Expectations for two game road trip vs Illinois/Northwestern

[bac2therac]

At this point in the rebuild its hard to say any game is a must win and while I do not think either is, I think its important to win one of these games. It is fair to judge Pikiell and the progress of the program and development vs schools that are in the same vicinity of RU. RU has done fairly well wins over PSU, Nebby, OSU, and Indiana..some may argue a couple of those teams a notch above RU. They lost at OSU no shame and a tough disappointing loss at home to Northwestern. So RU is 4-2 in those games with 4 to go...at Ill, at NW, PSU and at Indy. A split in those 4 would be wonderful. I will sign on.

Illinois only has 8 wins but I think 4 of their last 6 and now squarely tied with RU in league at 4-8. The perception is that this game is a bad matchup for RU given how Illinois clobbbered them last year by 30 I think and how they play a tough physical pressure defense that will turn you over. Of course, coming a huge win over MSU, they obviously have a lot of confidence and will be favorite but this is a winnable game for RU and hopefully Pikiell motivates the team to use it as an opportunity to get a win as a reward for all the hard work the past few weeks.

Northwestern follows and RU played that first game without Eugene. It was a lackluster type performance from this team and following the loss prompted a team meeting that saw improved play. Its more winnable than Illinois and the Wildcats seemingly have sputtered of late. I expect an improved effort on both ends and hope the team learned a lesson from the last meeting

Big two game road swing, let's not downplay it..a real opportunity for the program to take a step forward and solidify its spot out of the basement and possibly out of the first day of games in the Big 10 tourney.

 

[kcg88]

Illinois is a horrible matchup for us. They weren't any good last year but we were completely noncompetitive in both games against them. They totally hound whoever has the ball.

 

[BIGRUBIGDBIGredmachine]

0-2 on the road....too bad, I think 2-0 if we played them at home this time

 

[PiscatawayMike]

Big two game road swing, let's not downplay it..a real opportunity for the program to take a step forward and solidify its spot out of the basement and possibly out of the first day of games in the Big 10 tourney.

HUGE two-game road trip. I am certainly not downplaying it. I am still holding out hope for a .500 season (15-15). For it to happen, RU must win at least one of the next two games. Winning both would make my hope more realistic.

 

[bac2therac]

winning both and then heading home for a Saturday night game vs Iowa would be another great opportunity

 

[MadRU]

Penn State and Northwestern are our best chances

 

[rutger80]

I think we go 1-1.
Illinois is a bad matchup, though maybe they'll have a letdown
I think if we are intense from the start, we can beat the Wildcats. Can't have lulls.

 

[willisneverrana43]

It's the road, so if asked to guess: 0-2.

 

[bethlehemfan]

Illinois feels very difficult to me. Feel better about nw.

 

[Scarlet Shack]

HUGE two-game road trip. I am certainly not downplaying it. I am still holding out hope for a .500 season (15-15). For it to happen, RU must win at least one of the next two games. Winning both would make my hope more realistic.

Nailed it

 

[RU-ROCS]

I really think IL will smoke us. They are red hot and match up favorably against us. I'm hopeful that with a healthy Omoruyi, we can pull off the upset win at NWU.

 

[RU MAN]

Bottom line: We need to go 1-1 here. Right now I see Northwestern as the win. But some here are acting as if we have no chance against Illinois. I disagree. I watched much of their game last night and that Michigan State team wasn't even close to resembling the team that beat us by 11 at the RAC. In the first 10 minutes of that game they had something like 12+ TO's. They desperately miss Langford and Winston was completely out of sorts turning the ball over a myriad of times and rushing and taking bad shots.

As for Illinois, yes they have some really good young players led by Dosunmu who weighs about 160 lbs' wet, but is a 5 star freshman player who shoots really well from the outside. So does Frazier, a sophomore. And yes they do pressure the ball from out deep, but we may provide a difficult matchup for them down low especially since their Big (their freshman 6'9"Bezhanishvishlli is good but inconsistent and they have another guy 6'10" who provides decent but not great defense and offense. Those two guys will not be able to have their way with all of our bigs. What we have to be concerned about is their perimeter shooting. If we can play them even outside, I think our bigs and Eugene can take advantage of them inside.

Yes, we were blown out of their building last year at Illinois, but that was with a different team, many of whom graduated last year. This new crop of kids are talented, but as raw as our kids. I realize they're on a high from beating MSU last night. but because they're kids, it doesn't mean they will be consistent from game to game. I call this a tossup, where we could steal this game if we play close to what we did last night against Michigan.

