well i think i and we have talked about it for a while actually....its a horribly constructed roster
GAME 19 PENN STATE: Shattered Dreams
- Thread starter bac2therac
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I think alot acknowledged it but they didnt want to spend much time on it. Recruiting by Pike has always been a concern for me because of an inordinate amount of flat out misses while plugging in MAAC level players
This is the problem. Our very good players are young and our our experienced players don’t match up with those on the other teams.
Non-hostile environment is 100% correct, one of the easier big 10 road wins to get. This group is just a mediocre, .500 team. Earlier in the year, Dylan played great and Ace was having his issues. Now, Ace has turned a corner and his play has picked up and Dylan has stepped back ever since the flu and then tonight’s no show. The role players show up periodically but not consistently enough. The defense has been an ongoing problem, the rebounding was awful early on but that seems to have improved. We shot free throws great early in the season, then later in the year we were hitting 50% in a game. My point is, this is a very flawed team, it’s almost as if a wheel gets spun prior to the game and wherever the wheel lands that is going to be the flaw that costs this team the win. The wheel has included such items as: Defense, Rebounding, Role Player contributions, 3 point shooting, Free throw shooting, Turnovers, Maturity and Composure and Repeatable and consistent offense. My point is, it’s always something this team, they’re a .500 team. 2 lottery picks this year but the same results as when we had Andre Hyatt and Simpson, a different roster but the same results.
and even though we had another rough offensive stretch they still shot 50%...it just seems like a bad shooting 35% night is coming soon and one where the 3 doesnt go in either. But yeah you are right, its a spin of the wheel, one thing gets fixed and something else goes wrong. Wash rinse repeat, its sort of been the same since St Johns right...the overexuburence over two wins in a row blinded but the curtain is lifted and Im not falling for it anymore.
and to your last point..how said is that...team is headed to the same season with Hyatt, Cliff, Mag, and Simpson
its fair to ask BUT he should be fresh after he had flu and played only one and half games and then apparently recovered....and he did hurt the ankle tonight..on the other hand he was pretty pedestrian before the injury which was like the first 15 minutes of the first half?
That stat is beyond infuriating. When he came out around the 9 minute mark, we all knew Ace was carrying us and Dylan was playing like Derkack or any one of the other role players. We had to have Ace in as much as possible, Dylan actually played 32 on a night when he couldn’t do anything. Ace was bringing it tonight, like a pitcher with his best stuff out on the mound, we needed 35 or 36 minutes from him and on no planet should Dylan have played more minutes than Ace tonight. I don’t know if we win with more minutes from Ace, but I know we have a better chance at a win tonight.
He was unstoppable and now most possessions he is deferring to others. Doesnt seem like he has energy.
The flaws are so obvious and persistent. The team is not better. They are bad and have been bad all year.
well old man ace baldwin played 40 minutes the past two games after having bad back problems for a stretch...we need to stop making excuses
perhaps he is afraid of getting hurt further
I don’t get some of the substitution patterns. Rhoades somehow understands that he needs to ride Baldwin the entire game to have a chance to win. The guy played 40 mins and he’s not 100%. Meanwhile Bailey is lighting the net on fire and every time you blink Pike has him on the bench. Unless they were working on his ankle, he should have been in the game entire 2nd half.
Bingo, he went from high energy in Vegas and productive games every game to him now being like Low Energy Jeb Bush. He stands in the corner or dribbles out the shot clock and then passes late in the clock to a teammate. I know he was sick, but that’s over with. He seems to stand around a hell of a lot more than what he did in November and December. Maybe he has hit a freshman wall, maybe he had the worst flu ever in the history of the flu and he’s still affected (I know he turned his ankle tonight, but he still was not aggressive prior to the turned ankle). I don’t know the cause, I just know that we now have a low energy result.
Braden Smith had 6 points 3 turnovers 5 assists vs PSU.
Harper obviously got the best of PSU the first game but Baldwin is the best defender in the league. They forced the ball out of Dylan’s hands and made everyone else try to beat them. It has nothing to do with a freshman wall.
