COLUMN: Does Rutgers men's basketball have another move left?
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Interesting take. Well written. Thoughtful. The Targum has always had talented writers. Personally I'm hoping that at least one of NJ class of 26 kids.
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Um what? A shooting specialist? In aggregate we have one of Pikes best 3P shooting teams ever. I’d buy: best talent available, defensive stopper, high risk flyer type, or front court depth. Any of those approaches make more sense at this point.
Couldn’t agree more that we don’t need an additional 3 point specialist. Darin Smith is a very good shooter. Jones can shoot it. It’s not like Tariq is a brick. Of all the things, this is not what we need. We’re not getting a sniper who plays D at this point. If a version of Zrno that hits a handful more 3s is a help to us, that means we’re in trouble.
At this point I would be aiming for a combination of what you suggested. I’d modify it to “best defensive player available” not necessarily overall best player. It’s highly unlikely that we’re going to add someone who is going to make a material difference on offense over what we’ve already added. We could really use a proven guy on D to throw out there though. I’d love to add a defensive 4. Someone big and physical perhaps very raw and maybe even unskilled at scoring the ball (I’m being realistic here about the type of 4 we could actually land - Sydnor is an upgrade over Grant. Denis wasn’t a loss at all. We wanted to keep Nwuli and he was the only one we wanted that we lost. I’m hoping our final goal is to replace that back up role. It’s still open.
Bingo. A depth piece at the 4 is the biggest need. Without knowing if Ware can play some minutes at the 4, we really only have three forwards.
good post
and i BELIEVE your post is based on a very likely assumption (although you didn’t explicitly state it) that we dont have a lot of $$ left - so its likely easier to get an offensively-challenged player that can DEFEND well (than the opposite way around). The fact that such a player would actually fill a need - makes such a pick up a no brainer imho .
This team could use a poor man’s Denis Rodman
so yes - I agree that defense is likely cheaper than offense, but even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure adding another offensive weapon that’s a liability on D will help us that much. All it would do really is hedge for if Darin Smith turns out to be a bust. I think if we’re being realistic, a player who grades out in the bottom 5% nationally on D probably is going to struggle on defense. It’s possible to hide one weak link on D. Hiding 2 at the same time is much harder. We need to balance the ticket at this point regardless of what our budget is. Need the best defender who isn’t a small guard (Lino and J Mike are setvicable enough on D and the addition would ideally be versatile enough to come in and guard anyone 1-4.
I think our biggest need is a power forward who can rebound.
we desperately need to find a commitment to defense and that has been missing the past 2 years...the offense aint the problem even tho it is an issue itself
True, prototypical power forwards price like centers now. I’d be very suprised if we landed anyone with that build who could contribute at this stage. If I had to guess - we’re in the market for Nwuli’s replacement and hopefully we end up landing someone like rising sophomore Mag (similar frosh stats to Nwuli I believe).
On paper we’ve addressed the offense about as well as we could’ve hoped. We kept our best 3 offensive players (maybe 4 if you include J Mike), added 3 players who averaged 15+ points for midmajors, and also upgraded the offensive potential at the center position with Gurdak. There’s no reason not to feel good about the likelihood of having 4 double digit scorers out of that group of 7. And that doesn’t even account for the possibility of hitting the jackpot with Wooten or Duarte or a big jump from Powers. At this point, any additional offense we would bring in would be redundant or an insurance policy. Only 5 guys play at a time.
Defense, unfortunately, is a whole different story. Jones rates as a plus defender (not a stand out but solid and had good length). I think by adding him to the mix, and the frosh and Tariq getting another offseason in the system we’ll be ok with the backcourt defense. J Mike is a steady veteran too.
But the frontcourt D unfortunately has potential to be as bad if not worse than last year which is a scary thought. No doubt the ceiling for it is higher, but if we’re being honest, the floor could be similar. I’m not confident Gurdak will be better on D than Big O (offense yes - but not sure about D). It’s hard to be worse than Powers / Zrno, etc. were on D, but Darin Smith has scary bad metrics for the 3… Sydnor grades out pretty well on D so hopefully we get a nice boost at the 4 over Grant, but we also had depth in Nwuli. Buchanan is a solid piece to eat minutes at both the 3 and 4 like last year but I do think we need one more piece. A Mag type X factor (lower class Mag obviously (after frosh season). We’re not getting someone with meaningful high major stats. We need to pick up a depth piece that fits what we need the way ND did with Bryce.
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The backcourt for sure. I’m reasonably optimistic the D there won’t be a problem. In the frontcourt though, it was more than just being out of position, being gassed from overusage on offense (Tariq) or otherwise lack of hustle. We were physically outmatched down low. Grant having rebounds ripped out of his hands was part of that, yes, but not the whole thing. We lacked that Caleb / Mag X factor type. Dortch had some of that in him but was only used out of position at the 5 because we couldn’t afford another zero on offense with Ogbole out there and no real go to scorers except Tariq. We could really use one more defensive piece. It can be someone with underwhelming paper stats - a guy who is going to be able to come in for 12-14 min as needed (some games more than others) and elevate the team defense.