For me stink is finishing in the bottom 4 of the conference. Especially in a year that the conference is not great after the top 4 teams.
GAME 18 ILLINOIS: Wash, rinse, repeat
- Thread starter bac2therac
- Start date
It's not required reading for fans to understand your opponents but it is required to have some perspective.
A) Justin Harmon is a 5th year senior, who led Utah Valley to the NIT title over Wisconsin last year....around 16PPG
B) Domask is a 5th year senior, who played at Southern Illinois and is fundamentally very sound.
C) Shannon is also a 5th year senior, no real need for further explanation.
D) Hawkins is a true senior, who RU recruited heavily out of Prolific Prep in California....he was a Top 150 recruit and we landed Mawot Mag from that same team.
I could continue but RU also has 5th year seniors in Austin Williams, Noah Fernandes and Hyatt....and RU has 2020 4* recruit, Cliff Omoyuri, who played well today, but didn't get enough help on the glass.
We could discuss 5th year senior guards that departed and ask yourself, this simple question....would the guards from last year been able to stay with Nebraska's Tominaga AND also provide a stronger matchup against Shannon, Domask and Harmon?? I don't think (in reality) that RU sees any real difference in scoring today, but RU with Mulcahy and Spencer, certainly should have rebounded much better or kept Illinois off the glass.....but not enough to offset the athletic abilities gap, the speed in transition gap or anything else seen today or at the RAC in early December.
But.....I am fairly certain that RU matched up better vs the Nebraska back courts and some others like Ohio State, Seton Hall, because the footspeed on defense, slowed down Tominaga enough, to earn a hard fought win on Wednesday night. It could or should have been a comfortable win, if not for some bad FT shooting, but it takes guards attacking to earn FT attempts.
Right now, RU isn't going to matchup with Illinois or this version.....until it gets itself in to a point where it has starters that are true B1G upperclassmen AND, until it adds talent across the board.
In terms of the guard criticism today, there's nothing wrong with what I saw today.....23 points isn't enough, but fans can't have it both ways.....
First, the guards shoot too much and don't pass the ball.....well they found plenty of passes to Mag and Cliff and the shots they got, were solid. But if you feed Cliff and he gets 19 attempts, how many points/shots, will the guards have??
I thought despite what fans may think about the guards, outside of Davis making 2 ill-advised passes in transition and a wild behind the back dribble, he did OK on defense. Noah had a 10 point spurt, that avoided this being a 40 point wipeout. Simpson steal and play before the half and starting the 2nd half, was solid.
When RUs 1st 8 conference games have 4 against the most talented or best rosters in all of CBB (Illinois twice, at Sparty and Purdue) a 2-6 start, if we lose to Purdue, is realistic. If I add Ohio State, that's 5 games against likely NCAA caliber teams.
Going to get recharged for the rest of a rugged schedule.....
2 Wisconsin
2 Purdue
2 Maryland
2 Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Northwestern
At Minnesota
At Nebraska
Plenty of basketball and opportunities to salvage things with this type of schedule left.
A) Justin Harmon is a 5th year senior, who led Utah Valley to the NIT title over Wisconsin last year....around 16PPG
B) Domask is a 5th year senior, who played at Southern Illinois and is fundamentally very sound.
C) Shannon is also a 5th year senior, no real need for further explanation.
D) Hawkins is a true senior, who RU recruited heavily out of Prolific Prep in California....he was a Top 150 recruit and we landed Mawot Mag from that same team.
I could continue but RU also has 5th year seniors in Austin Williams, Noah Fernandes and Hyatt....and RU has 2020 4* recruit, Cliff Omoyuri, who played well today, but didn't get enough help on the glass.
We could discuss 5th year senior guards that departed and ask yourself, this simple question....would the guards from last year been able to stay with Nebraska's Tominaga AND also provide a stronger matchup against Shannon, Domask and Harmon?? I don't think (in reality) that RU sees any real difference in scoring today, but RU with Mulcahy and Spencer, certainly should have rebounded much better or kept Illinois off the glass.....but not enough to offset the athletic abilities gap, the speed in transition gap or anything else seen today or at the RAC in early December.
