I think the expectations were clearly not in line with what this team could accomplish. I think you have to look at the hits that the program took before the season even started:
1. Our assistant head coach leaves for big money, and takes Ndongo. The guy goes on to average 12 and eight at Georgia Tech.
2. Cam Spencer leaves for greener pastures late in the process.
3. Paul Mulcahy leaves late in the process for reasons known only to him.
And then, when we finally get Mag back, it turns out that he has not had full healing, and we really only had him at 100% for a few games this season.
Those are four big hits to a program when you consider what those players have to offer when they are 100%. And the only positive against those hits was the inclusion of Jeremiah Williams, who gave us a four game spark before the Big Ten figured out how to slow him down.
And we also need to look at the fact that as much as everyone wants to attack our coach, these things were not within his control.
Besides the off-season hits to losing Ndongo and the very late losses of Cam and Paul , there was a reasonable expectation of improvement coming into the year that never materialized.
1) Gavin came with a reputation as one of the best shooters in high school and why he was rated that high. We thought he would replace or lessen the blow of losing Cam’s three point shooting and overall game. It never happened and was disastrous the whole year as we never got a 5-5 heat check game but saw a glimpse of his ability in the last few games. My bigger disappointment was his failure to give us anything else like rebounding , driving , hitting jumpers in the lane or wings , defense , for like 15-20 games. Only in the last 7-10 has he done a little rebounding , still very few drives and very few shots in the paint taking advantage of his 6’8 height. , still shooting a lot from way downtown and not enough off a curl or a screen , a little defense and blocked shots. Expected a complete player but was disappointed.
2) Derek. Coming off his freshman year , we expected the big jump like Smith gave Purdue , Thornton gave Ohio State and Josh gave Iowa . Instead we got a bottom 10 shooter in all of Division 1. No one saw that coming. It dug us holes and his missed jumper after jumper was like a turnover.
3) Mag. We knew he was coming off ACL but all reports were if he would not be totally ready by November , he would be good to go by January and the main conference season. We got the shell of the player we thought we were getting and then he was shut down . No one expected this level of contribution .
4) Cliff - There will be some who state he did not improve enough , but his total almost neglect by the terrible guard play made Cliff an afterthought. When the BIG 10 Media and Coaches named him Preseason First Team , I was expecting at least 15 points and 10 rebounds every night and hoping for 20/10. Other than 1 or 2 games it never happened. There were games where he shot only 2-3 times or only 5 while our guards put up 10 or more shots with almost none of them going in. This offense failed because we allowed our guards to be shoot first guards and not pass first guards and their selfishness or inexperience or inability to get Cliff as a big part of the offense every night doomed us. My expectation was reasonable the result unimaginable.
5) Having no Cam and no Paul and Noah struggling for most of the year except 1-2 games , losing Jeremiah for 20 games was too many to not have him available so the impact of the portal transfer was not fully realized.
So a ton went wrong but expectations I think were reasonable but the result was so far below expectations , no one including Pike envisioned it.
Lastly on Pike , I truly believe he never got a handle on this team and the horrendous shooting from 2 from 3 and from the foul line , layups , never allowed him to put the staple of his teams to use . The flailing at combinations , searching for an Answer , resulting in the worst rebounding team in his tenor and worst shooting team , made him not coach his best and he couldn’t make them better. He will look back and admit he didn’t do a good job but frankly not sure a lot of coaches could have positively succeded with the mess that showed up every night.
