Props to Fonseca
- Thread starter ColonelRutgers
- Start date
So your take is both Mag and Griffiths are both lying? IDK. I'll take the guy's and his teammate's word over a bunch of anonymous people on a message board who have not been in practices, with the team or in the locker room. Yeah, that's a weird take, isn't it?
This.
until someone gets this on record , the fans on this board are full of crap on this
And we have keyboard tough guys calling Mag vile names.
Why would Griffiths, a quite freshman come out swinging on this? Seems kind of odd and out of character, unless he is different off the court.
More than just 1 beat writer has hinted at it.
Let me ask you this. You married? If your wife is wrong and you know shes wrong but in public someone calls her out on her wrongdoing you gonna sit by idly and agree or defend her regardless of how wrong she may be?
Bad analogy. This is sports . If this is true about mag, any beat writer worth their salt will get the story. It would be pathetic otherwise with all the rumors if someone getting paid to do a job can’t get the story
Let me ask you this? You saying Mag and Griffiths are in a "relationship"? Man, this story is really starting to spin out of control. 😜 I said what I said above about Griffiths- he does not seem like the type who would stick his neck out without a good reason- now that is a stretch by me, but just by seeing his overall demeanor, he seems like a straight arrow.
I give zero credibility to beat writer hints. Especially Rutgers beat writers- they like to stir up shit just to stir up shit.
The term “quiet quitting” was used by Danny Breslauer and co. on the Twitter spaces last night
Mike Sharavjamts? Signed with Dayton for his freshman year then transferred to San Francisco for this season… He was a sophomore at Prolific Prep when Mag was a senior there in 2019-2020.
Mike Sharavjamts Career Stats - NCAAM - ESPN
Complete career NCAAM stats for the San Francisco Dons Guard Mike Sharavjamts on ESPN. Includes points, rebounds, and assists.
Doesnt every sport team have a “family” mantra? Where you treat your teammates like family?
Yes - and no. I don’t think anyone intended to suggest that he’s 100% healthy and just “saving himself” for the portal.
He tried to play for several games. Wasn’t producing at the level he contributes at when he’s physically at his best. Unlike, say, Caleb, who didn’t care what his stats looked like and played through the pain so long as there were ways he could help the team (worst numbers of his career that year), Mag didn’t choose that path. Whether the reason was related to fear of impact on his NIL stock, or simply not wanting to play if he knew he wasn’t at his personal best, we’ll never know. It’s been confirmed though that he put in some minutes in practice so it has actually been confirmed, in a sense, that the reason wasn’t that it was “too painful” to play period - even for sporadic stretches each game.
This whole thread is comical and sad at the same time. Maybe, just maybe, Mag's injury was different and Mag's pain was worse than Caleb's pain, or maybe Caleb has a higher pain threshold than Mag. Everyone is different. Nobody knows except Mag, and as I said above, the other players and coaches have a better idea than anonymous keyboard doctors, trainers and keyboard warriors. But keyboard warriors will be keyboard warriors and rip the young man based on their own feelings and butt hurt because Rutgers season did not go well.
A Tom Petty song comes to mind.
You don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels
No, you don't know how it feels
To be me
----
It’s possible - I guess, but we do know he did try to play for several games where he wasn’t as productive and then stopped playing. We also know that he made an effort to play in practice and that Pike went on the record saying he “looked good” there. That’s actually all we know for sure.
And you are basing it on what Pike said about practice? Maybe he was talking about his hair or uniform (sarcasm). Seriously, that is a ridiculous take. Every individual deals with pain differently and has a different pain threshold. Maybe he looked good, but was hurting and did not say anything. Is this thread going to go on for the entire off season? It's over. Just move on already.
This guy . Lol how has it crashed back to earth? The few games mag played and looked like his old self the team went on a 4 game winning streak. He aggravated the injury or whatever happened and they suck again even with jwill. It's amazing to me how you continue to try and make it seem like your analysis on mag was correct based on him being injured again lol. But completely ignore how the team looked when he played like his old self...
What was the Mag narrative? That makes a difference if he is healthy?
He averaged 15 and 5 w 2 steals in the games he played 30 minutes (3-3, all in conference), and the team was 8-6 in the games he played 20 or more. Probably our best player maybe during 3/4 of the infamous four game winning streak that everyone credits JWill only for.
Also in the final games before mag sat for good he did not look good at all. Which is why I lean towards believing he truly wasnt comfortable going full speed. Either way with the way funds may be limited, I wouldn't take a chance on paying mag over another guy that can be counted on health wise..