As for Northwestern, I'm hoping our kids look at that game as our revenge game. I still believe if we had Eugene in that game, we win that game.

 

[Degaz-RU]

Much better chance to beat NW, but still a puncher's chance at IL. I would sign on for 1-1 right now.

But it's the road, and going 0-2 is a very distinct possibility, even the LIKELY result.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

BART says 20% -9 vs. Illinois
27% -5 vs. NW

5.4% we win both
58.4% we lost both
36.2% we win 1

Need to get back to playing good defense. 2 straight games we didn't defnd the line

 

[RutgersFan]

Does anyone know if they are making this a single trip to the state of Illinois or are coming home between the games?

 

[Scarlet83]

This. I think we can get blown out of the building again.

And I think we can beat them. This is a different Rutgers team.

 

[bac2therac]

Bottom line: We need to go 1-1 here. Right now I see Northwestern as the win. But some here are acting as if we have no chance against Illinois. I disagree. I watched much of their game last night and that Michigan State team wasn't even close to resembling the team that beat us by 11 at the RAC. In the first 10 minutes of that game they had something like 12+ TO's. They desperately miss Langford and Winston was completely out of sorts turning the ball over a myriad of times and rushing and taking bad shots.

As for Illinois, yes they have some really good young players led by Dosunmu who weighs about 160 lbs' wet, but is a 5 star freshman player who shoots really well from the outside. So does Frazier, a sophomore. And yes they do pressure the ball from out deep, but we may provide a difficult matchup for them down low especially since their Big (their freshman 6'9"Bezhanishvishlli is good but inconsistent and they have another guy 6'10" who provides decent but not great defense and offense. Those two guys will not be able to have their way with all of our bigs. What we have to be concerned about is their perimeter shooting. If we can play them even outside, I think our bigs and Eugene can take advantage of them inside.

Yes, we were blown out of their building last year at Illinois, but that was with a different team, many of whom graduated last year. This new crop of kids are talented, but as raw as our kids. I realize they're on a high from beating MSU last night. but because they're kids, it doesn't mean they will be consistent from game to game. I call this a tossup, where we could steal this game if we play close to what we did last night against Michigan.

As for Northwestern, I'm hoping our kids look at that game as our revenge game. I still believe if we had Eugene in that game, we win that game.

agree...RU had tough matchups with Michigan and Michigan State and managed to hang in. Illinois is not the same challenge. Now no one says it will be easy but its winnable. Illinois is improved but they have also lost a ton of games. I think the strengths RU has of rebounding and defense can present problems for Illinois. Its all about taking care of the ball and valuing possesions. Winning at Illinois is not as hopeless as some are making it out to be.

 

[YoucancallmeRay]

Not very familiar with Illinois, so I'll go with our inside game. EO will be a handful for them and our other bigs will cause them problems. You live and die with the 3 ball and Illinois will die. On the other hand, we've already lost to NW (yes, EO didn't play) so since it's the second game on the road, I think we lose to NW.

 

[NewJerseyHawk]

Does anyone know if they are making this a single trip to the state of Illinois or are coming home between the games?

This is a very real distraction but my guess would be they stay in Chicago somewhere after getting out of Champaign Saturday night.

Can this team get the proper routines in for Sunday through Tuesday ?? You have to be in town the day before the game so RU would be traveling back Saturday night to get back to NJ for Sunday and Monday while flying back Tuesday afternoon.

 

[Duff366]

Illinois took awhile and had a bunch of close losses against an incredibly tough out of conference schedule (Gonzaga, Georgetown, Xavier, Iowa State, Notre Dame)

They are playing really well right now, they made Cassius Winston look very ordinary. Not very optimistic that we will handle the Illinois pressure for 40 minutes.

 

[DHajekRC84]

I think going 1 and 1 is a win for a team that just won its 2nd road game in B1G history a few weeks ago. Can we take them both, sure. We could also lose both. Although I do think the up tempo wide open style of Illinois might work for us on the O side if we can get our butts back on defense.

BTW, what's the deal with that 6'9" kid from Georgia via Hillside? Did we even look at him? I don't recall or have recruiting insight like some of you.

 

[RUJMM78]

Unless Rutgers shows far better scoring performances on the road and at home, February will be a month of bitter disappointment for the team,coaching staff and fans.They will be the under dog in every road game until Rutgers shows they can win on the road against a opponent not named Penn State.The home games against Iowa and Minnesota will be very difficult because they consistently score more than 70 points.

