Was at the game close to the court. Various times he had a half step on his defender in the lane or backed down his shorter defender, but did not put up the shot. Was commenting on this during the game.
Paul
- Thread starter zappaa
- Start date
Yup, he could have stop and popped a dozen times
That was my point above. Stop dribbling and shoot more. We needed a few more buckets to win and he was trying real hard to dribble with the intent to pass not shoot. Has to be eliminated from his game unless he goes 0-10 in a game and cannot buy one.
He doesn't have a stop and pop in his bag. Geo could and it looks like Simpson does. I don't know if I'd want our team taking more midrange 2's.
Does anyone take more fadeaways then us? Sure doesn't look like it.
Does anyone take more fadeaways then us? Sure doesn't look like it.
He has always been pass first and shoot second; he needs to shoot more he has always passed up open shots looking for the perfect pass(assist); now its time for him to score more
He has tremendous footwork and often a height advantage when he is in or around the lane to get a shot off. Remember the four game span last year where he took over the offensive reins. Not suggesting that should be his primary role, but he is more than capable to score on his own. Perhaps his shoulder his holding him back.
It’s not a step back, it’s momentum towards the basketball stop and shoot for a 6-7 guard
Every team we play is far more athletic than we are. We don’t work hard enough off the ball to get open looks and we are not respected off the dribble so they can overplay us and give us zero space. It’s a viscous cycle resulting in very few open looks from the outside.
Cliff getting into foul trouble early has probably contributed to the problems as well. Him and Paul never establish a rhythm and Cliff just hasn’t been as effective at 20-25 mins/game in the last two.
I don’t disagree with this. Definitely true, but also need to think about the fact he was drawing the 3rd best wing defender at the time with Ron and my defenders staying glued out of respect of our scouting report. I remember playing Illinois the last 2 years laughing at ayo and Trent Frazier because they were so determined to lock me up. The Covid year i was probably the 4th option on the team especially that early in the year coming off my injury and ayo was still persistent on guarding me instead of Jy or ron 😂 but the point is that because they were guarding me, it made the game easier for the other guys. Paul and Caleb are both going to have to go through an adjustment period of being the keyed in guys every single game by the other teams best defenders. They’re going to have to be better than the scouting report every game. When they aren’t, the other guys have to be ready to step up and make plays. This is all a lot easier said than done.
So the few questions offensively are can paul and Caleb be better than the scout? And when they aren’t, are the other guys ready to make plays/are Caleb and paul okay with being the decoy when it’s not their day?
This team is also way better defensively than my last 2 years so it doesn’t need to be the same formula of a guy going on a 4 game rampage like Paul did. But there is definitely going to have to be more confidence from those second tier scorers/more trust from the guys who are the main focus.
I’ll go with C. He was never a good outside shooter . Has gotten better every year. I’m thinking without Geo and Ron he thought he would do his thing which was drive to the basket and dish to a big (like he did all day in HS) or dish for a 3. Sometimes it works but in college things get clogged up for the dish quicker.
So far on the court this is a better defensive team. Let’s revisit in February to make the firm conclusion. The unit is playing very good and I am expecting us to continue, but we need more than 10 games.
Paul, Caleb and Hyatt on the floor should leave Cam with the lesser defender Geo?
Also, what is it about Pike’s offense that doesn’t get us the wide open look 3s other teams seem to get far more frequently?
Watching Northwestern I see it raining 3s from open players?
I have 2 main fears with this team
1. The last 2 minutes of games offensively
2. Teams realizing the key to shutting us down is to force us to run offense 30 feet from the basket or even take us out completely.
Most opponents can disrupt a team and not allow it to run their sets. The consequence is getting torched off the dribble and not having help defense in a position to help.
If I am playing RU I take the ball you man triangle and throw it out the window. Don’t allow RU to run offense. Don’t allow them to get Cliff the ball. Make them show they can punish us off the dribble.
