Rutgers Is Getting Back to Basics
Without Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, Rutgers Coach Steve Pikiell is trying to bring back the Scarlet Knights’ blue collar identity
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Rutgers Is Getting Back To Basics
- Thread starter Tango Two
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But why didn't he follow Greg's lead and search out donors outside the program is the biggest question that we'll never know the answer.
I think he did and I think it didn’t work out. And I think he needs help, Greg has 20 years of contacts at RU willing to give him cash. Pikes has his guys but not as many because basketball was on the back burner for so long.
Not sure where all these people willing to give Greg cash are hiding since Greg had to go outside of RU to get the current money he's been using.
Greg has done an incredible job with NIL and he is still projected to finish 5-7 or 6-6 this year.
Yes because the schedule is one of the ten toughest in the country based on preseason rankings.
If he had middle of B1G NIL instead of middle of P4, then expectations would be higher than 5-7 to 7-5.
Last year too with a manageable big ten schedule. My point is being a coach at RU in a revenue sport (football and basketball ) is very hard.
Rutgers lost to Kennesaw Stste and Princeton and Iowa and people keep excusing last year because of money
If they had more NIL$$ don’t you think that the roster would have been better? Dylan and Ace basically had their own deals. The NIL for the rest of the team was an issue. The roster was flawed for sure. Teaming 2 amazing freshmen with players who didn’t fit Pikes system was ultimately a bad idea.
And who bares responsibility for that along with allowing a freshman to dictate whether he brings in a rim protector from the portal? Just that one transfer could have changed a few games considered neither center on last year's roster could play above the rim.
Greg barely beat a crappy Temple team 16-14 in 2022, and got hammered by a terrible Wisconsin team 42-7 at home in 2024.
The losses to K State and Princeton were by 1 point each.
**** happens.
Whiners whine
Greg apologists apologize all day for Greg, and choose to crap all over Pike instead.
Greg 2.0 is a terrible example to throw out in comparison. Circle back if Ohio and/or Miami (Ohio) don’t go our way but 2.0 currently has a perfect record in nonconference play…. There are other things to point to with Greg (like not picking up a true signature win yet), but unlike Pike, he’s been rock solid against bad teams. Yes - close calls happen, but a win is a win. BAC didn’t reference needing OT to beat a bad ND team, for instance. It’s inappropriate to focus on one single 2 point non-conference football game when every other one was won comfortably.
Rutgers lost to Lafayette, UMass, St Bonnies Hofstra, and Temple under Pike before NIL even existed with decent talent. In the spirit of what I said above, I’ll leave the OT win va Lehigh out of it because we ended up winning. But the point is, Pike has a history of underperforming against teams less talented than his. To his credit, he’s also pulled off some upsets over teams more talented than his own with his stronger defensive teams. Anyone can have a good shooting day and D travels. Last year we didnt have the D to compete with the best even when our offense was clicking. that was more about not recruiting cultural fits to surround Ace / Dylan than money per se.
Pot meet kettle- king of odd (and usually whiny) posts. Post another obscure person death thread, will ya?
And try to follow along - the discussion in this thread was among you, RUFAN4LIFE and needmorecowbell who brought in Greg's greater success with NIL and the arguable lack of commensurate success in the W-L column.
Some of you fans are insufferable critics beating the same dead horse over and over. Pike needed big NIL money to get a rim protector after Cliff left for the big money at Alabama. Pike tried various avenues to raise money. He was unable. Greg has infinitely more resources on his staff, contacts within Rutgers having been at RU for nearly 20 years, being a NJ guy with deep roots here to raise money. And we all know that football drives the bus, and it is the big bus. Basketball is a much smaller bus, and Pikiell has not been here nearly as long (only 9 years at both Rutgers and New Jersey).
I am fine with what Greg has done. But despite the schedule in 2025, it's time for him to get to 8 wins and a winning record in the B1G. In year 2 at Illinois, Bret Bielema got 8 wins and a 5-4 record in the B1G, and in year 4, he had Illinois 10-3 and 6-3 in the B1G. He also beat 2 ranked teams (#7 Penn State and #20 Minnesota), and this was after 5 years of a Lovie Smith debacle. He has beaten 6 ranked teams in 4 years. Again, for those that make excuses for the lack of greater success by Greg but want to throw Pikiell under the bus, there is a bit of duality there.
Back to Pikiell, yes, he is trending in the wrong direction the past 2 years in the W-L column. If RU has the money, and now that we have an AD that is focused on results and not the balance beam and yoga classes, perhaps a change will be made at the end of the 2025-26 season if Pikiell cannot reverse the trend.
Yeah absolutely. Greg needs to take the next step and beat some good teams. He needs to not throw away wins against good teams that are in the bag by calling ridiculous time outs. Nobody is saying he’s perfect.
The point BAC made (I think) is that losses like the Kennesaw one should NOT happen period for a program like Rutgers let alone one with two top 5 lottery picks on it. Being bad enough to lose games like this the way we did isn’t a money thing which is why it’s ridiculous that our fans keep using that as an excuse for how things went last year. I agree with your point that upsets do happen (notably in the NCAA tournament) but that’s generally because any team can get “hot” on a given day. Pike lost to a Kennesaw team that shot like 29% from the perimeter against us. We let them outrebound us 46 to 27. I’m sorry but that is not about money - Kennesaw did not spend more on their players than us (not even including Dylan and Ace). No way. It’s not about that. And this wasn’t the first time a Pike team didn’t play close to its talent ability - the beginning of that season with the Lafayette loss. Look at our talent relative to the production. The difference between then and last year is he had the D to turn things around. Winning through offense first isn’t Pike’s thing.
