Watching games this past week it is clear that we are not even close to becoming even semi-competitive. Players on reasonably decent teams nowadays are athletic and physical and can finish around the rim. A center, a wing who can score, and maybe a guard in the portal will not make us competitive.
We are deluding ourselves
- Thread starter RU677381
- Start date
Agree
Some here have set expectation so low they celebrate a few jump shots and coming back on teams having being down 25 and beating schools decimated by injury
Rutgers has a long way to go. Pike has to buy a new team in a few months
What do you want us to do then? You really think we wouldn’t be able to compete with the Ohio States of the world with 3 more starting level players? The top of the NCAA is more separated from the pack than ever. It’d take a miracle from any coach to be able to breakthrough with our budget. It’s about getting to the level of the B1G teams that got knocked out on Friday that we need to be able to get at least within range of. And they’re not impossible to catch up to.
We need a coach that knows how to win at a high level.
Nebraska plays 7 players and does not have a crazy athletic wing. They just have good players and a really good coach. So it’s doable.
But I just don’t know if Pike can do anything similar. Success nowadays hinges on the ability to score, and I don’t think good offensive players will be drawn to Rutgers because Pike has proven that he can’t run efficient offense. We have 10 years of sample size to prove it.
But I just don’t know if Pike can do anything similar. Success nowadays hinges on the ability to score, and I don’t think good offensive players will be drawn to Rutgers because Pike has proven that he can’t run efficient offense. We have 10 years of sample size to prove it.
Not only has NIL changed the game, the game itself has evolved and changed in the last few years. It takes a coach who can navigate NIL, deal with the egos that go with highly paid NIL players and can play the modern style game. Get to the rim, shoot the three and don’t complete ignore defense and rebounding like we have for the last two years. I can’t wait to see this thread through though, because I think we’ll start to see whispers of the excuses that will be made for Pike in 12 months.
ohio state is a middle of the road big 10 school...rutgers should be able to reach that level yes
next year Pike will have money and yet some fans here are putting 17-14 as a goal...good lord the schianopox is crossing over the hoops now
pike keeps talking about distraction and complaining about it in almost every single press conference, he isnt made for this new college hoops world..not adaptable
He is thee only coach that keeps.on referencing distractions. Phones and I'm assuming NIL.
Let's spend a couple million on Baye Ndongo and TJ Power for our frontcourt and retain the players that will work well together would be a good start for next year's team with Wooten coming in next year.
I agree with that, I also think it’s unfair to criticize us for not matching the level of play in the high major conference tournament finals. Hopefully, we become a respectable, ncaa tournament level team next year. Otherwise, totally fine to see Pike go even if I have appreciated his time here
Last edited:
You raise a good point. There was a time when several peripheral things were “nice to have” for our college team, like players graduating, they come from good families, we can watch them develop for 3 or 4 years, etc.
Obviously it would still be nice to have those qualities in our players, but our coach has to set aside all the peripheral stuff and focus on acquiring (yes, I said acquiring, not recruiting) the best talent for our budget and getting them to perform well enough as a team to make the big dance.
The fact that Pike is talking about distractions is in itself a distraction. No more excuses. Just win.
Agreed. But this is why Pikiell needs to bring in a new offensive assistant to run the offense. We’ve seen enough of Brandin Knight. His offense is IMO, nonexistent.
Yeah. That’s not the problem. It’s…… $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
BTW, what a joke shoe has the gall to decline a NIT...who the f are they, they played a very bad Big East and should feel fortunate to play in NIT. did they think they were going dancing?
It’s being realistic with our resources …and 10
Million isn’t gettong it done …still short
We have rhe makjng of a good backcourt Witb retnrion…but an Atlantic 10
Front court …
On top of being short on what we need to compete in the portal for a stsrting center and combo forward ….we didn’t grt
Anyone in the class of 2026…
to me …that’s as big of problem as anything …we are going to have issues up front for years …
and people think anything more than 17-14 is possible next year???
not without 14-15 million budget …we have a lot of front court holes …..