Pike made an adjustment in the Temple game 2nd half. He just had us run isolation pick and roll for a bunch of possessions because their tight perimeter D took us out of our offense sets
1. The last 2 minutes of games offensively
2. Teams realizing the key to shutting us down is to force us to run offense 30 feet from the basket or even take us out completely.
Most opponents can disrupt a team and not allow it to run their sets. The consequence is getting torched off the dribble and not having help defense in a position to help.
If I am playing RU I take the ball you man triangle and throw it out the window. Don’t allow RU to run offense. Don’t allow them to get Cliff the ball. Make them show they can punish us off the dribble.
Pike made an adjustment in the Temple game 2nd half. He just had us run isolation pick and roll for a bunch of possessions because their tight perimeter D took us out of our offense sets
Indiana was not far more athletic than us nor was Ohio State , not sure what game you were watching. Clearly all the cupcakes weren’t either. Miami had some athletic guards that had to hit threes when we went under screens or backed off , to win. They didn’t overwhelm us with their athleticism. Temple’s guards did almost nothing the second half.
You are over rating athleticism and it having any effect offensively or defensively in our games this year. Seton Hall was the first team to use their athleticism defensively that impacted our offense but we helped them with 19 turnovers.
Cliff slow starts are hurting us period. IMO its the number one thing we have to get fixed. Some games he bounced back to have great 2nd halves, others he did not. If we cannot get that figured out its going to be hard to establish any consistency on the offensive end
Temple played Derek tight and Cam tight and both had problems getting us into offense but we turned the ball over 10-12 times in the first half. What did they do in the second half? Cam missed 4-5 open 3 point shots that if he knocks down 1 or 2 we win and complete the comeback.
We turn the ball over because they pressure the hell out of our guards. They pressure the guards because they know we can't beat them with the dribble. Our guards (except Simpson) are not athletic like other teams. It's a fact and we are easy to defend as a result. We don't move well WITH the ball and we don't move well WITHOUT the ball. Hence no open shots. Our guys are not a threat and cannot create anything on their own. Think about how many fade away shots we take...it's a high % of our shots inside the 3pt line. You can take EVERY TEAM literally if you want, but it's the truth. In a lot of the games we play against legit teams, we look like Sacred Heart did against us offensively...overwhelmed.
We made a change in the 2nd half. We went more isolation/pick and roll stuff. Went away from trying to run offense and get ball reversal.
We also shut down their offense for like 10 minutes. Their guards no longer had any open space or open looks . Their center continued to score in the paint which was a Cliff defensive failure but not because the Temple center was more athletic
It’s a team game, players dont play in a vaccuum. All the players have strengths and weaknesses. Paul isn’t the problem more than anyone else is. Question is, what’s the best mix. Pike favors size/length on defense and this hampers offense. Caleb and Paul just aren’t talented on offense and that’s the tradeoff. If Pike’s preference was offense you wouldn’t see Paul and Caleb in at the same time that often.
Your memory is selective. The athletic Temple guards pressured a sacred Derek and Cam but Derek broke down Indiana’s all game. Caleb did just fine against the Miami and Ohio state guards. Paul also for his first game back got to the hole against Ohio state and we ran great offense for the last 25 minutes of Ohio State. Do you think Ohio State and Miami are more athletic than anyone else you mention ? Pike doesn’t want our guys freelancing and playing one on one as there has been a conscious effort to set up the offense this year. You underestimate our guards who can back in other guards as well and can score over more athletic guards.
The offense was a struggle without Paul and Caleb as the offense wasn’t run hardly at all. As compared to the other day against Seton Hall , the best defense we have played against and Pike had a game plan that played right into Seton Hall’s strength and allowed Paul and anyone else to dribble endlessly into the baseline with no plan and we decided instead to throw the ball to the other team.
Why didn’t we just pull up and shoot 15 footers all day ? We almost refused to shoot. The times we did Cam was 0-5 from three. Way too much hesitation to pull the trigger and go chase an offensive rebound if it missed , and then taking a dribble nowhere to improve the shot quality or a pass to another player in a more terrible shooting position.
