Where do the next 4 come from?
- Thread starter ouchmyknee
- Start date
We don’t have to win either of these games . These are road games against top ten opponents . If we get one of them , we can pretty much punch our ticket though . If we just take care of business at home , we’ll be good to go
It is funny, he does not show
up for practice for two games while we are trying
to go undefeated, unbelievable that RU chose
him to be head coach.
The next game always is the most important with only 8 games remaining and nobody knows how the team will perform game to game.The defense is better but the offense is scoring less points.
You are asking us to sweep three teams in that scenario, a feat that we rarely do once a season.
Yes I am. This year’s team is and can do a lot of things RU rarely does.
At this point, it is asking us to beat three teams AT HOME that are currently behind us in the standings and in the major metrics that I have seen (kenpom and NCAA NET). We already covered the road wins, the hardest part of a sweep.
NET: Rutgers 32, Maryland 42, Indiana 47, Northwestern 86 (Minnesota 49, Nebraska 164)
kenpom: Rutgers 26, Indiana 27, Maryland 44, Northwestern 74 (Minnesota 40, Nebraska 123)
Road wins are really neutral wins this year. The RU bench was way louder than Northwestern's bench yesterday. I guess there could be a case for playing at a facility you are familiar and comfortable with and being at your home school, but it's not the same as having 15K fans rooting against you.
We should be favored:
vs Minnesota
vs Northwestern
vs Maryland
vs Indiana
at Nebraska
This is not a thing. It does not become harder to win the second game after you win the first.
One game at a time. However, barring injuries etc., there is no way we should not be able to win 4 of our remaining games. When we are playing our best, we can win every one our remaining games, and of course the reverse is also true.
almost equally important, we have no BAD losses...Ped St is our worst loss by far, and they are much improved, they are actually AHEAD of us in the NET ranking at 29 versus our 31....Minnesota ranked 49 in the NET, so that would qualify as our worst loss IF we drop that one. Syracuse is at 51, so that is a nice Quad 2 win
Just win them all and settle down people with pitchforks! Ride high into the B1G tourney
We are currently in the top half of the Big 10. All we need to do is stay there and we're in the tournament.
Reality is this team can easily go 8-0 or 0-8.
Seems like the big issue with them in mental. Over the last two years they overcame those mental blocks knowing they had shortcomings to compensate for. This year, they know they have the talent, but have become mentally lazy about applying it. Even Geo is not immune. After taking a 20 point lead and bringing the ball up yesterday he tried a lazy cross court pass that got defected, stolen and dunked. That led to a 15-0 run against Rutgers because after that Rutgers got lazy with the offense (bad shots) and defense (slow on rotations). Clamp down mentally and I would wager closer to 8-0. Not snap out of it mentally, and closer to 0-8.
By the same token, home wins are more valuable than they usually are. They should adjust the NET quads but I don't think they are.
You know 3-4 weeks from now everybody here is going to be calling for Pike's head and I'm going to be the guy that says no no he did good enough this year it was a bad draw he just needs to make the tourney in the next two years to be safe. And if I'm wrong (and I hope I am) I will admit it.
Great point. Home wins should count the way neutral wins normally do. Neutral wins (not that many neutral games played) should count as road wins. Only 2 categories - binary - did you have to travel to play the game? Yes or no.
I really think you hit on the major issue with this team. We have seen the talent on full display and we have seen the mental meltdowns like Ohio State first game , MSU first game , Penn State 33 of 40 minutes. Rather surprised as a veteran team that this is occurring but we really really need Geo to become a strong leader down the stretch to calm everyone down and settled. We also need him to step up. He appears healthier than he has been all year and from here on out 13-15 points per game, five assists , five rebounds and two steals should be his line. That will send a mental image to the guys that I got your back , so go ahead play freely and to your potential. He has to rein in Jacob when he starts dribbling out of control and get in Ron’s grill to get to the basket and stay down low and don’t get lazy hanging out at the three point line. It is truly mental at this stage since playing the top teams in the league, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio State showed we have the talent to play with , win , get leads on , and compete with anybody and let it slip away ( Iowa and first Ohio State game ).