A shot chart filled with long twos doesn’t show the ability to coach at a high level.
10 million is what most of the big east save for the top 3 will be spending, its still in a grouping in the big 10 to compete...its no different than when players were getting paid pre nil and ru didnt have anything..the excuses need to stop....saying 17-14 is a goal for next year is setting very low expecations for the program.
guess what rutgers will never have the money or success that the top 12 in the league do but its also true the only way its gets done is lightning in the bottle as Keli would say..and its not going to happen with Pikiell. perhaps rutgers does not belong in a league where it will never have the money nor fanbase to compete
So we’re pivoting already. All season we just say we want RU to be an ncaa team. The Pike supporters were saying it’s not fair having so little NIL but next year with $8-10M we’ll all see that Pike is the man next year. Now you’re saying he needs $15M to just get to be an mcaa team? Are you kidding me? One, talking about moving the goal posts and 2, at some point it’s who you pick with the money you have not how much money you gave to waste.
Unfortunately, the only fair way to judge the team is to determine where their NIL/Rev Share ranks. So if they have the 10th highest NIL budget in the Big Ten, expectations should be around 10th. You want a coach that can meet / overachieve the rank.
That’s a very fair statement and I would agree with you, as a starting point. I know nine big ten teams made the NCAAs this year. If $10m places us tenth in NIL but 7-8-9 are at $11m I wouldn’t just surrender to say tenth is the goal. Be better with player evals, with schemes, with clock management, etc it of timeout and in game adjustments. Look at Indiana this year. There’s teams with more NIL that will underachieve.
The inability for fans to digest reality and others saying 8M to 10M is OK because its comparable to the watered down Big East, is how clueless fans are.
There are 8 schools in the B1G NOT in the NCAAS with more NIL than RU...
Indiana, USC, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Northwestern, Maryland and Penn State.....If someone here is telling me that these schools DONT have more NIL, explain how that actually works.....
That does NOT include the other Power 4 schools who also have more NIL than RU.
Big East....Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, Providence, Georgetown....I wont say DePaul, Seton Hall or Butler, but my guess is NOW for 2026-27, we have equal NIL to these Big East schools....but these are NOT our direct competition, we play 20 or get compared to.
RU has to win 19 to 20 games or be .500 in league to exceed the THIRTY other schools in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, who have MORE NIL than RU. To recap, revenue sharing is NOT NIL.....
These are the schools we are competing with, who have SIGNIFICANTLY more NIL..and didnt make the NCAAs either.....
SEC......LSU, Auburn, South Carolina, Oklahoma.....to be fair, Auburn and Oklahoma, just missed the NCAAs....and Texas was last 4 to 6 teams in the field.
Big 12.....Baylor, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Arizona State....I think RU might be closer to Colorado in a year, now that Zinn is in place, but we are up to 10 others outside of the 7 in the B1G....
ACC.....Florida State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Cal, Stanford, Notre Damw, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech....I feel pretty certain about these schools having more NIL based on how they are recruiting for football, which in certain cases is obvious (Florida State, Va Tech) and others similar (Wake, GTech)
Once you add the Big East schools to the other 3 Power 4 leagues, we are competing with 30 schools for potentially 6 to 8 spots at the 10 11 or 12 seed....AND the 8 additional schools who just made the cut like NC State, SMU, Texas.....is anyone here saying RU has more NIL than Texas, SMU and 10 seed Texas A&M?? I mean, how dumb are you, if you are saying that??
Now that we have established the teama that MISSED the NCAAs.....we have 25 to 30 schools to jump past....AND some fans thinking 8M allows RU to leap frog
A) 7 B1G teams
B) 7 Big East teams
C) 4 SEC teams
D) 8 to 9 ACC teams
E) 6 to 7 Big 12 schools
That counts 32.....32 programs wirh more NIL as of March 2026 than RU today.....these are 32 schools who did NOT make the NCAAs....