It is a strange dynamic on this board, but I would never place Bac in the Greg apologist camp.
Yes we could have kept Cliff if we had money
What is the naked truth on baring responsibility, or is that about baring it all?
No - that’s not true. he was gone before any negotiation or attempt could be made to raise the necessary funds. Argument can be made that the way the prior season went down played a role in that. If we had a great year with Paul and Cam and Cliff put up nice looking stats he might’ve felt differently. But after that loss to Hofstra he was as good as gone no matter what.
No, he put in his 4 years, was very down about getting no NBA interest, didn’t want to take a backseat to the freshman, and was ready to try something different.
I'm going off what we were told on the premium side at the time. He spoke with Pike who told him they wouldn't be able to match the offers he was going to command.
Listen to yourself though, "he was gone before any negotiation or attempt could be made to raise the necessary funds". Funds need to be on hand prior to the end of the season not after it ended. Pike couldn't give away almost half of his NIL and still fill the roster. Though in hindsight, probably couldn't do any worse than what they did with a short roster barring injury.
It seems like you have a couple unrelated comments by different people tangled up. The point made in the post you responded to is that NIL / lack of money cannot be blamed for losses to teams like Kennesaw St. who have far less resources than Rutgers in every imaginable comparable.
Not only does this have nothing to do with Greg and football, but the parallel you tried to draw is also unfair. There are many things to question about Greg’s return but failing to win the games he’s heavily favored to win isn’t one of them. he’s literally been perfect against non-power conference teams despite inheriting a program that had a losing record vs this group of teams under his predecessor. Pointing to one close call Temple game early on that we actually did win and claiming it’s the same thing as the types of losses Pike picked up last season with Ace and Dylan is borderline ridiculous. Nobody was screaming early on when Pike lost to Hartford, Stonybrook, or Fordham or needed OT to get past Columbia. But when those kind of losses have continued despite massive talent improvements. the coach has to be accountable and that fact has nothing whatsoever to do with NIL.
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There were things that could’ve been done. fundraising efforts could’ve been made for a specific player. Look at Cliff’s numbers. The season did not go well. A change of scenery was due. We’ll never know if things could’ve / would’ve been different if he put up numbers more aligned with the previous season.
We will agree to disagree. The Greg does no wrong crowd should not be barking up the Pike tree.
Two different sports anyway. Don't have time or interest to rehash and debate every single point.
Let's see what Pike does this year to either get another year for some form of a turnaround or get fired for more of the same or worse than the last 2 years.
Where are you getting the Greg does no wrong crowd from in the response you sent? BAC posted the comment about the losses to Kennesaw types. He’s far from a “Greg does no wrong guy”.
Putting that aside, the point BAC made about NIL actually applies for football too just not in the way you framed it. Insufficient NIL funds should not be an excuse for losing to teams like Kennesaw, Lafeyette, etc. The parallel on the football side is that NIL was also not the reason we handed Illinois a win last season with what has to rank as the most idiotic time out in football history. Pike and Greg 2.0 have different strengths and weaknesses. Pike has proven he can pull off big upsets and win big games (Greg has yet to do this). That wasn’t the topic being discussed here but it would’ve been fine if you wanted to point it out. More than fair. What I called you out on was making it like Greg 2.0 has been just as bad when it comes to taking care of business against the teams he’s clearly supposed to beat based on talent alone. The opposite is actually true which is why I think pointing to one Temple game (which we didn’t even lose) +3 years ago long before NIL is unfair to Greg.
You prove it. It is just a stupid conspiracy theory.
I have to chime in and agree with NBKnight here.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but wasn't Pike trying to get Felix Okpara to come here? As well as a few other Centers whose names I forget? I'm 71, so my memory sucks. But I could swear that happened last year.
I'm not doubting Lathan asked Pike to NOT bring in another Center. I'm just suggesting Pike didn't give a rats a$$ what Lathan wanted. And he was stymied -- not by Lathan -- but by a lack of NIL money.
It is not the mic drop you think it is. Steve reached out to multiple big men in the portal. When it comes to recruiting, Steve is honest to a fault, if he told Lathan that he was not going to recruit a portal big man, we would not recruited a portal big man. He just could not land anyone. Use some common sense.It came directly from Richie...lol
Keep with that storyline if it makes you feel good about things. I'll stick with what was reported on the premium side since it comes directly from those linked to the program.
Steve Pikiell and crew did reach out to several big men, but they were too expensive. They took what they could get.
I recall what was reported and out there was an interview with Pike where he was specifically questioned about why he stopped recruiting a BIG and the response he gave didn’t refer to anyone by name but said that part of recruiting involved making sure there’s enough playing time to go around and keep people happy. I remember it being this punchline, but more than just this and pretty obvious Lathan was the underlying subject of the comments. Technically since his name wasn’t directly mentioned, I guess you could call it a rumor, but it wasn’t a rumor that Pike gave this response. I’m near certain that interview was reported as fact (to have happened).