The concern I have is that the scouting report on recruit Ware makes a comparison to Lathan.
Excited for Nwuli though.
If coaching were not a factor, where does Rutgers rank in the Big Ten?
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Excited for Nwuli though.
The pathetic truth is the neither Ace or Dylan made any of their teammates better nor did they make each other better
The problem with Lathan appears two fold to me:
- You need to design your entire defense around him. Can't rely on JWill, Davis and Derkack. Need actual perimeter defenders. It might not be HC Pike's preferred system but can he not adapt? He can't only have 1 way to play defense and with a different center type the team is terrible.
- Because of Lathans defense (see #1), he needs to provide substantial offensive impact. However, he's not really effective away from the basket - either shooting or as a distributor. Could he get better? Sure. Can we take that risk? Not so sure. So the entire offense would revolve around him posting up in the lane with minimal passing back out. Teams could just swarm him and cause issues. He needs to spend all off-season passing out of double teams and shooting.
He’s not a 25+ mpg type. We can’t ride with him, Ware and Lathan. We need to go into portal and pick someone up.
The answer to 1 is clearly going to be no, given our starting point. We have the guys we have and realistically, whether they stay or go, we’d be lucky to land 2-3 really good, solid players from the transfer portal in total. Unless you think our new frosh are coming in and will instantly provide what your suggesting which seems very unlikely.
Aside from this, it should also be noted that at no point in Pike’s tenure at Rutgers has he had the type of backcourt that your describing that would compliment Lathan’s defensive play to the point where it wouldn’t be a significant liability. Lathan wouldn’t have worked out as the starting center in place of MJ or Cliff as the starting center on any of our NCAA caliber teams. Shaq Carter’s role or Cliff’s role backing up MJ would’ve been much more appropriate. Remember Paul played a ton of minutes on those teams.
I’m hoping we’re going to aim for that 2014-15 press VA style that turned things around for Bob Huggins and was working out quite well when we had a kid like Mag to navigate it. Being allowed 15 scholarships makes the possibility of moving this direction intriguing. More kids are used in a press system. Kids stay fresh. The only requirement is recruit a roster full of kids who truly buy in to defense first and play hard every defensive possession to that end. Huggins hit jackpot that year with Jevon Carter in his frosh class. Maybe we’re due for some luck. I think the guards we have could blend in ok with a system like that - at least some of them. I’m having trouble envisioning any defense where Lathan can be effective next season.
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If for whatever reason he does, he’s not someone who would return to Rutgers with demands. He won’t expect anything from Pike. He’s a super senior coming off a disappointing season. He’s not deterring others from coming to Rutgers.
Lathan is a different story. If we’re keeping him and bringing in Ware, it’s going to be hard to get a 3rd big kid. At that point Ogbole is probably the best we would do.
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