The pace of the game impacts all of these stats. Faster possessions equals more possessions, more shots, and more rebounds. Last year‘s team was a much faster paced team than previous years.
Last scholly - what say you?
- Thread starter JayDogSmooth
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Agree, it's why I make a point to say we were still bad and were outrebounded by three per. Just getting rebounds isnt' the whole story.
Nobody would’ve watched MJ and assessed him as “soft”. I’m talking about relative to the pack of all D1 centers - to keep things simple. A “soft” BIG who can’t shoot would never see the floor even at a mid tier at D1 level. I hate being stereotypical, but European BIGs (not all but many) tend to trend towards a finess style - shy away from contact. Taught good xos early on in terms of offensive ball rotation - but on average (again there are exceptions) they tend to come in as softer style players who prefer to step out and shoot rather than absorb contact. D also tends to trail. There are certainly exceptions and some excellent European players out there. I’m skeptical of why this kid wasn’t recruited earlier.
This, 100%. Our guards and wings were tiny last year and not effective under the boards. We have much more height and athleticism at the guards and wings. Look at Illinois last season, Shannon, Dumask, Ty Rodgers, Hawkins (played as an undersized Center), those guys could get boards. I see this year’s team being similar as we have more height and better athletes this year at the guards/wings. We can’t even compare Dylan’s ability to rebound with Derek Simpson. We can’t even compare Ace’s athleticism to Aundre Hyatt, who was asked to get boards last season. Derkack and Hayes are not small players either. JWill can help get boards. We lost Cliff’s athleticism and rebounding, but at times Cliff didn’t box out, lost focus on the boards and he got pushed around by certain bigs (MS State game last year is example). Cliff also didn’t have enough help a lot of the time, but I see this year’s team differently that rebounds as a TEAM from multiple players and not just a center, somewhat like Illinois.
Bringing up another senior laden team again though. Illinois had 4 seniors average 5.5 rebounds a game. Those seniors were also their best players. They got another 7 per from juniors. They got 3.8 rebounds a game combined out of freshman. Rebounding is a grown man's thing for the most part, it's not just about athleticism, or Cliff would have average 12 a game.
If every kid on this team was a junior, I would agree with everyone, this could be a very good rebounding team. Right now, it's much more unknown than a sure thing. I think Derkack is the only player on the team that has ever averaged 4 boards a game at the college level. Can he do that jumping up two levels in limited PT? Will Martini be better than ever jumping up?
I'm a you can't do it until you actually do it , so we need to wait and see how many of these guys can. That's why this season will be so fun, watching to see if guys can be as good as we hope.
name one. even the recognized top NBA defensive players now and of all time got drafted primarily due to offensive talent.
Dylan and Ace are hoping to be Top 5 draft pics and it's only their offense that will or won't enable that. They will not often exert any more energy on D, an exception being on a critical late possession on D..
Domask had never played at the Big 10 level before last year, he proved it can be done. He was not a Senior who played 3 years in the Big 10 previously. Ty Rodgers as a Sophomore last year at 6’6” was very solid on the boards. Not saying they will be Illinois, but there rebounding will likely look similar in style to Illinois where groups of players average 3-4 per game, another few around 4-5 per game, then a few at 5-6 and then maybe one player who leads the pack with 7 or higher. Illinois did not have a player average higher than 6.1 RPG, yet they were still 12th in rebounding margin and 7th as a team in total RPG. Will RU be as good at it as Illinois? Probably not, but the rebounding will be a similar all hands on deck, team concept style with multiple players getting boards each game as opposed to just a traditional Center and a Power forward. I think they will hold their own in the rebounding department, will they be 12th in rebounding margin like Illinois, not likely, but with the multi-positional players, size, and athleticism they will have on the roster, they will rebound in a similar style to Illinois and I don’t see rebounding as a huge negative for them next year.
Jokic isnt athletic enough for the Big Ten either - but I’ll take my chances on a 6’11” Serbian.