Last edited:
But you must include defense in the assessment. It’s the same players on both ends. This isn’t football
Paul is a very good player and I’m thrilled he chose RU. He did have a bad game against SH which maybe he’s hurting or perhaps SH played their axxes off in stopping him and our team. That four game winning stretch against ranked teams last year, Paul was fantastic. If we expect to have success this year, we better get that Paul back! Coaches can help by scheming better and getting our guys space so we have more open looks. Paul can be an effective three point shooter but we need a guard to penetrate and kick out.
Whenever we dribble too much it isn’t about our game plan, it is about the defense taking us out of our comfort zone. If they are overplaying passing lanes and are up tight on ball then penetrating is the only thing that the ball handler thinks can be done.
In these cases, we lose. The way to defend us is to do exactly this. It takes away our ability to function as an offense. I generally love our players and we defend so well. But the game plan to beat RU is to pressure the hell out of the ball and deny the ball. Without a threat to beat you off the dribble this becomes the easy forumla.
I’m not saying offense is a strength, but
to this point, the Seton Hall game (only scoring 43 points) wasn’t the norm. The next lowest point total was 61 at Miami. We didn’t score less than 66 in any other game. For perspective - last year we scored 48 vs Merrimack, 51 vs Lafayette, 51 vs Illinois, and 63 vs SHU. We also only scored 70 in an OT game vs. Lehigh.
Cliff isn’t going to be 1-6 and only put up 5 points too often. He had a bad game and the team had a hang over from the OSU debacle. At this point though, the loss count is becoming a problem.
Cliff is mostly a threat on a pass from a guard, usually driving the lane, or an occasional put-back. The guards were pressured so much by Seton Hall, they couldn’t even see Cliff, and were more focused on dribbling (often with their back to the basket), and trying not to turn the ball over….and Cliff was covered well also. By pressuring the guards, they effectively took out our guards and Cliff, regardless of his foul trouble. Kudos to Holloway, we didn’t or couldn’t adjust. This shouldn’t be as big of problem in the B1G because there aren’t that many quick pressuring guards tandems in the league.
Last edited:
Give me a break. At least 5-6 passes in a row in that second half throw by everyone not just Paul but Cliff and Mag and Cam there were Seton hall guys there and somehow our guys thought they could throw it thru them like they were invisible. That had nothing to do with being out of our comfort zone. They did not realize their comfort zone would have been to shoot the damn ball. 43 shots in 40 minutes is so ridiculously bad and almost impossible to do. Also hard to use this one Seton Hall game as the test as the offense we ran against Indiana , Miami especially the entire second half and Ohio State for 25 - 30 minutes was pretty damn good.
The point is the offense was good enough to win every other game and even had a shot in this one scoring in the 40s. Outside of the first 10 minutes of the Temple game, it’s been okay.
Which is why the blueprint is to win 65-58! I posted somewhere we have 10 games and 7 of them the adjusted offensive efficiency was over 1 point per possession. 2 were in the .9 range and 1 was SHU game .8.
7 of 10 games our offense was passable. No games yet where we have been good offensively.
T-Page for Rutgers - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
T-Rank College Basketball Ratings and Rankings. And fun.
barttorvik.com
CCSU was decent actually, but….
Amen. Especially on this offensively challenged team, Paul needs to take 10-12 shots per game, not the 5 or so he’s been taking. He is a good shooter (44% FG last year and 48% the year before) and needs to keep D’s honest for sure. In six games so far this year he is also shooting 40% from 3, which is currently best on the team. By comparison, Hyatt is shooting FGs at 37% and 3-pointers at only 30%.
Last edited:
3 point shooting stats. Granted Paul takes less volume and less degree of difficulty... but percentage wise he is a better career 3 point shooter than Geo and Ron were. To say he was never a good outside shooter just isn't true. He can knock down 3's
Paul career 36.3%
33%
39%
35%
40%
Geo career 32.6%
36%
34%
28%
30%
33%
Harper career 34%
28%
35%
31%
40%