But.....I am fairly certain that RU matched up better vs the Nebraska back courts and some others like Ohio State, Seton Hall, because the footspeed on defense, slowed down Tominaga enough, to earn a hard fought win on Wednesday night. It could or should have been a comfortable win, if not for some bad FT shooting, but it takes guards attacking to earn FT attempts.
Right now, RU isn't going to matchup with Illinois or this version.....until it gets itself in to a point where it has starters that are true B1G upperclassmen AND, until it adds talent across the board.
In terms of the guard criticism today, there's nothing wrong with what I saw today.....23 points isn't enough, but fans can't have it both ways.....
First, the guards shoot too much and don't pass the ball.....well they found plenty of passes to Mag and Cliff and the shots they got, were solid. But if you feed Cliff and he gets 19 attempts, how many points/shots, will the guards have??
I thought despite what fans may think about the guards, outside of Davis making 2 ill-advised passes in transition and a wild behind the back dribble, he did OK on defense. Noah had a 10 point spurt, that avoided this being a 40 point wipeout. Simpson steal and play before the half and starting the 2nd half, was solid.
When RUs 1st 8 conference games have 4 against the most talented or best rosters in all of CBB (Illinois twice, at Sparty and Purdue) a 2-6 start, if we lose to Purdue, is realistic. If I add Ohio State, that's 5 games against likely NCAA caliber teams.
Going to get recharged for the rest of a rugged schedule.....
2 Wisconsin
2 Purdue
2 Maryland
2 Michigan
Ohio State
Penn State
Northwestern
At Minnesota
At Nebraska
Plenty of basketball and opportunities to salvage things with this type of schedule left.
He didn‘t say you never would win with those types of deficits, just that you would lose most of the them. And I would further add that when you consistently shoot below 40% from the field and 30% from 3, you will lose most of your games against good teams.
No there isn't. Most of these games are likely losses outside of the Michigan games. I appreciate the Rutgers bias but this season is over.
They only outrebounded us by 2 on the offensive glass. The rest of the difference was defensive rebounds because we missed 12 more shots than they did.
I know we don’t like to bash the refs, but when you watch the replays, there were at least 10 travels on Illinois drives that were not called including a few by Shannon.
Two other issues that I did not like-
There was someone in the crowd who was blowing a ref like whistle at critical times and it went on the full game.
Second was the ongoing harassment of Gavin whenever he was on the floor!
Two other issues that I did not like-
There was someone in the crowd who was blowing a ref like whistle at critical times and it went on the full game.
Second was the ongoing harassment of Gavin whenever he was on the floor!
Perfectly captures why this team is so bad this year. Most possessions are 5 on 3.
You want an insane stat
Illinois was 24-27 88.9% at the rim(inside 5 feet) today.
2-9 mid range, 2pt 26-36 72.2% L 86-63
22-23 @ Illinois 2pt 22-36, rim 13-21, mid 9-15 L 69-60
21-22 @ Illinois 2pt 20-33, rim 14-19, mid 6-14 L 86-51
I think Coach Underwood just understands how to beat what we do on defense better than most coaches, especially at home vs us.
20-21 @ Rutgers 2pt 25-48, Rutgers 91-88
21-22 @ Rutgers 2pt 16-35, Rutgers 70-59
23-24 @ Rutgers 2pt 21-45, Illinois 76-58
Pike will have to switch things up next year losing the last 3 vs Illinois.
Illinois was 24-27 88.9% at the rim(inside 5 feet) today.
2-9 mid range, 2pt 26-36 72.2% L 86-63
22-23 @ Illinois 2pt 22-36, rim 13-21, mid 9-15 L 69-60
21-22 @ Illinois 2pt 20-33, rim 14-19, mid 6-14 L 86-51
I think Coach Underwood just understands how to beat what we do on defense better than most coaches, especially at home vs us.
