Kaden Powers set to return to Rutgers Basketball for 2026-27 season
Rutgers Basketball locked down another returnee of the offseason, as guard Kaden Powers announces his return for the 2026-27 season.
Basketball Kaden Powers set to return to Rutgers Basketball for 2026-27 season
- Thread starter Richie O
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A lot of the rumors about who was not going to come back came straight from the staff of this Board. Particularly re Lino who we were led to believe was unhappy.OMG, Powers isn't returning.
The fans were right
i like all of the retentions and transfers in. The staff has a vision & is executing
Then Richie changed on that topic as more info came out shortly after the season. People asked him and he said who exactly was coming back. Still, others didn't bother to read Richie's post and the rumor kept going.
Yep and we predicted everything else correctly to a tee.
Thought it was happening and glad he is back. Think he will take a huge leap in his shot selection, his defense. He has nice upside and is primed for that sophomore leap. Francis , Powers and Wooten should give us scoring out of the 2 guard. Hopefully he does well because when Francis is gone , he becomes our 2 guard. This is important as Mark has 3 potential years, Smith 2 potential years, Gurdack and Syndor have 3 potential years. So if retained with the next portal haul you have experience.
Can someone explain why Davis is coming back ? Three microguards on a roster full of perimeter players is too many.
Pike loyalty ? Uncertainty at the time about who’d we bring in ?
Davis’ $ could have been used for other upgrades without lengthening the bench too much.
Pike loyalty ? Uncertainty at the time about who’d we bring in ?
Davis’ $ could have been used for other upgrades without lengthening the bench too much.
your unending shitting on Davis is tiring
Davis is coming back because he is a captain and a leader, as well as a good basketball player. Not sure what the difficulty is understanding this.
I like Davis for his leadership, unselfishness, tenacity on defense and his knowledge of the Pike system. He has improved substantially every year he's been at RU. RU still has a lot of young players (probably too many young players to succeed in this era of Big 10 hoops but that's another issue). Davis will provide leadership and continuity and will give valuable minutes in crunch time off the bench when the young guys might blink.
Might just have a deep backcourt, now het frontcourt talent and depth
> He isn’t the only one from his recruiting class to return to Rutgers, as guard Lino Mark announced his return earlier in the month. Those two, along with Jamicheal Davis and Tariq Francis, will provide the Knights with a lot of continuity in the backcourt.<
https://www.onthebanks.com/rutgers-...n-powers-announces-his-return-for-next-season
> He isn’t the only one from his recruiting class to return to Rutgers, as guard Lino Mark announced his return earlier in the month. Those two, along with Jamicheal Davis and Tariq Francis, will provide the Knights with a lot of continuity in the backcourt.<
https://www.onthebanks.com/rutgers-...n-powers-announces-his-return-for-next-season
Senior leadership in the NIL age is actually more valued.
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Turds are best ignored or flushed down the toilet.
I’m not an insider. So maybe the staff on here will end up being right and there is a proven PG on the way in via the portal. My guess is at some point discussions of trying to add a veteran BIG level PG pivoted to a target of upgrades at other positions. If we don’t add another pure PG Davis makes perfect sense. It’s him and Lino. If Pike wants, he can also play stretches with Francis and Smith bringing up the ball but he won’t rely on that as his back up PG plan. Injuries happen so 2 true PGs on a roster are needed. I believe we have ours already and the other additions will be to other positions. If we are still planning to add a PG then I agree with you.
Am not crapping in the guy as others assume. Even without another PG, Three microguards is too many. Only one of them is a consistent scorer and none can defend 1:1 or rebound. Backcourt depth need come from bigger players and more talented scorers and defenders. So, there’s no value in keeping all three. Francis scores: keep. One of the other two is a waste of money given other needs.
Having a guy in the program for this long is a huge asset. You can't get that in the portal. Developing a guy to be that guy (Mark) is another huge asset. That leaves Francis. And there is no way they are letting him walk. Barring some crazy PG that forces a choice to be made, you do exactly what Pike is doing.
Couldn’t disagree more. Retention is much less important than talent upgrade, and less so nowadays when many new players can be brought in each year.-
Absolutely. He got this right. That’s why I’m pretty surprised Richie keeps saying we’re still shopping for a PG. It just doesn’t fit. Can’t even picture what that conversation with Lino would be. We want you to stay but we’re recruiting over you? No way.