If fans think RU adds 2 to 3 starters and jumps from maybe a best case scenario of 2025-26, which RU maybe could have won 3 more games (Sparty Notre Dame, CCSU)......even if RU got all 3 of those games.....thats 17-16 overall.....would RU fans believe that we are better than 32 other non NCAA caliber teams, just because Kelli Zinn raised a couple of extra million dollars and we are still LAST in B1G NIL????
You cannot complain and say "The coaching is bad", and be last in NIL and then say "the coaching leapfrog 35 other schools, with the same roster or something else dumb like "we need a offensive minded coach".....YEAH, that makes Badalau, Ogbole, or Zach Martini and PJ Hayes into Power 4 starters overnight......LOL
Let’s see if my comments are moving the goalposts ….or if perhaps the numbers are moving up still like I suggest …in about 60-90 days when the portal season over and we have a roster established for next year
Do NOT label me as a Pike supporter. I am a Rutgers basketball supporter …and for what I see , our program is still going to be behind on competitive resources. We continue to expect our coaches to do more with less
take a good look at who made the ncaa yesterday from the big ten Sasaaall 9 programs have better resources than we do for baskerball this year …..
Plus …I think there is a big piece missing in all of the arguments . Everyone is saying portal this, portal that ….well, and this I am critical of our current staff
Where was the high school class of 2026 recruits ??? Why did we put all of our chips into getting adkins and sperlock? We needed to recruit a combo foreard and center in this class….and didn’t
you can’t keep expecting to fix multiple recruiting issues in the portal when you are underfunded
iMO…we can agree to disagree….but the expectations are whatever you choose them to be ….
but the results to be low until we fix both high school and portal recrutiing …..
His coaching was not the problem this season. Arguably, he is singlehandledly the reason we weren’t historically bad (bringing in Tariq) with no realistic building path forward. It wouldn’t have been a good situation for us financially and in general to make a coaching change this year. We’re a year off.
Look at it this way - he’s probably gone regardless after next season. If Pike doesn’t make the tourney we’ll be starting over with new staff. If Pike gets the job done with Tariq leading the way, Knight will get (deservedly) a lot of credit. Should that happen, it would probably be enough for him to make a leap to HC somewhere based on his recruiting success. Just a hunch but I think next season will be his last regardless at Rutgers.
The only coach? Bryan Hodgson threatened to go after anyone tampering with his players before the NCAA tournament is over.
We had 2 NBA players last year. I high level coach would have found a way to get to at least .500
I don't agree completely. We had a sub-par surrounding cast. Ace and Dylan were great but they we not Michael Jordan. It's all about the benjamins and has ALWAYS been about the money.
I can see how Pike has a better chance than your typical coach to succeed with less money specifically because he doesn't run the typical system. He focuses on D and rebounding (or at least used to). So in theory he can find overlooked value players that fit his system. If he ran the same offense-focused system that everyone is clamoring for, we are competing for the same players everyone else is with less money.
Well that’s a very simple view. Or was it 2 freshmen and no support from non Big Ten level players? Thats also a simple view.
The womens’ new coaches offer a strategy for moving ahead for the men. We say we are a “developmental program,” but a strong argument can be made that aside from a few exceptions over the past decade we are not. If the new womens’ coaches can actually develop players, then perhaps we will jettison the dead wood from the mens’ program and bring in a staff that can actually teach. We might not end up with the top tier, but perhaps we will get close. We had two of the top five last year….what good did it do?
Assuming he succeeds in retaining Tariq and his pick of complementary pieces to comprise the bench / core rotation pieces, Pike needs to buy 3-4 players - and hope he gets 2.5 impact players from that group and ideally a couple significant improvers among those who come back. Buchanan and Lino types shouldn’t be penciled in as “starters” but they could reasonably be expected to compete for minutes in the core rotation of 6-7 on a decent team. Other guys like Dortch and Zrno could fill utility roles nicely if they stay. We need 2 slam dunk (already proven additions) and then to take a chance on 2 lower major guys and borderline hit (good contributor in need role) on at least one.
