This is a bad year, but grading the defense as a C is completely non-serious. It is the fourth-best defense in America. There are plenty of things to rip Pike for this season without being intellectually dishonest
I love Coach Pike but……….
- Thread starter RuBird
- Start date
Idk, the random letter grades this guy pulled out of his ass here seem pretty legit to me.
The 2018-19 team went 14-17 and 7-13 with a loss to Fordham and an overtime win over Columbia. I’d say that team qualifies easily as being as bad as our current one. Probably worse. The 2019-20 team was heading to the NCAA tournament - no roster overhaul and certainly no 5 star newcomers - let alone national ranks 2 and 3.
😂, I did give him a c, and qualified it has been inconsistent, since the 4 game win streak the defense has not been good, defense is effort Pike has been great at getting effort in the past something is off.
The fact it’s the end of the year when your strengths should carry you is the the reason I gave him a C
We are on the verge of finishing 13th in a 14th team conference how could you give any grade higher that a C with that result. Even with a curve.
I hope we see the same level of turnaround next year
As a lifelong fan nothing would make me happier!
😂
It’s a message discussion board, you are welcome to give your own grades and opinions.
This won’t impact Pikes GPA.
Literally everything about next season is pointing to it being significantly better
All these the sky is falling posts wouldn't sound so ridiculous if we had a mediocre class coming in next year instead of the best in school history
I have expressed my concerns, I am hoping for the best and do believe Pike is a better coach than he has demonstrated this year.
Next season starts 5 minutes after this disappointing season ends!
Pike has done more with a lot less talent than he will have next season
Everyone should be in board supporting Pike and the team
If next season is a disaster and you want to go after Pike, that's fair
What else could you ask for after a down year though? You want him to fix it right? Bring in better players right? Well he as done about as perfect of a job as you could possibly ask for doing that with the next class
Looking forward to next year.
Pointing out this year’s short comings on a sports discussion board in America is allowed and at one time was encouraged , it does not Equate to lack of support.
I am on board as most fans are. We can also say he didn’t do a good job this year, 13th Big10 finish.
No excuses his team his doing.
That is called accountability.
I am grateful we have an incredible trio of players coming in.
If he does great I will be the first to breakdown my opinion of his greatness.
We will know very quickly based on portal management what direction we are heading.
What an interesting discussion. I actually read all of it. It seems like there's a bit of hyperbole and exaggeration going on here at times. So far in this thread I have learned:
- PIke coached at Rutgers for 10 years
- We have an average or below average defense despite being ranked in the top 5 overall.
- What happened 30 years ago at Rutgers doesn't matter but it does when building up Chris Collins' resume
The take I would have said instead was, "Pike's had a rough year. He's had a lot of obstacles, some of them due to player losses, some due to poor recruiting. Things need to be better next year due to the hype and if not, we need to start doing some serious soul searching here on if it's time to make some changes."
But hey, that's just me.
- PIke coached at Rutgers for 10 years
- We have an average or below average defense despite being ranked in the top 5 overall.
- What happened 30 years ago at Rutgers doesn't matter but it does when building up Chris Collins' resume
The take I would have said instead was, "Pike's had a rough year. He's had a lot of obstacles, some of them due to player losses, some due to poor recruiting. Things need to be better next year due to the hype and if not, we need to start doing some serious soul searching here on if it's time to make some changes."
But hey, that's just me.
I still cannot believe we are on page 4 of this topic. LOL!!
Pike definitely has to recruit more impact players in the portal. It's not going to be all his responsibility however, if everyone is looking for a bag and we don't have enough money. However, that's his problem to figure out. But you are right, it's one bad year and not all his fault by any means.
It's interesting to watch people bash Pike as both a coach and a recruiter. If he stinks at both how do you explain the last 5 years?
This is the wonderful thing about the internet. Having a discussion with my cat about Rutgers basketball would be fruitful than engaging RUDivision and yet people have been doing it for four pages now.
lol I’ve been trying in vain to make this point forever. You can have bad recruiter or bad coach but you absolutely cannot have both
You’re not being silenced or oppressed just because everyone thinks your takes are ass.
Floux
Go get a spreadsheet and tell me how Jwill midrange shot is a bad shot and he should shoot more 3’s or how this defensive team is better then last year in a big ten that is absolutely garbage this year. Hi to the cat !
You can not be 286 in defensive rebounding and be a great defense. C was a good grade considering how bad the big ten as a conference is this year.
Well he’s 46.7% on far 2s which is actually a better than average shot on this year’s Rutgers team but isn’t a good shot generally.
