Settle in, fix a drink, cuz this one is a doozy.
Let's look at the numbers and see what Rutgers is doing well, and what they aren't:
Well that's not good. To quickly summarize, Rutgers' offensive numbers are only as okay as they are (#9 out 14) because they don't turn the ball over (good!) and they make three pointers. Except they attempt the lowest amount of three pointers as a percent of their total shots taken. It strikes me that this is mostly smart, because I don't think Rutgers has the personnel to be running an Iowa-esque offense and shooting a ton of shots from distance. Similarly the only bright spot on defense is that the team is generating steals and getting blocks. The rest of the game ranges from "subpar" to "horror show." Let's investigate with clips from the first half against Penn State.
Offensive Two Point Field Goal Percentage
Let's start here. Last season in conference games Rutgers ranked 6th in the conference at 47.5%. This year they've fallen to 10th at 45.8%. Not a huge difference but a meaningful one especially since, as I mentioned above, Rutgers shoots more two pointers than any other team. So they'd better make them at least an average clip. But right now, they aren't, and it's for two reasons: Taking stupid shots, and missing easy shots. The first I put on the coaching, the latter I put on the players. There's nothing to be done about Jacob Young and Montez Mathis blowing easy layups or Myles Johnson alligator-arming a putback except shake your head. But the coaching staff can absolutely drill into the players' heads to stop taking shots falling away from the basket, especially early in the shot clock. Here are clips of four separate players taking such a shot. And remember this is in one half of basketball and doesn't even encompass all of them (foreshadowing!)
Now, I'm not saying these guys can't hit these shots, because they can. In fact they made a few of them in this game, and so did Penn State. Only the very best college offenses don't take bad shots from time to time. But do you notice anything else about these four clips? The shot clock is above 15 seconds for all of them! It's one thing to try and make something work but have it well defended and resort to this kind of look as the shot clock is winding down, but when these are the looks you're getting early in the shot clock, and when it's not just one guy doing it... that tells me the coaching staff is not doing enough to discourage it. That's a big problem.
By the way, the problems at the free throw line, which I don't think I need to go over, manifest here too. I think most of the team is playing in a way to shy away from contact and avoid going to the free throw line. Note that despite taking such a big percent of our shots from inside the arc, we're 12th in the conference in terms of free throw attempts divided by field goal attempts. (Missing a zillion front ends of 1-and-1s hurts, too).
Offensive Rebounding
If there's a staple of a Steve Pikiell team, it's rebounding. Early on, offensive rebounding was clearly a huge component. Rutgers led the conference in offensive rebounding percentage in Pikiell's first year! That slipped to 4th in 2018, 5th in 2019, 7th in 2020, and now it's 9th. Now, part of this was from necessity: When the team truly couldn't throw a beach ball in the ocean it made sense to crash the offensive glass HARD and try to make up for a lack of shots going in with pure volume. As the offense improves it's okay to ease back on this on a bit because, in theory, the fewer guys you throw at the offensive boards the better you can set up your defense. But this year we're getting the worst of both worlds: the offensive rebounding is bad, but it's sure not making the defense any better.
The issue here doesn't seem to be with Myles Johnson. His offensive rebounding rate has stayed basically the same (from 14% to 13.5%, easily within the range you'd expect for a small sample size). If anything I think the issue may be an over-reliance on Myles, who is a very very good rebounder. Perhaps guys don't try as hard because they figure Myles will get it. Take this clip, which I'd originally cut because it's yet another fallaway early in the shot clock (and it's not the patented Geo stepback). But... why doesn't Caleb McConnell jump or go for this ball? There's not a white uniform around him and it bounces to his side. Rebounding isn't ENTIRELY about effort... but it's a big part!
