Let me begin by saying that there is little to no chance that we even sniff the tournament this year unless today's team shows up to every game in February. With that said, I was listening to the Scarlet Spotlight last week, and Danny Breslauer ( who I think is on the Mt Rushmore of WRSU announcers) gave an excellent analogy
He took Washington St, who is projected as a 7-9 seed and looked at their Quad records and it looked as follows
Quad 1. 0-1
Quad 2 2-3
Quad 3. 6-2
Quad 4. 5-1
Now compare that to Rutgers:
Quad 1. 3-2
Quad 2 3-4
Quad 3 1-2
Quad 4 6-1
So Rutgers is 6-6 in critical Quad 1 and 2 games and WSU is 2-4. Arguably, Rutgers plays in a better conference, but that is what the Quads are supposed to even out
So how in the world, is Rutgers almost 70 teams behind Washington St in tournament selection. The loss to Laffeyette was terrible and UMass and DePaul weren't great either, but the Rutgers team since Big10 play is definitely a Top 50 team. If we had any consistency, we would be a top 25 level team but we already know how that goes.
Danny implied (:without being 100% confident) that the loss to Laffeyette may have dropped us by 30 teams just by itself and UMass and DePaul perhaps another 30 spots.
With all that said, it's not how you start but how you finish, and the team is on life support but is/was oh so close to being solidly in the tournament, less a few miracle shots and a fairly disinterested team to start the season.
I think the next month is going to show us how much potential this team always had and that would make missing the tournament all that more frustrating, but these last 60 minutes of basketball have been amongst the best I have seen RU play in my 30 plus years of being a fan
The stuff that Paul is doing on offense is not going to disappear like Geo and RHJ on some nights. Paul is finally taking on the Jacob Young role that we sorely missed all season, just in a very different form, and while it might be too little too late, it sure is fun to watch
He took Washington St, who is projected as a 7-9 seed and looked at their Quad records and it looked as follows
Quad 1. 0-1
Quad 2 2-3
Quad 3. 6-2
Quad 4. 5-1
Now compare that to Rutgers:
Quad 1. 3-2
Quad 2 3-4
Quad 3 1-2
Quad 4 6-1
So Rutgers is 6-6 in critical Quad 1 and 2 games and WSU is 2-4. Arguably, Rutgers plays in a better conference, but that is what the Quads are supposed to even out
So how in the world, is Rutgers almost 70 teams behind Washington St in tournament selection. The loss to Laffeyette was terrible and UMass and DePaul weren't great either, but the Rutgers team since Big10 play is definitely a Top 50 team. If we had any consistency, we would be a top 25 level team but we already know how that goes.
Danny implied (:without being 100% confident) that the loss to Laffeyette may have dropped us by 30 teams just by itself and UMass and DePaul perhaps another 30 spots.
With all that said, it's not how you start but how you finish, and the team is on life support but is/was oh so close to being solidly in the tournament, less a few miracle shots and a fairly disinterested team to start the season.
I think the next month is going to show us how much potential this team always had and that would make missing the tournament all that more frustrating, but these last 60 minutes of basketball have been amongst the best I have seen RU play in my 30 plus years of being a fan
The stuff that Paul is doing on offense is not going to disappear like Geo and RHJ on some nights. Paul is finally taking on the Jacob Young role that we sorely missed all season, just in a very different form, and while it might be too little too late, it sure is fun to watch
