The most important thing we needed to see yesterday

[Arizona Knight]

Is Dylan and Ace to look the part of potential first team B1G players. They passed with flying colors. I’m almost sold on Dylan already. He’s terrific. Ace will be a bit less consistent but he’s obviously ridiculous.

Only way we make a deep run in either tournament is if these two are borderline all Americans. Obviously a lot to ask but that’s what it would take. I saw nothing yesterday to think that’s not a possibility.

 

[SBP]

Is Dylan and Ace to look the part of potential first team B1G players. They passed with flying colors. I’m almost sold on Dylan already. He’s terrific. Ace will be a bit less consistent but he’s obviously ridiculous.

Only way we make a deep run in either tournament is if these two are borderline all Americans. Obviously a lot to ask but that’s what it would take. I saw nothing yesterday to think that’s not a possibility.

Glad you’re “almost sold” on Dylan… You have an eye for talent I see…smh

 

[Arizona Knight]

Glad you’re “almost sold” on Dylan… You have an eye for talent I see…smh

“Almost sold” on him being an All American already. I don’t think that’s a given for any freshman. I can see I didn’t express my thoughts well.

 

[Scangg]

This team needs the studs to be studs and their first preseason game was extremely encouraging. They get some tune up games before the Thanksgiving tournament. If we could pull off an upset there, the hype train will be out of control

 

[RU at the shore]

Your big points are very valid. After years/decades of hearing about this year's stud, only to be largely disappointed - to see Bailey and Harper show it on day 1 is hard to believe (in a very good way).

 

[Eagleton96]

I think the team learning defense and teamwork, and the support players stepping up, is just as important as how much of their potential Ace and Dylan reach this year.

 

[goru7]

This team needs the studs to be studs and their first preseason game was extremely encouraging. They get some tune up games before the Thanksgiving tournament. If we could pull off an upset there, the hype train will be out of control

It won’t be hype at that point. It is already expected with the preseason ranking that they will be awesome . That win over Alabama or Houston will just validate it

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

 

[Arizona Knight]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

It’s October. If we want to make a deep run in March then Ace and Dylan need to be borderline all Americans come March. Not now. But I saw enough to say they could be. That’s all.

 

[Arizona Knight]

I think the team learning defense and teamwork, and the support players stepping up, is just as important as how much of their potential Ace and Dylan reach this year.

I don’t disagree with your premise that the supporting cast is critical. They will need to be very productive and I suspect they will be. But let’s say we want a B1G finals appearance or an Elite 8 run, it would help to have stars too.

 

[PaKnight]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

Interesting take, I would say they were the reason we almost won.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Interesting take, I would say they were the reason we almost won.

Yes their offense should have been enough for us to win. We got killed on the boards and loose balls and quite frankly they had a lot to do with it.

I have faith they will play with more grit and toughness as the season moves on.

 

[robjknight]

Hayes looks like the real deal and has great enthusiasm.

 

[Scangg]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

Without Dylan and Ace this game is a complete blowout embarrassment and there would be posts calling for Pike to go

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Without Dylan and Ace this game is a complete blowout embarrassment and there would be posts calling for Pike to go

you don't know this...in fact I completely disagree.

 

[lion1983]

Yes their offense should have been enough for us to win. We got killed on the boards and loose balls and quite frankly they had a lot to do with it.

I have faith they will play with more grit and toughness as the season moves on.

Partly true statement, in my opinion.

I agree a little with your 1st sentence. I disagree that the issue was "grit" or "toughness."

The issue with boxing out (which Harper was more guilty of missing than Bailey) was Harper not paying attention to the detail of where his man was off the ball, not grit or toughness. When the staff shows the film to the team, including to Harper, they will surely easily point out how Harper not focusing on the DETAIL of off-ball defense allowed a number of offensive rebounds.

Also, that tendency to stand around and watch his teammates on defense also worked against Harper being as productive in potential help defense as he could have been. Fixable by coaching, if the player is willing to be coached.