Effort, Attitude, and Concentration
Which brings us here. Insofar as there was a Secret Sauce to what Pikiell was doing to outplay recruiting rankings, it was this. Year 1, Big Ten conference tournament, Rutgers against an Ohio State team that started the year with high hopes but ended up disappointing. Rutgers cared, Ohio State, and so despite shooting under 40% they won the game honestly kind of easily because they outworked the Buckeyes, and dominated them on the boards. This sort of game repeated itself throughout the Pikiell era. Part of the RAC advantage is that New Jersey is not the easiest place for other Big Ten teams to get to. So when they have to travel here on a random day in January or February there was always a bit of an attitude of "we don't wanna be here." And when they ran into a Rutgers team that was flying around, being physical, and in a higher gear, then they REALLY didn't want to be there. It's harder to replicate that on the road, but there were moments they did. Iowa in 2019 comes to mind.
It's a lazy trope to call out a team for effort when they lose and praise them for it when they win when in reality the difference is making shots vs. missing shots. But I think with this Rutgers team there's at least an element of truth to it. It's some combination of effort, attitude, and concentration. Here's an example on offense:
The ball goes into Cliff Omoruyi with 21 seconds on the shot clock. I feel like I can count on one hand the number of times Cliff has gotten the ball on the post and made a move for a bucket this year. It's not like we're passing it into Luka Garza and saying "hey, go to work." But no... Mulcahy sets a half-hearted screen for McConnell and then everyone just stands around. Nobody does anything... Mulcahy doesn't rotate to the corner (near where it says Bryce Jordan Center) to give Cliff an option, so I don't really blame him for taking a few dribbles and throwing one up there. This is Exhibit A for when people say Rutgers doesn't run an offense (they do... sometimes. But possessions like this are far too common). Here's another one:
There has to be some kind of recognition that what he's trying to do isn't working (credit PSU defense) so try something else. 10 seconds left on the clock is plenty of time to pull it back out and do something else. How about this possession:
Harper makes a bad pass but gets away with it, so Geo raises the stakes and does... whatever that's supposed to be. I mean they're obviously trying to run some kind of set (see, they DO run an offense) but the concentration and effort to run it even semi-cleanly are obviously not there.
Let's look at the numbers and see what Rutgers is doing well, and what they aren't:
Well that's not good. To quickly summarize, Rutgers' offensive numbers are only as okay as they are (#9 out 14) because they don't turn the ball over (good!) and they make three pointers. Except they attempt the lowest amount of three pointers as a percent of their total shots taken. It strikes me that this is mostly smart, because I don't think Rutgers has the personnel to be running an Iowa-esque offense and shooting a ton of shots from distance. Similarly the only bright spot on defense is that the team is generating steals and getting blocks. The rest of the game ranges from "subpar" to "horror show." Let's investigate with clips from the first half against Penn State.
Offensive Two Point Field Goal Percentage
Let's start here. Last season in conference games Rutgers ranked 6th in the conference at 47.5%. This year they've fallen to 10th at 45.8%. Not a huge difference but a meaningful one especially since, as I mentioned above, Rutgers shoots more two pointers than any other team. So they'd better make them at least an average clip. But right now, they aren't, and it's for two reasons: Taking stupid shots, and missing easy shots. The first I put on the coaching, the latter I put on the players. There's nothing to be done about Jacob Young and Montez Mathis blowing easy layups or Myles Johnson alligator-arming a putback except shake your head. But the coaching staff can absolutely drill into the players' heads to stop taking shots falling away from the basket, especially early in the shot clock. Here are clips of four separate players taking such a shot. And remember this is in one half of basketball and doesn't even encompass all of them (foreshadowing!)
Now, I'm not saying these guys can't hit these shots, because they can. In fact they made a few of them in this game, and so did Penn State. Only the very best college offenses don't take bad shots from time to time. But do you notice anything else about these four clips? The shot clock is above 15 seconds for all of them! It's one thing to try and make something work but have it well defended and resort to this kind of look as the shot clock is winding down, but when these are the looks you're getting early in the shot clock, and when it's not just one guy doing it... that tells me the coaching staff is not doing enough to discourage it. That's a big problem.
