Will Pike ever succeed at Rutgers again?

[seansherm]

No im saying most prigrams didnt have 2 top 5 nba picks

Pike did a miserable job with the supporting cast. That goes to previous recruiting...see no big man and Jeremiah Williams

Would have loved to see last years team with Mag and Cliff, and a healthy Acuff added. Always said J Will was a terrible fit next to Dylan

 

[ru66+]

No im saying most prigrams didnt have 2 top 5 nba picks

Pike did a miserable job with the supporting cast. That goes to previous recruiting...see no big man and Jeremiah Williams

No , you specifically said NIL was not the"excuse" for last year's record. Like NIL doesn't matter and didn't matter last year. Also implied any team with 2 nba picks would win.Like I said, ridiculous ,a team with 2 nba players would not automatically win , there are 5 players on a team.3 cyo players and ace and Harper would win zilch in the BIG.

 

[Lawboy]

This is a simple cause and effect relationship. No NIL means you can’t win in today’s environment. Let’s see what our coaches can do when they have NIL that is comparable to most of the league teams. Next year should be a make it or break it campaign. Our hoops team was canabalized plain and simple. We need to retain Grant and keep him out of the portal. It will cost more than a million. The rest may just follow him and Dortch and stay. Ware is a sleeping giant and will be as good as or better than Sommerville. Two gunslingers from the portal plus a center and we are in business.

 

[bac2therac]

No , you specifically said NIL was not the"excuse" for last year's record. Like NIL doesn't matter and didn't matter last year. Also implied any team with 2 nba picks would win.Like I said, ridiculous ,a team with 2 nba players would not automatically win , there are 5 players on a team.3 cyo players and ace and Harper would win zilch in the BIG.

Never said nil didnt matter

i have posted threads and threads for 3 years on this subject

 

[NickRU714]

No im saying most prigrams didnt have 2 top 5 nba picks

Pike did a miserable job with the supporting cast. That goes to previous recruiting...see no big man and Jeremiah Williams

Here is a good explanation of the point you are making:

Most teams have X to spend on players 1-14.
X being limited for Rutgers.

2024-2025 Rutgers was in the unique situation where we only had to spend on players 3-14.
We were mostly gifted players 1 and 2 (my understanding is they received minimal funds from Rutgers/Rutgers NIL).

So even though X was limited. It didnt need to go as far.
Just for last year though.

 

[rubjk]

No im saying most prigrams didnt have 2 top 5 nba picks

Pike did a miserable job with the supporting cast. That goes to previous recruiting...see no big man and Jeremiah Williams

And you think with proper NIL that would still have been true?

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

No , you specifically said NIL was not the"excuse" for last year's record. Like NIL doesn't matter and didn't matter last year. Also implied any team with 2 nba picks would win.Like I said, ridiculous ,a team with 2 nba players would not automatically win , there are 5 players on a team.3 cyo players and ace and Harper would win zilch in the BIG.

I think a better way of putting it is that even considering for the challenges of NIL, last year’s team was a failure by the coaching staff and there’s simply no denying that. We lost Kennesaw State with 2 future NBA players. Think about that. We didn’t lose that game due to lack of NIL resources.

And you think with proper NIL that would still have been true?

What does that even mean? If you gave any team an unlimited budget they could be successful. Coaches should be evaluated based on how effective they are with the resources they have and last season Pike graded out as an F in this metric. I don’t see how that’s debatable. Others did a lot more with far less.

 

[S.W.A.I.N]

Bob Wentzel won and went to two ncaas in the last 40 year. Watters had a 20 win season. What Pikiell did is five years+ old now. And it’s because of one group of kids that got to stick around a little longer because of COVID. It’s been a ton of misses after that including some pre Covid time. Maybe success is more of a RU problem than a Pike problem, but Pike isn’t the answer. Just ask CCST.

You love extra "t"'s.

 

[Mholinko]

I think a better way of putting it is that even considering for the challenges of NIL, last year’s team was a failure by the coaching staff and there’s simply no denying that. We lost Kennesaw State with 2 future NBA players. Think about that. We didn’t lose that game due to lack of NIL resources.


What does that even mean? If you gave any team an unlimited budget they could be successful. Coaches should be evaluated based on how effective they are with the resources they have and last season Pike graded out as an F in this metric. I don’t see how that’s debatable. Others did a lot more with far less.

Who in the big ten did more with less?