Anytime you can replace a midrange shot with an open 3 you should probably do it.
Yes and no. This years team gives up slightly more points but scoring is up across the league. So it’s ranked higher but isn’t better in absolute terms.
Big Ten is fine.
🐱
The flaw is sometimes a shooter cannot make the open 3. So simply saying open 3 is better is wrong. Sometimes the shooter is more efficient with the midrange then an open 3. Numbers aren’t always the answer
Numbers can in fact tell you whether the shooter is more efficient with the midrange than the three. If the shooter can make enough more from midrange to make up for the shot being worth 33% fewer points, then he would in fact be more efficient from midrange. This is rarely the case, but I won't rule out that there exist some people for whom it is true.
J. Williams has been more efficient from midrange (46.7%, .934 points per shot) than from three (20%, .6 points per shot) but given he's only taken 20 threes so far I don't think that means very much.
Why has he only taken 20? Could it be he does not have the confidence and he knows he can’t not make them(inefficient ) You can explain away this by sample size if you wish. Simply, there are players who are just better midrange players. It’s not always layup and dunks. It’s ok!
See this is an issue with a lot of fans. Defense isn’t just effort at all. Pike runs an incredible scheme and gets players to buy in. He doesn’t quite have the personel this year for a truly amazing one, but still was able to cobble together a top 5 D which is amazing. I don’t think this team is lazy, it’s just difficult playing a very intense system for 40 minutes without much depth and players forced to Hurd out of position.
Maybe! You're the one who brought up J. Williams lol. I don't have a major issue with his shot selection. Simpson should definitely replace his midrange shots with threes though. And, unless you have a good reason to believe otherwise, the default assumption is always going to be that a three is better.
Fair! You just seem to believe 3 or layup!
Dylan will be fun to chart because the strength of his game is all midrange. When we just say midrange is a bad shot and should be an “open3”. Is ridiculous to me. I think about Tim Duncan or Jordan just midrange assassins. I just struggle with analytics only conversations. Maybe that’s why every coach hates Ken Pom and rankings.
Like that this team is anyway close defensively then last years team is just ridiculously.
All good ! Healthy disagreement! No worries at all.
You mean to tell me you end up with a top 5 defense just by trying really really hard?
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Glad he had a statistically top 5 D
I wish those stats translated to getting us out of the basement of the Big 10.
That’s seems to be the issue.
You lost me on cobbling and truly amazing. Those comments leave me questioning how truly amazing the metric is.
Maybe one day they can have final 4 trophies for the top 4 teams in the country using that metric. That would be cool.
We only missed it by 1 this year.
Well we are a top 5 D but 286 in defense rebounding! Numbers are wonderful things
I feel as if Pike has hit a plateau.
He doesn't seem to have the guys playing with the same consistent energy and defense. They aren't playing as a team, the pieces don't match, it just seems like NIL happened, he got 2 big players for next year, and he's like "F it. Let's count on raw talent next year and run the floor/play iso"
You dont see any guys in the pipeline who are continuing to buy in and develop the way Ron, Caleb, Geo did. There is no momentum. There is no build and goal.
I don't expect next year to be as great as everyone thinks. Look at Griffiths this year. Look at other teams with "NBA talent" for one year...it doesn't garauntee anything. Esp w the team looking so lost and disjointed. And with another 1 year rental of those guys, what is the end game?
I'm starting to think that may e the NIL era is the end of Pike's effectiveness. It sucks, but the old model of developing guys that fit the culture is gone. It sucks all around for college sports. Every year is a brand new team, and you can't build programs that way. Pike is/was a program builder, not a 1 year FA signing lighting in a bottle type.
He doesn't seem to have the guys playing with the same consistent energy and defense. They aren't playing as a team, the pieces don't match, it just seems like NIL happened, he got 2 big players for next year, and he's like "F it. Let's count on raw talent next year and run the floor/play iso"
You dont see any guys in the pipeline who are continuing to buy in and develop the way Ron, Caleb, Geo did. There is no momentum. There is no build and goal.
I don't expect next year to be as great as everyone thinks. Look at Griffiths this year. Look at other teams with "NBA talent" for one year...it doesn't garauntee anything. Esp w the team looking so lost and disjointed. And with another 1 year rental of those guys, what is the end game?
I'm starting to think that may e the NIL era is the end of Pike's effectiveness. It sucks, but the old model of developing guys that fit the culture is gone. It sucks all around for college sports. Every year is a brand new team, and you can't build programs that way. Pike is/was a program builder, not a 1 year FA signing lighting in a bottle type.