20-21 @ Rutgers 2pt 25-48, Rutgers 91-88
21-22 @ Rutgers 2pt 16-35, Rutgers 70-59
23-24 @ Rutgers 2pt 21-45, Illinois 76-58
Pike will have to switch things up next year losing the last 3 vs Illinois.
You are what you're record says you are.
Outside of Quad 1, our record is 9-0. So clearly we don't stink.
Inside Quad 1, our record is 1-8. So clearly, we aren't good.
Conclusion - We're mediocre.
Primary takeaways for me at this point:
- You can compete with the big boys with one small guard, but not two.
- Cliff, like 99% of players, plays better when he is single-teamed. He would be better with a better complimentary cast.
- Expectations for Griffiths failed to recognize the difference between high school defense and Big 10 defense.
- I like @NewJerseyHawk and he is one of the better posters on this board, but he needs to admit losing Mulcahy and Spencer over the summer killed us. :)
Outside of Quad 1, our record is 9-0. So clearly we don't stink.
Inside Quad 1, our record is 1-8. So clearly, we aren't good.
Conclusion - We're mediocre.
Primary takeaways for me at this point:
- You can compete with the big boys with one small guard, but not two.
- Cliff, like 99% of players, plays better when he is single-teamed. He would be better with a better complimentary cast.
- Expectations for Griffiths failed to recognize the difference between high school defense and Big 10 defense.
- I like @NewJerseyHawk and he is one of the better posters on this board, but he needs to admit losing Mulcahy and Spencer over the summer killed us. :)
The failure of Cliff to block any of Harmon shots as he easily got by Derek or any guard that was guarding him was puzzling as Cliff normally gets 3-4. The lack of rebounding was atrocious yesterday. Illinois stated the game missing 5-6 of the outside shots and they somehow got offensive rebounds and put backs . Gave them a 8-9 point lead when the game should have been tied. Really bad effort on the glass yesterday (46-32) hurt us more than anything. We got it to 4 down at 55-51 with 10 minutes left and failed to rebound offensively and defensively. We have to team rebound and that includes the guards and it was an utter failure of effort yesterday. Really could have used Cliff kicking out for a 3 or two during the stretch. Go look at second chance points and how many offensive rebounds Illinois converted on and the difference in the score.
You wrote, "Griffiths only 8 minutes and its a damn shame that Pike is not giving him the experience especially in a game that was over by the 7 minute mark."I said enjoy it while you can after the Nebraska win. The two game stretch at Illinois and home to Purdue had the potential to be ugly and today's performance was confirmation. Reality is Rutgers does not have enough to win regularly in this leagu. You cannot fix what you do not have. Talent is so limited. Blah blah blah..insert other game recaps. Nothing surprised me today. I did not like that were sort of flatfooted early on and Illinois got an early lead but I felt as the game wore on in the 2nd, RU started to at least compete. To me in these games vs schools that are simply better, the #1 thing I look at is competing and even if the game got out of hand at the end, RU did that. We can dwell on the negatives but sometimes you just have to try and scrape to find small positives in situations like this.
Illinois is a very very good team. Without Shannon perhaps a Sweet 16 team, with Shannon perhaps a Final 4 team. Underwood has done a fantastic job navigting the absence of Shannon. He is such a good coach. Watch out Illinois moves the ball and works hard and just does not settle for one on one shots. Commitment to succeeding offensively. They can take it to the hoop or kick it out and they didnt particularly shoot the 3 well today. So many options. Did anyone expect a win today? If you watched RU this year, you would know in your heart this was not a winnable game and if Shannon played RU still would not have won. Credit Illinois, there is no shame losing this game. Fans can harp on whether Shannon should or should not play but if charges were made against one of our players, its likely most of our fans would be supporting our player playing and cheering them. RU fans and Nj residents do not have some sort of moral chromosone any different than the fans in Illinois.