Quality not quantity from the portal IMO. Target a total of 4 carefully selected to fill the biggest holes on the roster. One slam dunk clearly must be the center. We’re not in an awful position, if Pike can achieve this. Very few teams outside the wealthiest ones can start from scratch and make the tourney. TF is the nucleus but ideally most of the bench will be a collection of guys from the current team who decide they want to continue playing for Rutgers. It’s a bigger deal than some think. We’re not going to get 8 decent portal players. No chance.
luckily the NCAA tourney is not a ranking of 1-68 based on NIL. you have to play the games. Oregon went 12-20.
you look at all the teams that didn't make the tourney and say we are hopeless unless we have more NIL. I look at that result and conclude that NIL is not everything.
I did mistake you for a Pike supporter, but didn’t call you one. All I said was “the Pike supporters” if the shoe doesn’t fit don’t wear it. However you’re just giving them an out now saying if Zinn doesn’t get it up to $15M RU doesn’t have a shot. Btw I think it’s known by those seemingly in the know that neb MBB doesn’t have all that much more if more at all nil then us so it’s not all 9. Also, I just want RU to succceed so if thst with Pike great I just don’t believe he can do it in this landscape.
Again you use so many words to just distract from my point. All I said was if we double or triple our current NIL, and do all the non NIL things better that should give us a shot. If we have more NIL and are still failing you have to look at the coaching things. Then you write a novel thinking the more college names you cite gives you credibility on a topic you can’t actually know. No one truly knows how much NIL these schools have. What’s your source? Also to say Zinn is doing a terrible job why because she didn’t increase our NIL enough??? But she raised it. Meanwhile Hobbs AND Pike did nothing for it before she got here. Fleshing your whole argument out we might as well just quit MBB instead of increasing our NIL and improving our coaching and strategy.
I don't keep up with RU hoops nearly to the level of many on this board, but I know enough that there are so many moving parts.......NIL, relationships that none of us are aware of, not to mention an athletic infrastructure that we have never had at Rutgers but which most Big Ten programs have had for years and haven't been on the job for year yet. So, I think it is fair to say that the landscape may be completely different six weeks from now.
I am agnostic about whether Pike is the right guy moving forward but I am confident that if Zinn provides him with the resources to make the dance next year and if the team does not make significant improvement, i.e., go dancing, he will be gone in 2027.
A lot can happen between now and next season but for now, there is the tournament to enjoy and no possibility of Rutgers tearing the hearts out of its fan base like it has like it has done in its last few forays to the dance.
I am agnostic about whether Pike is the right guy moving forward but I am confident that if Zinn provides him with the resources to make the dance next year and if the team does not make significant improvement, i.e., go dancing, he will be gone in 2027.
A lot can happen between now and next season but for now, there is the tournament to enjoy and no possibility of Rutgers tearing the hearts out of its fan base like it has like it has done in its last few forays to the dance.
Last edited:
How many at large teams made it with the same or less NIL?
2-3? Saint Louis, Miami OH, UCF
yes lots of examples of teams FAILING with lots of NIL but FAR FEWER examples of teams making it WITHOUT NIL
You need both coaching and NIL to consistently win now
you can’t skin the cat every year
Doesn't matter regarding the sub-par cast. 2 elite players are all that's needed to be a tourney team in college b-ball. Besides, it was Pike that put together that sub-par cast (and he has been incapable of selling his vision and generating more NIL, which yes, is partly the HC's job).
That puts things in perspective. Sobering.
This is a post based purely in fact and you still have people posting YEAH BUT a couple teams threaded the needle and made it this year so we can do it
Miami Ohio went 31-1 and was a outlier
saint louis may have in fact had more nil than us and certainly have better coaching chops
UCF is THEONLY example of a high major threading the NIL budget needle to make the tournament and they are lucky to be in