Lino Mark set to return to Rutgers Basketball for 2026-27 season
Rutgers Basketball locked down their second returnee of the offseason, as guard Lino Mark announces his return for the 2026-27 season.
Basketball Lino Mark set to return to Rutgers Basketball for 2026-27 season
- Thread starter Richie O
- Start date
Hopefully he makes the next step and we can utilize him off the bench.
Good news. Classic for this site, some dumb *** posts he is gone after the season and then it gets repeated until it is accepted as fact. Just like Ola Adams is going to be the next DC, and Greg did not even talk to him.
If he can improve his 3-point shooting to at least 30%, he can be a real weapon. Even 30% isn’t that good, but it’s at least a credible threat, and defenders can’t just back off and guard for the dribble drive.
He was 0 for his first 18 3 point shots as he grew accustomed to the college game. After that he shot close to 40% so you could argue he has already acheived your target. I am very glad Lino is back. Huge potential.
Excellent news. Welcome back Lino.
Can we now not hear another peep about conversations with transfer guard prospects until we start replacing our frontcourt???
Can we now not hear another peep about conversations with transfer guard prospects until we start replacing our frontcourt???
Put me in the believer camp.
He gets to the rim and can finish. He makes foul shots making him a valuable end of game player. His outside shot starting falling after an ice cold start. Freshmen improve.
I think this is a great development for next season. I like our guards. Now spend every remaining penny on getting a true center and quality PF, preferably both of whom can shoot and score.
He gets to the rim and can finish. He makes foul shots making him a valuable end of game player. His outside shot starting falling after an ice cold start. Freshmen improve.
I think this is a great development for next season. I like our guards. Now spend every remaining penny on getting a true center and quality PF, preferably both of whom can shoot and score.
You have no idea what you’re talking about, sign up for premium and you’ll see the backstory behind both those things.
Also you’re complaining about this site, but still posting on this site.
They started reporting he might come back for weeks
I'm assuming the staff currently has him as the projected starter alongside Francis.
We need better than Lino as a starter. I love him as a bench rotation piece, but he’s a no go as a starter. We were supposed to get starting level players in the portal.
The unfortunate fallout from the early predictions that Lino was a goner was that several posters went on rants against Coach Pikiell saying he was an idiot to play a kid who was already out the door. That is reason enough to let this portal season play out before ripping (or praising) the coaching staff and GM. Things definitely don't look so hot at the moment, but only time will tell.
Not to be a jerk, but it seems the staff may have flunked math class…
A center who logged 18 mpg for a team that didn’t even make the NCAAs, grabbed less rpg than Ogbole, and scored less ppg than J Mike is about to collect 4.5M. We have to buy a whole frontcourt - starters and back ups. We don’t have enough money to throw at a PG who is materially better than the guys we already have. I’d love for the math to somehow work but it seems impossible.
The first addition from the portal being a Complete Unknown helped add to the sentiment of things not looking too hot at the moment. If the first addition was a legit center that we spent $3-$4 mil to get, it would be a totally different spin, we would praise them for going all out and then we would have a much different view than we do right now. However, that was not the first addition. I was really expecting our first addition to be a legit starter, a frontcourt player either a center or power forward.
Finally some very good news for the program
Great to hear !
Hopefully he works on his outside shooting and becomes a threat from all aspects !
Hopefully he works on his outside shooting and becomes a threat from all aspects !
Personally I think you should’ve spent $6m on three players (PG, F, C) and the rest on retention. To run it back with the same undersized backcourt seems extremely risky to me, but that’s just my opinion.
@Richie O How many starters do you think are here and on the roster now? (I am hoping only TF) I assumed TF was only guy who would start, maybe Buchanan (but really think he’s a bench guy) and they would bring in 3-4 starters. Not so sure now.
I agree with you, but right now it sounds like two or three depending on how they decide to play Buchanan and they can find in terms of both fit and money.
See my post in another thread.
Pike and staff have zero experience in a "roster construction with money consideration" world.
10 years ago? It's easy. We have an open scholarship so lets recruit a PG who can start.
Now? It's not just scholarships. Its "We only have X amount of money to spend. We already spent Y on Ware, Lewis, Davis, Mark and the rest. Now we have Z left on the rest."