Bottom line the opponent must play down to Rutgers scoring average in the 60- 65 point average for any additional wins to happen.Other than Eugene's double digit inside scoring Rutgers still lacks having even one consistent outside scoring threat.

 

[dpwhite]

Copy and paste

 

[Scangg]

Wish we played Illinois earlier in the year. That's going to be tough. NW is where I expect a win. They were lucky to catch us without EO.

 

[Scarlet Shack]

I’m thinking of this a little different

We need 2 of the next three including home game vs Iowa

 

[BigEastPhil]

We'll be fortunate to win 1 game though the Northwestern game is a definite winnable game especially if we have the "Revenge" meanness factor. i don't think we matchup well with Illinois as Underwood finally has them playing to their potential. Plus Illinois and Purdue may be the 2 toughest arenas in the Big 10 to play for a road team. Rowdy student sections.

 

[RUTrack94]

0-2

 

[BillyC80]

Thinking we lose to IL and beat NW.

 

[Knights 1212]

I saw the Illinois center who played at The Patrick School last year vs. Linden. He was to me more impressive than Vlad Manual in their first game that the Patrick school won 84-82 in two OT's at Hillside High School. I wondered that night why us as well as other top schools were not recruiting him. Linden beat the Patrick School 70-55 in the return game at Linden. Illinois won him over. I think his only other offer was Hofstra at the time.

 

[Booty Maximus]

I saw the Illinois center who played at The Patrick School last year vs. Linden. He was to me more impressive than Vlad Manual in their first game that the Patrick school won 84-82 in two OT's at Hillside High School. I wondered that night why us as well as other top schools were not recruiting him. Linden beat the Patrick School 70-55 in the return game at Linden. Illinois won him over. I think his only other offer was Hofstra at the time.

Illini fan here. Illinois was recruiting Manual and went to see him play. That's when Underwood noticed Giorgi and "fell in love" with him. Can't recall a player ever exceeding expectations by so much and so quickly. He's playing right now like you'd dreamed he might have been able to play as a SR with some development time.

Supposedly he only averaged 8 pts/2 rbs in high school though some have suggested the stat keeping wasn't the best.

Good luck Saturday, Illinois is playing very well right now but are still young and who knows how well they'll handle the emotion of a big win over MSU.

 

[bac2therac]

let us also not make excuses....yes we should have expectations to go in and beat Illinois. Lets not as a fanbase accept it and say woe is me, we cannot beat them. I think this is an important two game stretch for perception because after this the next winnable game is just PSU..every other game at home will be very tough..Iowa/Minny . You want to continue to momentum..and you do that by winning one of these 2.

 

[bac2therac]

Copy and paste

there really is nothing he posted that wasnt true. We need to start setting expectations to win games and that is only going to happen by seeing something different out of our team...Illinois and Northwestern are in the bottom half of the league. These are teams that RU has to beat if they are ever going to move up in the pecking order. JMM is spot on when it comes to road performances....RU got by PSU despite a wobbly offensive game, that will not be the case at Illinois.

 

[goru7]

We are not beating anyone unless we get our defense up to snuff. We just let up 11 and 13 threes , most of them uncontested and wide open , to Ohio State and Michigan, which clearly cost us the Ohio State game as well as any second half comeback we were making against Michigan. Plus what the hell is going on to start the last 2 games as Ohio State and Michigan were 100% shooters for the first 5 plus minutes of both games and our half court man defense was atrocious. Pike has to get his guys to immediately play with defensive intensity so that Illinois and Northwestern develop no confidence like Ohio State and Michigan did, when both of them were in mini shooting slumps coming into our game and we let them crawl out of it.

Regarding Illinois, Coach better install a press breaker and with little dribbling and passing to Myles in the middle , we should have Montez and Ron flying through the hoop for layups. Geo is not Corey and cannot dribble thru the pressure. If that is executed properly, and we defend the three point line, we have a good chance to win, because despite their recent wins , they really are not a good team but a helter skelter team. We have the size to go toe to toe at every position.

Regarding Northwestern, again just defend the three, as Taylor hit 2 late threes when Issa could not get around screens in the first game and do not let that Falzone kid get comfortable shooting as he won them a game hitting 6-7 or 7-8 recently. Otherwise, they have not played well, are not very good, and Law is not healthy and is a shell of himself. We have to contain Pardon and not let him get comfortable as we let Wesson get comfortable. Ratchet up the defense in these 2 games and handle Illinois press and we will walk out with 2 victories sky high for Iowa that following Saturday .