It’s known we have one of the lowest budgets in the league and the other teams with similar funds have equally struggled

if you’re pointing to individual games won or lost yes sure “any given night” but nobody is make deep runs on a beer budget

no doubt he should’ve done more with ace and Dylan and only had to fill 11 spots with the $ not 13 but perhaps it’s still an issue to do even that…

this years roster is same or worse with same funds … my fear is we see guys develop and can’t do anything but shake their hand and thank them when they leave because we can’t retain them

retention is equal parts buy-in from the player as it is financial. Even the most loyal son won’t say no to a much better offer from elsewhere it’s just the landscape and we haven’t shown any signs we could retain our own guys yet

 

[ru66+]

I think a better way of putting it is that even considering for the challenges of NIL, last year’s team was a failure by the coaching staff and there’s simply no denying that. We lost Kennesaw State with 2 future NBA players. Think about that. We didn’t lose that game due to lack of NIL resources.


What does that even mean? If you gave any team an unlimited budget they could be successful. Coaches should be evaluated based on how effective they are with the resources they have and last season Pike graded out as an F in this metric. I don’t see how that’s debatable. Others did a lot more with far less.

Well we didn't have enough to keep Cliff here and he loved the school. The " experts" shouted the center spot was our biggest weakness. Bad NIL money mattered big time last year. Weak NIL money matters this year.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Well we didn't have enough to keep Cliff here and he loved the school. The " experts" shouted the center spot was our biggest weakness. Bad NIL money mattered big time last year. Weak NIL money matters this year.

Yeah of course we’d be better if we had more money. So would every single D1 team. We had way more resource than Kennesaw. Same with CC. Pike has to own those losses. They are not because he’s disadvantaged with NIL. I also believe the Money Ball approach has to be taken. The Oakland Athletics didn’t have as much to spend as other teams but they drafted wisely and used the resources they had. Teams that do that should be commended. Teams that fail to use the money they do have wisely need to be held accountable for it. And last year, that’s absolutely what happened. Cliff did not want to stay. 2023-24 was not a good experience for him. Money aside.

This year is TBD but I’m not ready to concede that the same thing happened yet. CC was bad, but I’m not unhappy with the potential I see coming off last season. If Pike pulls this group together for a somewhat decent season (finds 10 more wins including BIG tourney), retaining a core group would be easier. If you cut the fat like Fall and possibly Zrno and focus on getting one piece that fits the existing puzzle we could have something interesting next year. But yeah - everyone seems ready to write Pike and the kids we have off. They might end up right but I want to see how this season goes first. Unlike others, I don’t think the offense is that bad (it seems way better than 2023-24) and I’m not convinced that the D is completely hopeless. I think it’s at least possible the issues we’ve seen are fixable with some adjustments. So I’m in wait and see mode for this year. But on last season? Sorry dude. Anything other than just admitting Pike failed is a joke. He’d admit it himself.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Who in the big ten did more with less?

It’s known we have one of the lowest budgets in the league and the other teams with similar funds have equally struggled

if you’re pointing to individual games won or lost yes sure “any given night” but nobody is make deep runs on a beer budget

no doubt he should’ve done more with ace and Dylan and only had to fill 11 spots with the $ not 13 but perhaps it’s still an issue to do even that…

this years roster is same or worse with same funds … my fear is we see guys develop and can’t do anything but shake their hand and thank them when they leave because we can’t retain them

retention is equal parts buy-in from the player as it is financial. Even the most loyal son won’t say no to a much better offer from elsewhere it’s just the landscape and we haven’t shown any signs we could retain our own guys yet

Anyone who finished ahead of us??? We had 2 of the best players in college basketball (as in top 10). We had 3 frosh and if Lathan cost a bundle last year well that’s entirely on Pike too. Frosh outside of the lottery types are unproven and should never be big dollar tickets. J Mike wanted to play with Ace. He didn’t cost much. Ogbole had barely played at the collegiate level. Didn’t cost much either. We had 7 scholarships locked in. We could’ve chosen to spend our entire budget bringing in one true star as a complement. and 3 proven quality defenders with unattractive scoring metrics keeping their price tag down. Instead we likely overpaid to keep J Will here, cowtailed to Lathan, and prioritized surrounding the stars with shooters to (as BAC suggested) ensure a good audition for Ace and Dylan because that wouldn’t allow teams to double them. We brought in a collection of shooters in PJ, Martini and Acuff who were not known for defense and kept J Will. Whatever we paid for them - there were far better uses of the money that would’ve yielded much bette team results though possibly less attractive individual stats for Ace and Dylan.

 

[Fat Koko]

View attachment 1026445

Where is the $70 million?