RU showed me something in that stretch where they went on a 15-4 run and cut the 16 point defecit to 55-51 with 10 minutes to go. It was about a 4 minute plus stretch of play where RU was simply outplaying Illinois and taking advantage of every Illinois mistake. That scarp and claw and never give up trait is admirable by a team that is severely overmatched. Unfortunately like vs Michigan State and Wake Forest, it fell apart from there. If you want to pinpoint the turning point of the game it was Cliff failing to convert 2x at the rim with RU down 56-51. On the following play, it was Shannon juking for a layup on the break which he followed up with another layup on a terrible Mag turnover that put Illinois up 60-51. Effectively the game was over. The Illini completed a punishing 25-8 run as RU would hit just 2fg in 6f minutes. Good effort to the 10 minute point but Underwood got Illinois to respond and have to really give them credit. RU's spirit was broked and lets be honest. Look at the options Illinois has vs Rutgers. Its men vs boys. RU would only make 4 fg the last 10 minutes while being outscored 31-12
We can take some solace that Cliff is back and unlike with some other players up and down play, we know Cliff can play at a high level so this is important. He outplayed Hawkins totally on the offensive end and Hawkins is not a slouch. Cliff needs to get all the kudos and applause he can get. After some dreadful performance and deferring to lesser talented inexperienced players, Cliff said no more. I am the man. He is following through. Another monster performance on the heels of the Nebby breakout. 22 points on 10-19 shooting...unbelieve 19 shots! 9 boards, 5 on the offensive end. Cliff carried the whole team tonight. Unfortunately no one else showed up but that is not Cliffs fault. I fully expect Cliff to keep leading by example going forward. Do not sleep on the significance of Cliff back to becoming an offensive threat which will change how other defensive have to cover RU
In trying to find some other positives. I like that J Mike got back into the rotation after limited minutes vs Nebby. Not perfect but I am not expecting that for a freshmen point guard thrust into a situation he should not be. 24 minutes, only 1-3 fg, 7 points, 3 boards, 0 assists, 2 turnovers. J Mike had the last 5 RU points in the last 4 minutes...all free throws. Not the greatest line but to me its great Pike getting him minutes vs TOP competition to toughen him up so he can learn from his mistakes now. Noah was a plus today with 10 points in 17 minutes on 4-7 fg shooting but continues to be spotty. He will give you some really good stretches but unfortunately too many stretches were he gives you nothing. Griffiths only 8 minutes and its a damn shame that Pike is not giving him the experience especially in a game that was over by the 7 minute mark. Oskar 17 minutes and that he plays that many minute says alot of the talent level right now. He made a 3 but i think fans expectations level need to be more than that. Hyatt disappeared for too long in this game. Predictably padded his stats to double digit scoring when the game was out of reach. No chance to win when he is ghosting so much in the first half. So much for Austin Williams being the consistent savior. 17 minutes of ineffective play, just 0-3 fg and was never in the flow and seemed overmatched in a game like this. Likely will have better matchups but just remember he is only capable of so much. Pike must know his role. Derek Simpson continues to be a bad shooter....3-10 fg today in only 19 minutes and people expecting him to take a leap at consistency after a really good game vs Nebby are mistaken. He is what he is. He will be effective against some teams but simply does not have the hops against the Illinois men. Mag who has been sensational and so consistent offensively for RU had an awful game. Might have been bothered by Illinois size and he never got into any rhythm and with him being the heart of the RU defense its no surprise the RU defense never approached elite level today. Woofolk just 13 minutes, 1-4 fg, only 1 rebound, active in garbage time. Just overmatched in league play. Chol 3 minutes..nuff said.
Onto Purdue at the RAC. RU has had great success vs Purdue in victory and defeat. Cliff has limited Edey as well. I expect RU to compete in front of a raucous RAC crowd. RU will have to have their absolute best shooting night of the season to pull the giant upset. The gap between the two schools is much larger than in the previous 2 seasons even as Purdue remains at the lofty perch at the top of the rankings. I know there were some clinging to some fantasy NCAA run and that they were not giving up on this team but without being Purdue, you can shut the door definitively on any possibility of that. RU currently has 8 losses and all the losses are to NCAA likely or bubble schools. The schedule lessens considerably after Purdue. Remember that. Thats is what Pike needs to be setting goals for in these games because instead of being overwhelmed, RU will have the ability to compete and win games vs the Michigans, Penn States, and Marylands of the world.