 

[higgins3]

Part of the culture change is that every game is a must win.

 

[rudad02]

Bottom line: We need to go 1-1 here. Right now I see Northwestern as the win. But some here are acting as if we have no chance against Illinois. I disagree. I watched much of their game last night and that Michigan State team wasn't even close to resembling the team that beat us by 11 at the RAC. In the first 10 minutes of that game they had something like 12+ TO's. They desperately miss Langford and Winston was completely out of sorts turning the ball over a myriad of times and rushing and taking bad shots.

As for Illinois, yes they have some really good young players led by Dosunmu who weighs about 160 lbs' wet, but is a 5 star freshman player who shoots really well from the outside. So does Frazier, a sophomore. And yes they do pressure the ball from out deep, but we may provide a difficult matchup for them down low especially since their Big (their freshman 6'9"Bezhanishvishlli is good but inconsistent and they have another guy 6'10" who provides decent but not great defense and offense. Those two guys will not be able to have their way with all of our bigs. What we have to be concerned about is their perimeter shooting. If we can play them even outside, I think our bigs and Eugene can take advantage of them inside.

Yes, we were blown out of their building last year at Illinois, but that was with a different team, many of whom graduated last year. This new crop of kids are talented, but as raw as our kids. I realize they're on a high from beating MSU last night. but because they're kids, it doesn't mean they will be consistent from game to game. I call this a tossup, where we could steal this game if we play close to what we did last night against Michigan.

As for Northwestern, I'm hoping our kids look at that game as our revenge game. I still believe if we had Eugene in that game, we win that game.

The Ref's will be critical, especially on the road. That tips the scales against us. We will have to beat both teams & overcome the Refs IMO.

 

[RU MAN]

The Ref's will be critical, especially on the road. That tips the scales against us. We will have to beat both teams & overcome the Refs IMO.

Sadly, you're right. We will have to overcome both. But as bad as some of the calls against us in the Michigan game, I thought the officials did a pretty fair job and Michigan I believe had more fouls than us.

As for on the road, I also noticed in the two games played yesterday, the visiting teams also had more fouls. I just hope the ratio isn't so out of hand that it costs us the game. We need to get out to a fast start (something we haven't done well at) and try to control the rhythm of the game. The more messy it is, the more chances we have to win.

 

[RUJMM78]

We are not beating anyone unless we get our defense up to snuff. We just let up 11 and 13 threes , most of them uncontested and wide open , to Ohio State and Michigan, which clearly cost us the Ohio State game as well as any second half comeback we were making against Michigan. Plus what the hell is going on to start the last 2 games as Ohio State and Michigan were 100% shooters for the first 5 plus minutes of both games and our half court man defense was atrocious. Pike has to get his guys to immediately play with defensive intensity so that Illinois and Northwestern develop no confidence like Ohio State and Michigan did, when both of them were in mini shooting slumps coming into our game and we let them crawl out of it.

Regarding Illinois, Coach better install a press breaker and with little dribbling and passing to Myles in the middle , we should have Montez and Ron flying through the hoop for layups. Geo is not Corey and cannot dribble thru the pressure. If that is executed properly, and we defend the three point line, we have a good chance to win, because despite their recent wins , they really are not a good team but a helter skelter team. We have the size to go toe to toe at every position.

Regarding Northwestern, again just defend the three, as Taylor hit 2 late threes when Issa could not get around screens in the first game and do not let that Falzone kid get comfortable shooting as he won them a game hitting 6-7 or 7-8 recently. Otherwise, they have not played well, are not very good, and Law is not healthy and is a shell of himself. We have to contain Pardon and not let him get comfortable as we let Wesson get comfortable. Ratchet up the defense in these 2 games and handle Illinois press and we will walk out with 2 victories sky high for Iowa that following Saturday .

I agree that the defense must be improved in stopping the 3 point shot.At the same the offense needs to score more points .Based on past league games the only way Rutgers has a chance of winning is when the opponent plays down to Rutgers scoring average of 60-65 points per game There is a very small margin for error when your offense has such difficulty scoring 70 points.

 

[dpwhite]

there really is nothing he posted that wasnt true. We need to start setting expectations to win games and that is only going to happen by seeing something different out of our team...Illinois and Northwestern are in the bottom half of the league. These are teams that RU has to beat if they are ever going to move up in the pecking order. JMM is spot on when it comes to road performances....RU got by PSU despite a wobbly offensive game, that will not be the case at Illinois.

Not saying he’s wrong