By the way, the problems at the free throw line, which I don't think I need to go over, manifest here too. I think most of the team is playing in a way to shy away from contact and avoid going to the free throw line. Note that despite taking such a big percent of our shots from inside the arc, we're 12th in the conference in terms of free throw attempts divided by field goal attempts. (Missing a zillion front ends of 1-and-1s hurts, too).
Offensive Rebounding
If there's a staple of a Steve Pikiell team, it's rebounding. Early on, offensive rebounding was clearly a huge component. Rutgers led the conference in offensive rebounding percentage in Pikiell's first year! That slipped to 4th in 2018, 5th in 2019, 7th in 2020, and now it's 9th. Now, part of this was from necessity: When the team truly couldn't throw a beach ball in the ocean it made sense to crash the offensive glass HARD and try to make up for a lack of shots going in with pure volume. As the offense improves it's okay to ease back on this on a bit because, in theory, the fewer guys you throw at the offensive boards the better you can set up your defense. But this year we're getting the worst of both worlds: the offensive rebounding is bad, but it's sure not making the defense any better.
The issue here doesn't seem to be with Myles Johnson. His offensive rebounding rate has stayed basically the same (from 14% to 13.5%, easily within the range you'd expect for a small sample size). If anything I think the issue may be an over-reliance on Myles, who is a very very good rebounder. Perhaps guys don't try as hard because they figure Myles will get it. Take this clip, which I'd originally cut because it's yet another fallaway early in the shot clock (and it's not the patented Geo stepback). But... why doesn't Caleb McConnell jump or go for this ball? There's not a white uniform around him and it bounces to his side. Rebounding isn't ENTIRELY about effort... but it's a big part!
Effort, Attitude, and Concentration
Which brings us here. Insofar as there was a Secret Sauce to what Pikiell was doing to outplay recruiting rankings, it was this. Year 1, Big Ten conference tournament, Rutgers against an Ohio State team that started the year with high hopes but ended up disappointing. Rutgers cared, Ohio State, and so despite shooting under 40% they won the game honestly kind of easily because they outworked the Buckeyes, and dominated them on the boards. This sort of game repeated itself throughout the Pikiell era. Part of the RAC advantage is that New Jersey is not the easiest place for other Big Ten teams to get to. So when they have to travel here on a random day in January or February there was always a bit of an attitude of "we don't wanna be here." And when they ran into a Rutgers team that was flying around, being physical, and in a higher gear, then they REALLY didn't want to be there. It's harder to replicate that on the road, but there were moments they did. Iowa in 2019 comes to mind.
It's a lazy trope to call out a team for effort when they lose and praise them for it when they win when in reality the difference is making shots vs. missing shots. But I think with this Rutgers team there's at least an element of truth to it. It's some combination of effort, attitude, and concentration. Here's an example on offense:
The ball goes into Cliff Omoruyi with 21 seconds on the shot clock. I feel like I can count on one hand the number of times Cliff has gotten the ball on the post and made a move for a bucket this year. It's not like we're passing it into Luka Garza and saying "hey, go to work." But no... Mulcahy sets a half-hearted screen for McConnell and then everyone just stands around. Nobody does anything... Mulcahy doesn't rotate to the corner (near where it says Bryce Jordan Center) to give Cliff an option, so I don't really blame him for taking a few dribbles and throwing one up there. This is Exhibit A for when people say Rutgers doesn't run an offense (they do... sometimes. But possessions like this are far too common). Here's another one:
There has to be some kind of recognition that what he's trying to do isn't working (credit PSU defense) so try something else. 10 seconds left on the clock is plenty of time to pull it back out and do something else. How about this possession:
Harper makes a bad pass but gets away with it, so Geo raises the stakes and does... whatever that's supposed to be. I mean they're obviously trying to run some kind of set (see, they DO run an offense) but the concentration and effort to run it even semi-cleanly are obviously not there.
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