Small Sample size, but he looks very good and very comfortable out there. Against real competition. He should feast at home vs low majors and build even more confidence. He’ll likely lead us in minutes played per game too. Miteo Ware and Buca will combine to fill in the 10 mins per game Gurdak sits. Those stat lines in big ten play he’d be an all conference performer.
How good is Christian Gurdak going to be this season?
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He's better than all of them offensively and worse at protecting the rim. Smart though, and will be much better at playing against the P&R. At his current pace he's still rebounding slightly slower per 40 than EO last year, but better than he did last year, so would be great if he can keep this level of rebounding up as EO was a very good defensive rebounder.
I think Gurdak has been much more effective as a defender and rim protector than Ogbole has. He’s able to play effectively in a hedge scheme, and does an amazing job getting vertical and contesting. There were so many plays he got a good contest and forced a miss at the rim where Ogbole would’ve been too slow to react and either not have gotten a contest, oversold on the contest, or fouled the player at the rim. And the fact Gurdak is actually able to play in important minutes is an astronomical upgrade over Ogbole. We honestly shouldn’t even be talking about Ogbole much anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if Miteo ends the year better than Ogbole.
If he can’t make them reliably, he shouldn’t be shooting them. Most 5s in college can’t hit the 3 - obviously a 5 who can hit a 3 belongs in the NBA.
Oh, stop, Miteo is so young, he's going to be a non factor this year unless Ware and Buca are so bad we don't have a choice.
No doubt, Gurdak is a large improvement in off the ball and P&R defense. Still, we've given up 60 points in the paint in two games. We've lost two games by 6 total points and have been outscored by 9 when he's been on the court - yes, he was barely taken off and exhausted by end of St Johns so not fair to pin the -4 from that ot on him, but still.
Smith, JMike, Francis, Jones, Varaglia, Sydnor can hit from 3.
Mark, Powers - verdict is out due to low volume.
We have 6 guys who hit about 35%, and two promising sophomores. I don’t want the 5 who has never made a 3 in college attempting them unless it’s a blowout - especially since many of our guys are undersized relative to what they’re going to be going against in the B1G.
I think that’s fair. Sure, attempt them now and in what will hopefully be a solid non conference start. But unless he’s a 40% shooter, he should avoid them and just collect the boards from the 60% we’re gonna miss with our 40% guys…
I know you liked Ogbole and all - and I don’t disagree he didn’t always get a fair shake here, but come on man. It’s a major stretch to point to some of the stuff your turning to. Rebounding per minute? What does that mean? We’ve been a good rebounding team for 2 exhibition games with Gurdak out there. We were a terrible rebounding team with Ogbole. Gurdak has grabbed a ton of those rebounds and deflected quite a few others to teammates or off of the opponent that don’t show up in the stat book. He’s been an upgrade on the glass on both ends.
After two meaningless scrimmages, Gurdak is averaging 12 rebounds per 40 minutes, EO averaged 12.6. Just a fact. There were 110 missed shots on Sunday, so plenty of opportunities. Also a fact Gurdak is rebounding at a better rate than he did last year, which is great for us. My post wasn't pro EO, it was actually pro Gurdak so not sure your issue. I didn't really even give opinions, just numbers.
You pointed out a stat that tells us nothing. Grabbing 0.6 more rebounds per 40 on an awful rebounding team does not make Ogbole a better rebounder. The team collectively has been drastically improved at rebounding across this board so far with Gurdak being a big part of it. Now not all of that is on Ogbole - in fact, Grant was by far the biggest culprit of missed rebounds that should have been tracked down. He hurt us with rebounding more than anyone. There would be times where a ball was heading right towards him and our guards would start leaking out. Then he wouldn’t track it down and the opponent would get the put back. Horrible.
Of course, no stats tell us anything across two scrimmages. My only point was CG has grabbed two more boards across his first two 40's than he averaged last year, thats significant improvement if he stays there.
Agree, Grant, and no other real bigs, killed us last year.
The scrimmages certainly didn’t count for postseason consideration, season records or player stats for the season. However, the players made it meaningful and took it seriously.
St John’s has some very competitive and talented players and Rutgers embarrassed them in the first half and they came back hard aggressively pressing at every opportunity. Rutgers showed they have some real talent and aggressiveness in them and fought through 4OTs, which left both teams exhausted, but showed even though it was a “meaningless” game there is real fight and toughness in both teams and Rutgers has enough talent to go toe to toe with a very talented team.
The two exhibition games may prove nothing, but even though losses, they bode well for the season. From here on out games will count and only be a positive if they win.
I’m not calling out your comparison of Gurdak to himself YoY. You compared his number’s to Ogbole’s and now your kind of saying the comparison isn’t reliable because of the limited sample.