You're a far keener observer than I am. Do you have any idea why Pike is doing this? I like Pike but this is beyond puzzling.
I am not big on whining about referees because they all suck every game, none are good. But I will agree with you, it seemed as if Illinois got away with 5 travels off of drives from the wing toward the hoop. The travels really stood out.
Funny because while watching those plays I kept thinking "I've been watching this game for 50 years. Do I not know the rules"?
I know in the NBA they let two steps to the basket go. But aren't they supposed to call it in college?
Wow nice write up only thing I would disagree with is your thoughts of Underwood being such a great coach. The same guy that has under achieved tremendously in the ncaa tournaments. I think even with a one seed he did not even make the sweet 16.I said enjoy it while you can after the Nebraska win. The two game stretch at Illinois and home to Purdue had the potential to be ugly and today's performance was confirmation. Reality is Rutgers does not have enough to win regularly in this leagu. You cannot fix what you do not have. Talent is so limited. Blah blah blah..insert other game recaps. Nothing surprised me today. I did not like that were sort of flatfooted early on and Illinois got an early lead but I felt as the game wore on in the 2nd, RU started to at least compete. To me in these games vs schools that are simply better, the #1 thing I look at is competing and even if the game got out of hand at the end, RU did that. We can dwell on the negatives but sometimes you just have to try and scrape to find small positives in situations like this.
Illinois is a very very good team. Without Shannon perhaps a Sweet 16 team, with Shannon perhaps a Final 4 team. Underwood has done a fantastic job navigting the absence of Shannon. He is such a good coach. Watch out Illinois moves the ball and works hard and just does not settle for one on one shots. Commitment to succeeding offensively. They can take it to the hoop or kick it out and they didnt particularly shoot the 3 well today. So many options. Did anyone expect a win today? If you watched RU this year, you would know in your heart this was not a winnable game and if Shannon played RU still would not have won. Credit Illinois, there is no shame losing this game. Fans can harp on whether Shannon should or should not play but if charges were made against one of our players, its likely most of our fans would be supporting our player playing and cheering them. RU fans and Nj residents do not have some sort of moral chromosone any different than the fans in Illinois.
RU showed me something in that stretch where they went on a 15-4 run and cut the 16 point defecit to 55-51 with 10 minutes to go. It was about a 4 minute plus stretch of play where RU was simply outplaying Illinois and taking advantage of every Illinois mistake. That scarp and claw and never give up trait is admirable by a team that is severely overmatched. Unfortunately like vs Michigan State and Wake Forest, it fell apart from there. If you want to pinpoint the turning point of the game it was Cliff failing to convert 2x at the rim with RU down 56-51. On the following play, it was Shannon juking for a layup on the break which he followed up with another layup on a terrible Mag turnover that put Illinois up 60-51. Effectively the game was over. The Illini completed a punishing 25-8 run as RU would hit just 2fg in 6f minutes. Good effort to the 10 minute point but Underwood got Illinois to respond and have to really give them credit. RU's spirit was broked and lets be honest. Look at the options Illinois has vs Rutgers. Its men vs boys. RU would only make 4 fg the last 10 minutes while being outscored 31-12
We can take some solace that Cliff is back and unlike with some other players up and down play, we know Cliff can play at a high level so this is important. He outplayed Hawkins totally on the offensive end and Hawkins is not a slouch. Cliff needs to get all the kudos and applause he can get. After some dreadful performance and deferring to lesser talented inexperienced players, Cliff said no more. I am the man. He is following through. Another monster performance on the heels of the Nebby breakout. 22 points on 10-19 shooting...unbelieve 19 shots! 9 boards, 5 on the offensive end. Cliff carried the whole team tonight. Unfortunately no one else showed up but that is not Cliffs fault. I fully expect Cliff to keep leading by example going forward. Do not sleep on the significance of Cliff back to becoming an offensive threat which will change how other defensive have to cover RU