Oh, agree, rebounding can be done team wide, you don't need one 12 rebound guy. I'd feel better about it if anyone had even done 5 before at this level though. I do think we'll put up rebounding numbers, can we win the rebounding battle is tbd. If we want to outscore teams, we need to.
Your comment about Europeans playing soft would mainly be true about French and Spanish players, but is almost certainly not true about Serbs and other ex-Yugoslav countries, where they play a very physical style of basketball. With respect to this kid, there was no reason he would be on any college’s radar, he looked to be a player who would be staying in Europe until he came to the US this fall to come to school, and he ended up going to a tiny Christian school with 70 total students, which no one would be following. It wasn’t until he showed up to play at AOT in the past few weeks that he started getting lots of attention.
Went down a rabbit hole of watching Lathan video today, hoping to convince myself he be better than I think early. Maybe if he gets in shape and his motor doesn't stop when he's out there, its possible. Found this quote below from the kid that was Mr. Illinois, or player of the year, also a center, going to Illinois. Looks as though they took turns being in foul trouble in their match ups.
“He throws his body around,” Johnson said when asked what it is like to guard Sommerville. “He wants to shoot. He’s not that physical. He wants to play around the perimeter most of the game.”
“He throws his body around,” Johnson said when asked what it is like to guard Sommerville. “He wants to shoot. He’s not that physical. He wants to play around the perimeter most of the game.”
Fair enough. I admittedly dont know that much about Serbian specific players. And the comment was more a thought that perhaps the softness is about the way the game is taught there. But certainly could be some countries and not others for sure.
I thought he would play a lot of 4 initially but sounds like he doesn't want to... we'll see what actually happens but he might have to
I keep thinking same thing as we may have 3 guards on the floor for stretches. If Ace is on the with Dylan, JWill, and Acuff/Derkack/Hayes and the opponent has a 6’9” power forward to go with a Center, then Ace would be the one to be at the 4 in those scenarios with a 3 guard/wing lineup.
It all depends on matchups. Martini and Grant both project to play real minutes and can defend the 4. In most games Ace shouldn't have to spend a lot of time defending a rugged 4.
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Agreed. I think if Ace preferred the 4, Gavin would still be on the roster.
Rutgers basketball predicted as landing spot for transfer portal center Ugonna Onyenso
Rutgers basketball predicted to land a transfer portal center.
rutgerswire.usatoday.com
First of all, there aren’t a lot of rugged 4s anymore. But it works both ways, some big slow plodding 4 will watch Ace just blow by him.
Rutgers basketball predicted as landing spot for transfer portal center Ugonna Onyenso
Rutgers basketball predicted to land a transfer portal center.
Wow, I thought we were out for him
I’ll gladly take that!Rutgers basketball predicted as landing spot for transfer portal center Ugonna Onyenso
Rutgers basketball predicted to land a transfer portal center.
Rutgers basketball predicted as landing spot for transfer portal center Ugonna Onyenso
Rutgers basketball predicted to land a transfer portal center.
Sharpen the pencil. If Ace and Dylan play 32 minutes you have only 56 minutes for a bunch of players if Ace isnt at the 4
Our offense may look different from what we’ve ever seen but in the past, there has been no distinguishable difference between the 3 and the 4 there. Don’t you think he’ll swing naturally back and forth in game flow like Ron did? Thats what I’m expecting.
And on D we mostly play man. Obviously that’ll be match up based rather than position based, won’t it?
I guess I haven’t bought into the idea of us
completely abandoning Pike’s philophophy and shifting to Iowa style play.
