number of games. But Derek is also primary point so he shoots way more bonus FTs than Caleb. Caleb is still shooting at a way higher percentage even if you accounted for every 2 points made from shooting fouls as made made baskets.
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I was very encouraged that Derek seemed to be seeing the floor better, playing more under control, and actually looking with his head up to be a distributor more... then he reverted to old bad Simpson first half at MD. Pike sat him early second half. He didn't take a jumper the entire 2nd half. 2-2 after a gross 0-7 first half. If he continues to chuck bricks all 2nd half, we lose. Pike sent a message and it worked. Great move by Pike. Derek and the team would benefit more if he focused on becoming more of a pass first guard. The scoring would come more organically and likely more efficiently
Exactly. A huge portion of the board hated any time Caleb thought about shooting and wanted him off the floor despite DPOY level defense
Caleb 45.8% from 2 last season
Derek 34.2% from 2 this season
Caleb, who no one wanted taking shots was shooting 11.6% better than Derek is this year from 2. Just insane to think about
If you want to say well that's super senior Caleb stats vs sophomore Derek...
Caleb...
Freshman 45.9%
Sophomore 45.7%
Junior 37.8% by farrrr his worst season
Senior 44.4%
If you hated Caleb taking shots but are ok with Simpson shooting at this rate... how?
Still at #2.
We have had an adjusted defensive efficiency under 90 per Bart for six consecutive games. We are #1 in defense over the last ten games, all conference games, which kind of hurts the "Pike's defense is only elite against bad opponents" argument.
We have had an adjusted defensive efficiency under 90 per Bart for six consecutive games. We are #1 in defense over the last ten games, all conference games, which kind of hurts the "Pike's defense is only elite against bad opponents" argument.
