Imagine when someone from Burma finally wins an NBA championship. Then I will get really excited . . .
Basketball Ron & Dylan Harper / Ace Bailey - NBA Thread
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
By who though? A bunch of random people on Twitter and Reddit? Any legit reporters without a Rutgers/Jersey connection? We're also talking about how his run has started up the discussion again not what was happening in the beginning of the year. No doubt it was a colossal bag drop (and probably the most disappointing season of any team I'm a fan of) that probably doesn't happen with the NIL money they have this year but, so far, it's not a national story.
Does anyone not think last year was a tough year? I said it was the most disappointing season of any team I'm a fan off. And for Harper it wasn't just the losing. It was also the ankle injury and flu that made him drop 10 pounds.
Think there’s a lot of over thinking here
having OKC get to the finals over the Spurs is “better” for Rutgers
come on
to 99.999999999999999999% of the public it makes not a bit of difference
the only people who care are overly-invested-in-certain-aspects-of-sports middle-aged men. Nobody else cares.
and the only ones who matter are the super talented teenagers that we want to play for RU
you think they give a f$$k what some guy named Kratch(?) says?
they care about the $$$$ (which this has no effect either way) and they care if they can get to the NBA (and having Ace and Dylan succeed off the bat…. Well that can ONLY possibly help).
Your worry about this will fade once you realize that the only people who bring up such topics (1) have waaaay too much time on their hands and/or (2) have an anti-ru ad to grind; and no one else knows or cares about it.
waaaaaaay overthinking this
having OKC get to the finals over the Spurs is “better” for Rutgers
come on
to 99.999999999999999999% of the public it makes not a bit of difference
the only people who care are overly-invested-in-certain-aspects-of-sports middle-aged men. Nobody else cares.
and the only ones who matter are the super talented teenagers that we want to play for RU
you think they give a f$$k what some guy named Kratch(?) says?
they care about the $$$$ (which this has no effect either way) and they care if they can get to the NBA (and having Ace and Dylan succeed off the bat…. Well that can ONLY possibly help).
Your worry about this will fade once you realize that the only people who bring up such topics (1) have waaaay too much time on their hands and/or (2) have an anti-ru ad to grind; and no one else knows or cares about it.
waaaaaaay overthinking this
We have some strange fans that need to back off the ledge.
The perception that everyone is constantly talking about Rutgers negatively with Dylan and Ace is unique to this board because every post from every no name on social media is posted here
Are you saying you don’t think it will come up in discussion by game commentators during championship series that Dylan’s team at Rutgers somehow didn’t make it to the NCAAs? If so, I sure hope your right, but I’ll be very surprised.
It could come up, but does it really have any long term effect on our program? I highly doubt it. It's more about folks around here feeling embarrassed. Which I get. But once this season is over, it will rarely be spoken of again.
Nobody is allowed to mention the long bout with the flu and the ankle injury. Remember- the narrative is Rutgers is a laughing stock because they had two top 5 NBA draft picks and did not make the tourney. It is such a lazy and lame narrative when you consider that both Harper and Bailey were out for stretches of time and the rest of the players on that team were sub par because the AD was dead set against NIL, leaving Pikiell with no NIL budget to work with.
There is a segment of Rutgers fans that are a strange lot-they seem to revel wallowing in misery and celebrate every negative comment on antisocial media.
I don’t follow much NBA. But on more than one of the rare occasions when I happened to see one of them was playing and watched for a few minutes, the game commentator brought it up. Just a passing comment about how disappointing their college season was and how amazing it was that Rutgers didn’t even make the NCAA tournament considering what they had accomplished so quickly in the NBA. Those guys shoot the breeze about a lot of things, yes. But if I’ve heard this being discussed during more than one game broadcast this season (and I definitely have) - it’s not just some random guys with like 50 followers Tweeting out. I do watch the playoffs more than the regular season and had actually been thinking that I hadn’t heard banter about it recently. I agree with Kratch though I certainly hope what he predicted will be wrong. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it’s not brought up.
Yeah it’s annoying. I hate hearing it every time it comes up. I do believe that narrative crippled us last year in the portal. Not having money certainly didn’t help either.
But hey - in the long run, we created lifetime memories for those Kennesaw players who can one day tell their grandkids they beat Dylan Harper. Nevermind his 21 points on 10 of 18 shooting or the 9 assists. They still won because basketball is a team game and you can’t win with 2 great players and a collection of busts.
In the long run, showing we can win again with Pike is all that matters. Prove everyone wrong and get back to that tournament. Restore the brand Pike worked hard to build. And if he can’t do that, move on.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Dylan’s instant NBA stardom didn’t reflect well on the Rutgers coaching program, and the extension of that on display at the Garden right now is the furthest thing from a positive boost to the RU brand (again, maybe in a few years this changes but right now the association is not good. Down the road when he’s not a rookie and it’s just the university tied to his name when he’s announced in the line up, maybe then it’ll be different). But right now this crap is still one of the first things brought up. We’re still in the market for a few 2026-27 recruits!
To be clear, it’s not Dylan’s fault 2024-25 was a bust, and he’s a good kid. I wish him only the best personally and hope he has a great long term NBA career.
Will it be mentioned ? Yeah probably
but then you are making the assumption that it will have an effect on the recruiting decisions of 18 year olds
I can think of numerous reasons why it likely wouldn’t - but not going to bother - because I think we’ve already too much time talking about it
Money is the biggest tool for recruiting - program perception only has tie breaker type impact. Your right, it’s not a major blow to us like say the news of the Hobbs scandal for instance. Of course not.
To be clear, I’m simply tired of hearing it brought up, certainly don’t think it’s good pfor the program when it’s mentioned, and since my kids are big Knicks fans and so the games will be on, I’d personally have preferred for the Spurs not to have been in the game so I wouldn’t have to hear about it again.
Dylan’s participation in the finals is in no conceivable way, right now, a clear positive endorsement of RU’s program. It’s neutral at absolute best right now and any framing of otherwise is pure homerism IMO. Again - I wish only the best for Dylan and Ace personally. It’s nothing against either of them that I’d sooner just forget what happened that season.