The fact that Baldwin played 40 is EVEN MORE INFURIATING. Pike can’t play Ace or Dylan 37 or 38 or even 40 minutes to get a win? Tonight was the night to ride Ace as much as possible and we only get 30 minutes out of him?!?!?!?! On a night when he couldn’t miss, on a night when Dylan played like a zero star and just didn’t have it, we needed as much as possible from Ace. These guys are one and dones, Pike can’t say, “well they’re freshman so I want to limit their minutes”…..it’s a one year deal, a one year contract with these two so play them 36-40 minutes. Treat them like they’re seniors from a minutes perspective, they are clearly our best players and the only guys who can truly compete at high levels on this team.
Think the craziest thing about this season is how bad JWill is. Just cut the guy at this point and let him go play at 24 hour Fitness
Still not giving up.
We lost to ridiculous hot three-point shooting with an injured Harper.
yes.. the envelope is getting smaller... odds of a successful season are shrinking... but Harper and Bailey are stellar and we may never see the likes of two Knights playing together at this level ever again.. or at least in what's left of my lifetime.. so, I refuse to give up and will enjoy every game. Then again, I never had the high expectations for this season that some here had.
We lost to ridiculous hot three-point shooting with an injured Harper.
yes.. the envelope is getting smaller... odds of a successful season are shrinking... but Harper and Bailey are stellar and we may never see the likes of two Knights playing together at this level ever again.. or at least in what's left of my lifetime.. so, I refuse to give up and will enjoy every game. Then again, I never had the high expectations for this season that some here had.
What the hell are you talking about ? Every post has spoken of getting something from the supporting cast and most nights we get 0’s across the board on rebounds , points , any positive contribution from not 1 not 2 , but 3-4 players. It is the obvious reason we do not have a 13-6 record right now. No leadership from Jeremiah or Acuff or Martini or PJ as seniors or grads that are supposed to be better and give you smart critical plays for wins. We got 40 from them the other night and beat Nebraska with ACE and Dylan giving us 45. Most games much less but no critical rebounding , terrible turnovers , low basketball IQ plays , lack of hitting a big shot . We have gotten almost nothing from the cast and that is why we are 10-9 and did not blow out more teams.
ACE and Dylan have exceeded expectations and ACE gets better as an all around player every game out. They has been 5 or 6 of the best performances ever in a Rutgers uniform with Dylan back to back against Notre Dame and Alabama and the first triple double in 43 years against Columbia. and ACE ‘s 39 and 30 point games. They are historic performances and only 2 were wins because the supporting cast laid an egg at a critical juncture ( Alabama ) , Penn State tonight and Indiana without Dylan and totally nothing from the supporting cast.
Every sees it and is sick over it but you seem to revel in it. Wow !!!
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It goes back to something I said early in the season..
We need Ace and Dylan to play at the elite level they are capable of every game all season....
Can we win games if one has a bad game? Can we win games if one misses time?
The answer to both is no unfortunately. The supporting cast just isn't good enough and that's on Pike. He blew it
We need Ace and Dylan to play at the elite level they are capable of every game all season....
Can we win games if one has a bad game? Can we win games if one misses time?
The answer to both is no unfortunately. The supporting cast just isn't good enough and that's on Pike. He blew it
Insane. Everyone else can't score. Ace can't miss. Too many possessions he doesn't touch the ball or only does 35 feet from the basket. Ace was unstoppable. We needed to go to him relentlessly
If that is indeed a problem (which I don’t think it is), that’s a coaching issue.
If they left ace in he probably would have fouled out with 10 minutes left and then everyone would be killing pike for not having him for last 2 minutes. Ace needs to understand he can't pick up dumb fouls and go after every block. And at some point you need williams, derkack, acuff to actually contribute something instead of being turnover machines.
Maybe. He picked up his 3rd about 3 mins into the 2nd half and picked up his 4th with about 4 1/2 left. The long stretch that he sat midway through the 2nd half was when PSU flipped the game. A comedy of turnovers and missed shots resulting in an 11-0 run. I agree that they need the bench to step up but your 1 and done lottery pick should be able to stay on the floor late in the 2nd with 3 fouls. Especially on a night when he can’t miss.