It is but Lino actually did a lot of good things. He’s not a bad defender at all so I don’t know what your talking about there. And the bigger guards on the roster ( Zrno and Powers) were worse on D than all 3 of them).
Yes, Lino offers more so that’s why the original question. Whatever Davis is getting should have been allocated to an upgrade somewhere else. I’m sure it’s enough to have made a difference in landing a higher caliber player.
Culture is huge in making a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
I’m operating on the assumption that whatever Richie heard about us prioritizing a portal PG still just isn’t accurate information. The order that returnees were announced wasn’t necessarily the order that things became official.
I 100% agree that it would make no sense to have a roster with a new starting PG, Lino, Davis and now a point forward with handling skills, along with Tariq. But you are assuming that Lino was willing to stay here, get recruited over and agree to be our back up PG to some new kid we would bring in. Maybe we entertained the idea of recruiting a portal point at one point, but once Lino decided to stay we weren’t going to spend millions recruiting over him. I’m sure we learned quickly that the pool of PGs who might be interested in transferring in to RU to play the utility PG role were limited. And that’s why keeping our 4 year captain was the best option. With Lino and J Mike - nobody feels like a deep back up. And Pike added an additional option to address height mismatches in Smith who has primary handling experience. There’s nothing wrong with this plan at PG provided we upgrade the other 4 slots which it seems we’ve made good strides towards doing. Need to enhance the D now.
if nothing else, it's cool that we will recognize a majority of the team next year. That has an underrated impact on fan enjoyment...at least for me.
Agree completely, its why I rooted a little harder for Jmike and Eo this year, talent levels be damned
Sad state of sports when “players retained” becomes the norm after every season. Revolving door to let’s make a deal the second the season ends.
While it likely does, team success has more of an impact on fan enjoyment.
I've never seen someone say "sure we made the NCAA Tournament, but it was all new players so it wasnt that enjoyable. I'd rather miss the tournament with familiar players."
I've listed it before:
1. Team success with known players
2. Team success with unknown players
3. Team failure with known players
4. Team failure with unknown players.
People often only focus on #1 v #4 and completely ignore the possibility of #2 v #3.
Glad to see him back. Nice shot. Decent passer. Need to get stronger. Play better defense.
Like I said, unless some crazy high level PG forces that decision, then the decision is already made. You aren't bringing in some unknown when you have a guy that has been through the wars just to see what happens.
Not true in several ways. if the returning player isn’t a need you spend that $ to upgrade a need. We have more significant needs than a small, back up pg And, you don’t bring in an unknown, you bring in a proven player and hope for the best.
Nope - the math doesn’t work. The only way we paid him more than every MWC / A-10 type would be if the plan was for him to start. We didn’t offer him MATERIALLY more than every one of those teams (even the ones a level down from that) to ride our bench. We can’t afford it (with or without J Mike). He showed enough positive where he had to have offers to be a starter at a lower level. Even if we did offer him slightly more than what he was offered to start at those places, it wouldn’t be worth considering to project to play 10-13 minutes behind a portal PG addition. Nowadays, it’s not only about current year earnings but future prospects. If you don’t play much at RU, your NIL value way lower than if you drop 12 and 3 as a starter on a middle of the pack MWC team.
They are out there. Pike’s job to find. He already landed a few and could certainly find one more upside/upgrade in a position of greater need than what Davis will give.
Shelby just not getting the memo that “market price” doesn’t apply equally for every team. Riding Rutgers bench as a back up PG is not a role any veteran PG would be interested in transferring in for. J Mike the best we’d get for that role by far.
And under no situation would it be in Lino’s best interest to stick around for that anticipated role even if we were throwing a bit more money at him than a mid major would offer him to be their starter.
On what premise? You seem to disregard that multiple negotiations are going on at the same time behind the scenes. It would not be in Lino’s best interest to return to RU in a utility role. He was never agreeing to that. Think of Richie’s intel about him having a foot out the door and suddenly he didn’t. What changed? He was playing more, obviously. That didn’t make him not a team player, it just doesn’t make economic sense for any of these kids to choose to ride a bench of they can play and put up stats somewhere else.
That’s the point you keep missing. There was never a chance we were getting a veteran starting PG AND keeping Lino as the back up. If you think we were grabbing someone better than J Mike to come be Lino’s back up there’s something wrong with you. What type of kid would that role apppeal to? Only a kid with very few options.