For comparison, Harper and Bailey do NOT appear to have the basic problem Griffiths had last year: Being beaten off the dribble when playing on-ball defense (until the last few games Griffiths literally could not stop anybody he covered from beating him off the dribble - fouling up RU's defensive rotation, making it really tough on his teammates). I think off-ball defense - paying ATTENTION, mainly, may be easier to teach than how to prevent being beaten off the dribble. I hope?

 

[Eagleton96]

I don’t disagree with your premise that the supporting cast is critical. They will need to be very productive and I suspect they will be. But let’s say we want a B1G finals appearance or an Elite 8 run, it would help to have stars too.

To achieve that we need both. It's like arguing about which leg of a 3 legged stool is the most important.

 

[Arizona Knight]

To achieve that we need both. It's like arguing about which leg of a 3 legged stool is the most important.

I’d imagine it’s easier to put together a supporting cast than it is to secure two borderline or actual All Americans from true freshman. That’s what we need out of Ace and Dylan, fair or not, for a deep run.

This is not a slight to the other guys.

 

[Nycrusupporter]

Without Dylan and Ace this game is a complete blowout embarrassment and there would be posts calling for Pike to go

Dylan and Ace kept us in the game. It was our two senior co-captains who both got into early foul trouble and had a very limited impact on the game.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

you don't know this...in fact I completely disagree.

If we played J Will and Davis the whole game - it would’ve been a disaster. Davis still puts his head down and drives into double teams on offense. He’s a good defender but not enough so to make up for his shot selection which routinely gives way to fast break run outs the other way.

 

[RedTeam1994]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

The persistence of your eeyore impersonation is almost impressive

It’s friggin October of their freshman year!!!!

If you weren’t impressed from what we saw from them then you are truly just going out of your way to be pessimistic

 

[Eagleton96]

I’d imagine it’s easier to put together a supporting cast than it is to secure two borderline or actual All Americans from true freshman. That’s what we need out of Ace and Dylan, fair or not, for a deep run.

This is not a slight to the other guys.

It's too late to get any more pieces. This is the team. So all the legs of the stool are questions at this point and all have to pan out to have a special year.

 

[RUJMM78]

Ace and Dylan putting up numbers is almost a given. Putting up numbers gets you on post season lists. They more than put up All american numbers vs SJU and we lost at home. They played a huge part in the reason we lost.

Not true.Ace and Dylan are the reason Rutgers had a realistic chance to win scoring 45 points.The lack of defense/rebounding is a coaching issue that needs to be corrected before the season starts.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Not true.Ace and Dylan are the reason Rutgers had a realistic chance to win scoring 45 points.The lack of defense/rebounding is a coaching issue that needs to be corrected before the season starts.

The issue is Dylan and Ace are 40% of the team.

Again I am confident that both will be programmed to give effort a higher percentage of the time. It is not going to happen overnight. It looks like Dylan had a good high school coach so unlike Gavin he knows how to play defense. Of course they both came here to RU knowing they would have to play defense so that is sort of a buy in right there.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

The persistence of your eeyore impersonation is almost impressive

It’s friggin October of their freshman year!!!!

If you weren’t impressed from what we saw from them then you are truly just going out of your way to be pessimistic

I think my assessment on the 2 is balanced. They have enormous offensive ability and Dylan especially is very advanced showing us a nice jump stop and having complete control of his body with a step back shot. Ace has a nice quick release with a very high release point. He will be very difficult to guard

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

If we played J Will and Davis the whole game - it would’ve been a disaster. Davis still puts his head down and drives into double teams on offense. He’s a good defender but not enough so to make up for his shot selection which routinely gives way to fast break run outs the other way.

Davis yes…..I still am optimistic with JWIll playing point guard. He was really really good for a stretch last year.

 

[knight82]

The persistence of your eeyore impersonation is almost impressive

It’s friggin October of their freshman year!!!!

If you weren’t impressed from what we saw from them then you are truly just going out of your way to be pessimistic

hes like that annoying kid in class who always had to raise his hand and try to contradict everything the teacher says

 

[jakeknight]

Ace was on the floor for over 35 minutes, the fatigue in the last 4 minutes was fairly obvious, Dylan had four fouls late and was tentative down the stretch on “D”, all fixable.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Davis yes…..I still am optimistic with JWIll playing point guard. He was really really good for a stretch last year.