Harper is a tremendous basketball player when healthy,In Rutgers case there are no backups to makeup the scoring deficit when Harper doesn't score in high double figures.In this game Bailey scores 30 points but Harper only seven points.Rutgers loss by six points.Roster formation has been a failure .Hayes,Martini and Acuff were supposed to provide 3 point scoring .Williams was supposed to be the third scoring threat.The centers were expected to rebound/defend and make baskets on put backs or dunks.The rest of the players were to get limited minutes.The coaching staff and the players share equal blame for the disappointing results.
Ace Baldwin is a senior. Dylan Harper is a freshman. The freshman wall is predictable.
Plus player A may be able to play 40 minutes doesn't mean player B can play 40 minutes. I can train perfectly my whole life and I wouldn't be able to run a 3 hour marathon.
Plum nails it again.
RU fans sold themselves a bill of goods with this team before the season. In hindsight, expecting two elite freshman and a collection of lower level role players to win in the B1G was mostly fantasy.
This season has turned into a showcase for Ace and Dylan, while team goals seemed to never get off the ground. I don’t think RU fans signed up to watch AAU ball.
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It's possible...
He never got back to 100% from the flu (looked close vs. Neb) and then the ankle definitely zapped some of this burst.
But I think best answer for last night was PSU's game plan was to shut him down. Reason why those corner 3s were open all night (even before they went to the zone) and probably why he got hurt driving in the first place. The middle was so clogged up PSU made it damn near impossible for him to get to the rim and he just never locked in his outisde shot.
I think this how teams are going to play us for the most part. Ace is harder to fully shut down since he seems to be able to hit impossible shot after impossible shot. But if you take away the middle and leave our pedestrian shooters open then you are getting all those corner 3 bricks from JMike, JWill, Derkack etc.
Inconsistency is this team's major issue
You're right, one thing gets fixed but something else goes wrong
Last night shots were falling but Rutgers commits 17 turnovers (many that were self-inflicted)
On the defensive end, they fix the rebounding issue but allow 10 made 3 PT shots
I've been saying it all year, WGAF about NBA highlights and plays.
Get the W at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, this is turning out to be a VERY forgettable team and season
Unless Pikiell can spark something but I'm finding it super unlikely
its amazing really...at a normal successful program, the things that Dylan and especially Ace lately would be getting thread after thread..woah did you see that dunk..blah blah. The sad thing is we cannot even appreciate these kind of plays that we never had at Rutgers and probably will never see again simply because we are not winning the games. Ace put up one of the greatest shooting nights in RU history but its buried and no one cares. Ace has a highlight film for scouts to salivate over but where does that get the fans.....its likely going to end up being a season of resentment
as for a spark, it was great winning the last 2, program needed that yet people started to get sucked in like last year that we turned the corner when in reality we beat up on distracted team struggling and played another of our patented close games vs Nebby but this time came out on top. Same movie with Penn State..everything tight, never extending a lead and this time it was a loss. There was nothing I saw last night that would indicate the team is any different substantially than a month or 6 weeks ago. Yes small improvements but the core issues remain. I still think we beat one of the big 3..msu/ill/mich but that get us nowhere
last night was a really missed opportunity to legitimately stay in the hunt for a ncaa bid, 4-9 in Q1/2/3 and now the ask is for them to 9-4 or 10-3 in those same games.
This season has now become the self fulfilling prophecy. For a year all we heard about was Ace and Dylan, Dylan and Ace. It was about them instead of the team. Now, for the rest of the year, the only reason to watch is for them. Ace hitting turn around 3 pt'rs is fun to watch at least.
This was at the Crux of the off season conversation that Rutgers was destined for a sweet 16 run bc history tells us when you have two players this good you are usually a good team.
We would not be in the predicament we are in if we were Kentucky and John Cal bc we would have a stable of high level talent already in place or brought into place to support Ace and Dylan. When looking at the precedent we were much more similar to the biggest outlier on that list, Washington. Who failed to make tournament iirc.
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