See what he initially said back when Mag got hurt last year was “I am expecting good defense and better offense in time, because of this injury. I believe in the long run, RU will be more dangerous and explosive come March.”
Now obviously that take was objectively wrong. But instead of just owning that he pivoted to making it seem like all of us think Mag is like a 1st team all Big Ten player and he was right about him not being as impactful as everyone else thinks he is. The “Mag Narrative” he’s referring to is just a strawman he created so that he had something he could still argue against instead of just admitting his initial take was a bad one.
EO came back from double knee dislocations (?)
Cliff constantly put his ass back in games.Paul broke his nose and played with a mask. Caleb you covered. Gavin is blind and plays with goggles and sticks his neck out (when not in games).
I guess my appreciation for what those guys did just exploded. Can't wait for players to opt out under the family medical leave act.
A player who played Rutgers for cash last season after the care shown him needs to go a looong way to get my buy in. "
If it walks like a duck it's probably a duck". Sorry. Don't know who to credit that to.
Cliff constantly put his ass back in games.Paul broke his nose and played with a mask. Caleb you covered. Gavin is blind and plays with goggles and sticks his neck out (when not in games).
I guess my appreciation for what those guys did just exploded. Can't wait for players to opt out under the family medical leave act.
A player who played Rutgers for cash last season after the care shown him needs to go a looong way to get my buy in. "
If it walks like a duck it's probably a duck". Sorry. Don't know who to credit that to.
I’m not sure what “take” of mine your questioning. I only pointed out things we know as fact. We know Mag attempted to play in practice because Pike confirmed it. That certainly doesn’t mean he wasn’t playing through pain but it confirms that he was medically cleared to practice in the first place. That’s not a “take” - its fact.
None of this means Mag wasn’t practicing through pain nor does anyone know how much pain he felt. Mag did not perform well in his last few in game appearances - that’s also fact. For whatever reason, at some point he chose to only attempt to give it a go in practices. There could be any number of reasons for this and we’ll never know Mag’s reasoning for sure. We do know it was Mag’s choice though and not a coaches’ decision because Pike made statements that confirmed that multiple times (asked why Mag didn’t play - “ I don’t know he looked good at practice”). That confirms DNP was not coach decision.
It’s certainly possible that Mag felt more pain than other player who made different decisions before him. The only thing we know for sure is that for whatever reason, at some point Mag decided he would attempt to play only in practices and never checked into any more games.
“I love Mawot. Kid gave me everything he had. You should’ve seen him struggling on practice days just to push though and try and get healthy. I wish we had more guys like him.”
- a quote not said by Pike at the end of the year
- a quote not said by Pike at the end of the year
Good journalism by Fonseca. Most of these guys (and gals) ask questions that sound like the athletic department wrote them. I like how he challenges the narrative particularly when it comes to RU Athletics openly lying about football attendance figures.
I could see both sides for Mag on his decisions to either play or not play. I hope the best for him. He has been through a lot in life and it is bigger than a basketball.
When Danny talks, we listen.
No one is more knowledgeable and reasoned about CBB and Rutgers place in it, in the public Rutgers community, than Danny B.
I watched the video and it was fun. But a few things...1) most of the shots that UConn took in this video after all the motion and screening were qualitatively similar to the shots we get and miss. The backdoor stuff was pretty, but it's only there if you have to stick to your guy at the perimeter. 2) I don't think our players would have the gas in the tank to do all that running on O given the energy they expend on D.
UConn plays excellent D too. This idea that are players are exhausted from the D and don’t have enough in the tank to play hard on offense is ludicrous.
So we can't find multiple clips of Rutgers running similar actions this year? Idk if people are watching the games if they're saying Rutgers doesn't run anything. Screens, back door cuts etc...they don't have the roster uconn has so it doesn't yield results...4 of the 5 guys expected to start didn't play most of the year. And Fernandes was not what was expected. The results of that are the results..
So you are saying there is no tradeoff between energy expended on D and energy expended on O? fatigue isn't a factor?
Houston also has an outstanding defense and an excellent offense, this is a false choice.
Let me add one more thing while watching the UConn Marquette game. Tristan Newton has run more in every game this year than any Rutgers basketball player has run in any game this season. Is he some sort of Superman?
And when you don’t have a great offense this is what can happen:
Iowa State 72
Houston 46
Final
Big 12 Championship