It's infinitely more complicated to build a roster now. Especially on a restricted budget.
And we seemingly have nobody with any experience (including the GM).
We need an low level assistant GM from a NBA front office as GM. Not a fund raiser. Leave that to Zinn and the AD.
You are right. Its not giving me good vibes to bring back the same back court and not upgrading talent level of jmike and powers
Ndongo to Pitt… hope that means we simply were never after him
True! I just feel currently we don’t have a big ten caliber guard. TF can be a rotation player on some teams but if we are competing to get in the tournament we are off to a rough start.
The problem is, the math doesn’t work then either. Retention of who? Are you saying no Lino and J Mike - buy a PG instead? We all knew off the bat there was zero chance an established starting PG (or even a back up who logged a lot of minutes) from another high major would be transferring in to RU. JY was the closest we’ve ever had to that happening and he was hardly top tier when he left Texas. So at best, we would be landing someone like Noah F - right? I’m just being realistic here, meaning it could turn out to be a home run pick up like Cam Spencer or even Tariq, or it could be a bust. In doing this, we also almost certainly downgrade the back up PG position because believe me, we’re not getting someone else’s “J Mike” so easily or so cheap. Look at the complete garbage we’re in the market for at back ups (the outreach to Maker better have been for a back up role because if not, we’re really screwed).
The safest play for Pike was always to keep things simple IMO. Completely rebuild the frontcourt and hope the backcourt gets a little better through development. At least then you can at least feel good about the likelihood of the team improving overall.
Last edited:
He’s 8 for his last 18 for a 44.4% clip. He’s a little undersized but his ultra-elite quickness gets him layup opportunities as defenders scramble to keep up and he’s a good finisher. Averages as many steals as turnovers. All-BigTen ability.
I think we should all be thanking Al. Without his post, who knows if this would’ve happened.
FFS, even I wanted to transfer by the time we got to January. Things change.
If you’re still consider a transfer, can you play Center? We could use a few of them….
I do think the plan now is to start Lino, and I do believe he’ll be a better distributor and assist guy if we land a dynamic 4 and a more dominant 5.
The issue with his stats as a PG will come down to 2 factors, imo: 1) is he willing to be less selfish, and 2) will ball-dominant Francis leave enough assist opportunities for Lino?
I’ve said before that our best chance for success would be if Francis could develop into our starting PG. Then you could have shooters with good size at the 2 and 3 spots to go with strong 2-way players at the 4 and 5.
With Lino and Francis both starting you have two guys that are less complimentary to each other versus the scenario I just described. Not to mention their lack of size will be an issue when they play together.
I hope it works out, but I’m afraid Lino will end up being selfish again when playing alongside Francis. Just my two cents, and I hope I’m wrong about that.
The issue with his stats as a PG will come down to 2 factors, imo: 1) is he willing to be less selfish, and 2) will ball-dominant Francis leave enough assist opportunities for Lino?
I’ve said before that our best chance for success would be if Francis could develop into our starting PG. Then you could have shooters with good size at the 2 and 3 spots to go with strong 2-way players at the 4 and 5.
With Lino and Francis both starting you have two guys that are less complimentary to each other versus the scenario I just described. Not to mention their lack of size will be an issue when they play together.
I hope it works out, but I’m afraid Lino will end up being selfish again when playing alongside Francis. Just my two cents, and I hope I’m wrong about that.
Arguably he did improve his 3 point shooting dramatically last season. Mark started the season 0-18 from 3 last season which was impressively bad. After that he shot 40% from 3, which was around what he shotgun high school.
If he plays like he played the last third of the season he will be a star, Mark mostly kept trending in the right direction throughout the season going from horrendous to bad to good to very good at the end of the season but ended on a concerning note in the loss to Creighton.
That being said he was the player I thought had the lost upside potential on the team and the one I was most looking forward to have return. We still need Francis and Buchanan, but I am over optimisticly predicting Mark will become a star.
The majority of the commentators as well as the moderators of this message board would likely disagree about starting Mark and would like Rutgers to get a quality point guard in the portal. Pikiel likely is going to rely on some combination of Mark, Davis and Francis. This might be needed as with the inflated costs of big men, it now seems likely that just to get okay players at center and power forward which is desperately needed will eat up tremendous amounts of the available NIL.