Oh I’m not giving up on him. I’m just saying based on his play vs SJU BAC is probably right. If you remove Ace and Dylan from that game we don’t generate enough offense to avoid getting our doors blown off. Who would’ve scored? Davis plays excellent halfcourt D but if he played more there would’ve been more transition baskets for them off of his missed contested lay ups.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Oh I’m not giving up on him. I’m just saying based on his play vs SJU BAC is probably right. If you remove Ace and Dylan from that game we don’t generate enough offense to avoid getting our doors blown off. Who would’ve scored? Davis plays excellent halfcourt D but if he played more there would’ve been more transition baskets for them off of his missed contested lay ups.

I don't know the answer to that yet. Ace and Dylan were highly efficient on their scoring attempts and we were highly efficient as a team offensively so this isn't a game to say other guys get more touches and fill PART of the void.

The real question in the exhibition game is how many less points would SJU have scored.

Ace and Dylan's footprint on our defense I know will improve exponentially in the beginning of the year. For as good as they were offensively in the game they may have been almost as bad on the defensive end. Most of it was effort with rebounding and going after loose balls.

 

[Kn0wledge]

Teamwork makes the dream work

 

[lion1983]

I think the roles and minutes of the supporting cast around Harper and Bailey have yet to be determined - and in fact may vary depending on the match-ups game to game, within games, foul trouble, etc.

Pikiell has repeatedly emphasized how flexible the roster is, specifically how so many of the players can play multiple positions.

I'll give you a specific for instance: J. Williams. People sometimes forget that he was actually a STARTING POINT GUARD for Temple for TWO seasons, as a freshman AND a sophomore. As a freshman and sophomore, Williams started 37 of the 38 games he was available to play, as Temple's PG, averaging essentially the same each season: 9.3 or 9.5 ppg, 4.1 or 4.3 ass/g, 3.6 and 3.5 reb/g, 1.2 and 1.4 stl/g. For the 12 games he was available for RU he scored more (12 ppg) with better overall FG (44% FG) shooting than he 2 seasons at Temple, even while having a lower 3-point FG% (21%, vs 32% or 23% respectively his 1st 2 years).

Now, what that means for Williams expected performance this coming season, I do not know. But he was a solid performer as both a freshman and sophomore at PG at mid-level team in a higher level mid-major conference, and was RU's best player in the 12 games he played last season. I have to figure Williams will be a solid complementary performer to Harper and Bailey.

 

[RUich]

Scoring does not seem to be a problem. It is all about defense. If Cliff had stayed, I think we would be talking about what the ceiling is on this team. But, the center situation obviously needs to be fixed.

 

[FAT MOON]

I think the roles and minutes of the supporting cast around Harper and Bailey have yet to be determined - and in fact may vary depending on the match-ups game to game, within games, foul trouble, etc.

Pikiell has repeatedly emphasized how flexible the roster is, specifically how so many of the players can play multiple positions.

I'll give you a specific for instance: J. Williams. People sometimes forget that he was actually a STARTING POINT GUARD for Temple for TWO seasons, as a freshman AND a sophomore. As a freshman and sophomore, Williams started 37 of the 38 games he was available to play, as Temple's PG, averaging essentially the same each season: 9.3 or 9.5 ppg, 4.1 or 4.3 ass/g, 3.6 and 3.5 reb/g, 1.2 and 1.4 stl/g. For the 12 games he was available for RU he scored more (12 ppg) with better overall FG (44% FG) shooting than he 2 seasons at Temple, even while having a lower 3-point FG% (21%, vs 32% or 23% respectively his 1st 2 years).

Now, what that means for Williams expected performance this coming season, I do not know. But he was a solid performer as both a freshman and sophomore at PG at mid-level team in a higher level mid-major conference, and was RU's best player in the 12 games he played last season. I have to figure Williams will be a solid complementary performer to Harper and Bailey.