But the thing is, even if Gurdak put up these same per 40 numbers over 30 games, it still would not mean Ogbole outperformed him on the glass. You can’t use that metric comparatively this way. When Ogbole was ineffective, he was yanked from games. There were games where he logged like 12 minutes and the stat sheet says 3 rebounds, but the reality was - he was tied up on one and missed a put back or tip in on another. Those aren’t helpful rebounds. There’s a reason he was sent to the bench and a reason he only averaged 19 mpg on the season. Per 40 - the game line I referred to puts him in double figure rebounds. Do you see my point?
It's not really a point you are making, helpful rebounds. All rebounds are helpful, what happens afterward is irrelevant Gurdak shot 1% better, so we can probably assume the same happens for him. We know EO was a VERY limited player and only played so much because of those limits (Gurdak's numbers from LY are in similar minutes to EO). We know CG is a better basketball player than EO. We don't know Gurdak's rebounding has been any more meaningful yet. We've been outscored by 9 with him on the floor in games we lost by a total of 6, so what was meaningful?
This is a silly conversation, as I've already said CG is looking to be better that we even hoped for in a sophomore year. If he takes a step forward in rebounding and stays slightly more aggressive offensively but keeps his efficiency its a jackpot. All positive, we just don't know that it all translates to real games yet.
All rebounds are not helpful nor are they created equal. It can arguably be counterproductive when a player who isn’t strong with the ball grabs a rebound and then has it ripped out of his hands for a putback.
The per 40 rebounding metric you pointed to also suggests that Ogbole rebounded better for us last season than Cliff did in 2023-24 which isn’t true either. Rebounding value can’t be measured this way.
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Well it can be measured that way, which is why it's a measurement. You are just making up ripped out of hands for a put back narrative with absolutely nothing to back that up. There really are no other ways to measure rebounding value outside your own interpretation, which is what you are doing. Making one more valuable because you say so.
They also have stats for per 100 possessions, which EO also beat that years Cliff in 19-18.1 (17.5-17.3 in conference). They also have advanced stats measuring the % of rebounds one grabbed while on the floor - EO last year was 18.5%, Cliff that year was 16.3%, (19.3 vs 17.4% in conference). Per 40 in conference play, Cliff was actually slightly higher 12-11.7. Cliff's rebounding isn't why he was a much better player, it was the rest of his game
Getting in good position with his arms straight up makes the shot at least a little more difficult, allows another defender to help out and block the shot and limits the and one calls that Ogbole and others would get going for the initial pump fake and getting in the air. Gurdak plays positionally sound defense.
With Gurdak’s reaction time, which seems pretty quick and his jumping ability he could go for more blocks, get up in the air on pump fakes, create more and one opportunities for the other team and foul out if you want to change his style of play on defense.
Don't disagree w any of this, although not sure he'd have success going for blocks, he stays within himself mostly.
I don’t care if he gets blocks or not as long as he plays decent defense. I was expecting Martini / Lathan level D but he’s looked much better than that in the 2 exhibitions.
But look if we really want blocks Dorin Buca will be our guy. 35 of them while only averaging 12.9 mpg in 27 games is insane. Unfortunately, it seems that may be the only thing he does well.
He's been solid, smart defensively, like I said he focuses on what he can do, stays within himself. Two different games against two different kinds of opponents. Only gave up 20 points in the paint to a team focused on 3's, and 60 against a bigger, more physical team.
Blocks are great, but we just want shots affected/altered, whoever can do it. Buca does seem to be one trick, but if useless otherwise I'd rather not see him. Hopefully we'll get to see him for ourselves soon.
I thought we were fine in the halfcourt sets in the paint against SJU until we ran out of steam down the stretch. We had a bunch of back door cut break downs in the second half of regulation. They were not able to penetrate on us at will like the past 2 seasons. Small sample in exhibition but we looked material better at all aspects of D. Still don’t close out well on 3 point shooters
But never did that well even on our best teams.
Yeah, Pike's helping skelter defense always leaves three point shooters open on ball movement, so many of our games have been determined purely by how often the opponent knocks them down that night.
We'll see on interior D. I can recall at least 5 shots right at the rim SJU missed in the first half. They had opportunity, just didn't convert and it wasn't D that stopped them, it was themselves.
Yes - they missed some bunnies while they were in panic mode but most of those weren’t because we were physically outplayed. They were discipline / confusion mistakes on switches. Like the back doors. The big difference in this limited sample vs the past 2 years though was the rebounding. Plain and simple. The open looks Pike’s system allows, does not leave room for “way too easy” put backs. On the other end, we’re not going to be a pretty, efficient offense so we need second chances. Rebound and we compete. Below average rebounding will mean we suck again. That simple.
It will be a benefit that Gurdak is a decent offensive rebounder, hopefully Syndor will been too. One thing we've had the last few years is strong rebounding from our guards. Lino and JMike are decent rebounder for their size/position. Jones and Smith should be solid for their positioning.
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