In trying to find some other positives. I like that J Mike got back into the rotation after limited minutes vs Nebby. Not perfect but I am not expecting that for a freshmen point guard thrust into a situation he should not be. 24 minutes, only 1-3 fg, 7 points, 3 boards, 0 assists, 2 turnovers. J Mike had the last 5 RU points in the last 4 minutes...all free throws. Not the greatest line but to me its great Pike getting him minutes vs TOP competition to toughen him up so he can learn from his mistakes now. Noah was a plus today with 10 points in 17 minutes on 4-7 fg shooting but continues to be spotty. He will give you some really good stretches but unfortunately too many stretches were he gives you nothing. Griffiths only 8 minutes and its a damn shame that Pike is not giving him the experience especially in a game that was over by the 7 minute mark. Oskar 17 minutes and that he plays that many minute says alot of the talent level right now. He made a 3 but i think fans expectations level need to be more than that. Hyatt disappeared for too long in this game. Predictably padded his stats to double digit scoring when the game was out of reach. No chance to win when he is ghosting so much in the first half. So much for Austin Williams being the consistent savior. 17 minutes of ineffective play, just 0-3 fg and was never in the flow and seemed overmatched in a game like this. Likely will have better matchups but just remember he is only capable of so much. Pike must know his role. Derek Simpson continues to be a bad shooter....3-10 fg today in only 19 minutes and people expecting him to take a leap at consistency after a really good game vs Nebby are mistaken. He is what he is. He will be effective against some teams but simply does not have the hops against the Illinois men. Mag who has been sensational and so consistent offensively for RU had an awful game. Might have been bothered by Illinois size and he never got into any rhythm and with him being the heart of the RU defense its no surprise the RU defense never approached elite level today. Woofolk just 13 minutes, 1-4 fg, only 1 rebound, active in garbage time. Just overmatched in league play. Chol 3 minutes..nuff said.
Onto Purdue at the RAC. RU has had great success vs Purdue in victory and defeat. Cliff has limited Edey as well. I expect RU to compete in front of a raucous RAC crowd. RU will have to have their absolute best shooting night of the season to pull the giant upset. The gap between the two schools is much larger than in the previous 2 seasons even as Purdue remains at the lofty perch at the top of the rankings. I know there were some clinging to some fantasy NCAA run and that they were not giving up on this team but without being Purdue, you can shut the door definitively on any possibility of that. RU currently has 8 losses and all the losses are to NCAA likely or bubble schools. The schedule lessens considerably after Purdue. Remember that. Thats is what Pike needs to be setting goals for in these games because instead of being overwhelmed, RU will have the ability to compete and win games vs the Michigans, Penn States, and Marylands of the world.
I think the makeup of his team wasnt always the best. I think with Shannon this is his best team to get to the final 4, more pieces than the team from a few years ago
likely as many have said here Griffiths is not grasping the pace of the game. Seems confused in his rotations, alot of standing around the perimeter...and on defense routinely beat. Just overall does not seem comfortable in a way we should. I fully expected us to have a guy who would be able to step in right away much like Farmer/Inman/Rosario did when they were freshmen. I think part of the problem is the rest of the roster doesnt exactly work to help Griffiths get any better. Griffiths had some offense early but now has spiralled confidence wise. Maybe he learns by observing
"I think part of the problem is the rest of the roster doesn't exactly work to help Griffiths get any better." I agree, so why doesn't Pike play the 1 or 2 guys who will work with him? The season is lost anyway and Gavin improving is a major part of next year. If the answer is there is no one on the team willing to help Gavin get better, that's an indictment of Pike and surely an indication that Gavin leaves.
There are zero players on this team that make others around them better on offense
That indictment is as much about mindset as skillset. Pike can't do too much about their skillset, but he sure can about their mindset. That Pike allows the most selfish RU team I can remember just to carry on night after night with no consequences, is, for me, the most disappointing thing about the season.