JWill is by far the biggest question mark on this team to me. He's good. Very good. But what's his roll going to be with Ace and Dylan.?

Dylan is going to have the ball in his hands a ton. Ace a bit less but he's going to take the most shots. I think he'd be perfect to run the offense when one of them needs a break, but it seems like many are penciling Acuff into this roll.

Bottom line is it's good to have so many pieces and it will be fascinating to see who rises up to support Dylan and Ace the best. Whoever they are will need to hit outside shots and space the floor and do as many little things as possible. Their help D and rebounding will certainly improve, but they are always going to put their main focus on the offensive end (as they should).

 

[seansherm]

Ace was on the floor for over 35 minutes, the fatigue in the last 4 minutes was fairly obvious, Dylan had four fouls late and was tentative down the stretch on “D”, all fixable.

I still don't get the thought process of putting Ace out there for 35 minutes in a scrimmage while having other freshman forwards not even see a minute or two.

 

[seansherm]

I think the roles and minutes of the supporting cast around Harper and Bailey have yet to be determined - and in fact may vary depending on the match-ups game to game, within games, foul trouble, etc.

Pikiell has repeatedly emphasized how flexible the roster is, specifically how so many of the players can play multiple positions.

I'll give you a specific for instance: J. Williams. People sometimes forget that he was actually a STARTING POINT GUARD for Temple for TWO seasons, as a freshman AND a sophomore. As a freshman and sophomore, Williams started 37 of the 38 games he was available to play, as Temple's PG, averaging essentially the same each season: 9.3 or 9.5 ppg, 4.1 or 4.3 ass/g, 3.6 and 3.5 reb/g, 1.2 and 1.4 stl/g. For the 12 games he was available for RU he scored more (12 ppg) with better overall FG (44% FG) shooting than he 2 seasons at Temple, even while having a lower 3-point FG% (21%, vs 32% or 23% respectively his 1st 2 years).

Now, what that means for Williams expected performance this coming season, I do not know. But he was a solid performer as both a freshman and sophomore at PG at mid-level team in a higher level mid-major conference, and was RU's best player in the 12 games he played last season. I have to figure Williams will be a solid complementary performer to Harper and Bailey.

He'll be better than he was in the scrimmage, but I'm still not convinced of his role. Being last years best player doesn't make him great. He's an inefficient scoring lead guard. He's probably outgrown defending pacy point guards, and it sounds like even Pike doesn't consider him a Point Guard. Ideally, we have a shooter or two next to Dylan so the lane isn't clogged. Defenders sag off JWill as he doesn't shoot from outside and thus far, when he does he doesn't do it well. If he can get back to being willing to shoot from deep and hit at 33% +, then we have something there.

 

[Nycrusupporter]

I still don't get the thought process of putting Ace out there for 35 minutes in a scrimmage while having other freshman forwards not even see a minute or two.

I don’t disagree, but both coaches were playing to win. It was a scrimmage, but it was also about as real as it gets.

 

[RedTeam1994]

hes like that annoying kid in class who always had to raise his hand and try to contradict everything the teacher says

It’s EXACTLY what he is.

 

[RutgersDom]

I think the team learning defense and teamwork, and the support players stepping up, is just as important as how much of their potential Ace and Dylan reach this year.

Right and the fans should also understand that this is a brand new team that has not played together. Dont set urself up for disappointment as many did with u realistic expects for football. This b ball team will be much better in Feb going in to MM than they will be in Vegas. Dont worry about our record just make the dance

 

[RUfan1977]

Right and the fans should also understand that this is a brand new team that has not played together. Dont set urself up for disappointment as many did with u realistic expects for football. This b ball team will be much better in Feb going in to MM than they will be in Vegas. Dont worry about our record just make the dance

In fairness, a lot of the football expectations were based on Toure, Brown, Lewis, Bailey, Fletcher, Felter and Powell being healthy. If either Dylan or Ace is injured the expectations for the season will come to a screeching stop like the hype train on the Dr Pepper commercials.