J Mike and J Will played 26 and 23 minutes a piece on a top 5 rated defense last year.
Basketball Rutgers overwhelmed at No. 18 Purdue with feeble defensive effort
- Thread starter Richie O
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J Mike and J Will played 26 and 23 minutes a piece on a top 5 rated defense last year.
I dunno man, he got top 70 defense out of sophomore Corey Sanders and a band of misfit toys coming off a season when we were #236 on defense. Defense is kind of his thing, I don't think it's a stretch he could put together a roster of transfers, JWill, JMike, Derkack that can play solid D. Whether it can score more than 45 points per game is a larger concern imo. If we suck next year I expect it to look a lot more like 2023-24 than like this season.
both too small to play in Pike's D.. effectively I mean. It the length and switching that makes Pike'd D work.. and when they switch and end up on a big man.. bad news.
As I said - they both played more than half the game on average for us last season and we finished with the 5th ranked D.
And they play on this years D also... I think Cliff erased a lot of mistakes last year.
Fair but those same guys are playing this year. JMike not a Power 4 player Dercack not a Power 4 player. At his best Jwill is a rotational Power 4 player. Now your going to ask them to score and play D with Lathan has your center? lol good luck
No. Or, at least, I hope not.
Like I do think that is one possible path we end up on next season but I agree with you that it is not a good path and it likely gives us a team that looks a lot like last season. If next year looks like last year I don't think there is any way Pike survives that.
Steve Pikiell is a defense first coach at heart. I can guarantee you he is more embarrassed by the shit defense this year than he was by the shit offense last year, and I would be very surprised if he repeats the same mistakes. He will recruit for defense. He will try to get back to his roots and natural style as a coach.
Will it work? I mean I guess it depends what qualifies as "work". I would be absolutely shocked if we are better than borderline bubble team next year.
To me the bull scenario is:
- We find some decent transfers who know defense, we get good development out of returning pieces, we manage to put together a team with like #100 offense and #10-15 defense that is a borderline type bubble team. Maybe we get in, maybe we don't, and there is an actually interesting debate next season as to whether Pikiell should stay, the correct answer to which likely hinges on who the realistic alternatives are.
The bear scenario is:
- Same but the transfers are less good on both sides, we are like #40 on defense and #200 on offense, we are a borderline bubble... Big Ten Tournament team and Pike will have zero support here (except maybe for people who just point at the #s left on his contract)
Another year like this year with decent offense but terrible defense is very, very unlikely imo. It's a huge outlier in Pike's coaching history.