If it turns out we have a kid who can play Mag’s role in the press I think we’ll see a good amount of it mixed in, which becomes positionless BB - likely plenty of scoring, but technically still a D first approach. I fully expect this considering all the transition studs we’re bringing in. Not the whole game of course. But Pike is a proven master when it comes to strategically mixing it in and out of schemes. Pressing is also the most logical way to manage a deep roster effectively. This is because you can bring a hungry kid like J Mike in to go fight like heck for the ball for a 5-6 minute stretch. The last thing you want to do is bring kids like that in for stretches in an O first scheme hungry to show they can be the one to put the ball in the basket.
Not about philsophy of D or O...it is about looking at the roster and most of our better players are guards and we want them to play.
All of this is on paper. Only JaMike and JWill are known commodities and we still probably need more info to know what they really are.
I think you are missing agility. Being agile is a huge athleticism factor.
Yes I get that. I’m just saying if we end up pressing 15-20 minutes a game, height matters less during those stretches. I could see Dylan and Ace actually playing Mag’s role and getting a their rests one at a time while we press. The transfer guards besides PJ are supposed to be plus defenders. And good transition players.
How many of our players are +/- 3 inches off of 6'6''?
JaMike
Ogobole
that's it
If we aren't getting production out of the "5" there won't be a "5".
From a defensive perspective we are aggressively switching 1 to 5 so there really are positions.
I’m talking specifically about the stretches where we are pressing and hopefully executing it effectively like before Mag got hurt 2 years ago. The press was money with or without Caleb and Cliff on the floor.
You only need one guy with length in Mag’s role. That could be Ace. I’m not sure if Dylan has the length for it. He might. You can get away with less athleticism from the rim protector in the press because you hope the ball never makes it that far, but if it does, your Dean or whoever is programmed in that case to simply prevent the basket even if picking up a foul. But the goal is for it not to get that far because you have scrappy guys trapping the ball. Miller was able to be effective in that role.
Regardless - the point I’m making is when you run that scheme - for those stretches - 3 guards + Ace would be fine.
By the way - if we don’t get the UK kid at center, I might further up my projection to 20-25 minutes of pressing provided we can run it effectively.
Not to compare the two players but I always thought Cam Spencer was not super athletic. But he did everything right and of course was a high level shooter.
Sharpen your pencil. We will be more positionless than ever before with many times having a shortest guy at 6’5 or 6’6. Dylan will be handling the ball a lot. Times he isn’t then he will be a 2 or a 3. Ace can play 2,3 or 4. Acuff can play 2, 3. Derdack can play 2,3. JWill will play 1.2 at least. Martini will play 4/5. Hayes will play 3/4. Only JMike will play 1. He is the only one . All the other guards , wings and forwards will be interchangeable . Your trying to use the older way to look at things as having to be in defined lanes , like a 2 is a 2, a 1 is a 1, I do not think will apply to this team. Most interchangeable team Pike has had.
The only right answer for the last scholarship is a third Big. Ogbole has 1 yr JUCO and 81 career D1 minutes, Sommerville 0 career College minutes. We need three viable options this upcoming season covering the 40 minutes at the 5, see who can standout and win the bulk of the minutes.
I would think we are looking for a frosh or soph at the 5 because established upperclassman 5's market is higher than it should be this offseason unless we find a seldom used junior or senior coming cheap to prove himself. I don't think we want to bring in any damaged goods risks like we were forced to take late last year.
I would think we are looking for a frosh or soph at the 5 because established upperclassman 5's market is higher than it should be this offseason unless we find a seldom used junior or senior coming cheap to prove himself. I don't think we want to bring in any damaged goods risks like we were forced to take late last year.
Again….what does your minutes distribution look like if Ace isnt playing a lot with 3 guards.
Thats where the pencil comes in.
Dercack and Acuff and JWill one gets not a lot if mintes
It’s really hard to do without having a sense of whether our press can be effective. Probably the biggest question is how much we can run it and keep Dylan and Ace out of foul trouble.
Also worth noting, for whatever reason, offensive efficiency was up last year as a whole for college basketball. You needed to be a tick better just to stay even.
1.055 vs 1.041 PPP
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