Tracking what the rest of the Big 10 is doing

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 24, 2026

bac2therac said:
Minnesota had 6 players last year and finished ahead of Rutgers..they will be better..do you think wisconsin will finish behind Rutgers? Really?

These types of comparisons mean nothing. It’s a new year. We know what we were last year and it was most important to enter the offseason with a reassurance that the roster would be significantly upgraded. Worry about what everyone else is doing later. At the end of the day, only 5 guys play this sport at a time.

It would be impossible to make an argument that we don’t project to be notably improved. We retained our backcourt - and have very clearly upgraded the frontcourt. The 3 additions are collectively better than Grant, Ogbole and Nwuli were this past year. So that’s a big step in the right direction. Front court was a massive hole. Whoever we get at back up center can’t be worse than Fall since he added nothing.

I don’t understand the continued talk about using our remaining resources on guard though. Denis wasn’t “good” but he absolutely must be replaced. We cannot go into the season with a total of 3 players suitable to play either the 3 or the 4. And no, Powers in combo with two smaller guards is not a suitable back up plan. We must add another wing / forward. A defensive addition is what we really need now. Without this I have concerns but they are closer to concern of us having the types of issues we had the year we lost to Hofstra in the NIT after Mag got hurt than that we will just flat out stink - like last year. So again, progress.

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

apparently Oregon has done alot very recently that puts their haul way above rutgers

But things quickly heated up for Altman, as Oregon hosted a number of players and has, to date, received the commitment of five players via the portal with the addition of Alabama forward Taylor Bol Bowen on Wednesday morning. Bol Bowen joined fellow forwards Andrew Meadow (Boise State), Pharaoh Compton (San Diego State), Tyrone Riley (San Francisco) and guard Jasper Johnson (Kentucky)

Oregon's spot in 2026 men's basketball transfer portal team rankings

With the transfer portal now closed, let's take at look at where the Oregon Ducks rank among transfer portal commitments nationally.

duckswire.usatoday.com

apparently there is a wide disrepenacy between 247 ratings and on3

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

PSAL_Hoops said:
These types of comparisons mean nothing. It’s a new year. We know what we were last year and it was most important to enter the offseason with a reassurance that the roster would be significantly upgraded. Worry about what everyone else is doing later. At the end of the day, only 5 guys play this sport at a time.

It would be impossible to make an argument that we don’t project to be notably improved. We retained our backcourt - and have very clearly upgraded the frontcourt. The 3 additions are collectively better than Grant, Ogbole and Nwuli were this past year. So that’s a big step in the right direction. Front court was a massive hole. Whoever we get at back up center can’t be worse than Fall since he added nothing.

I don’t understand the continued talk about using our remaining resources on guard though. Denis wasn’t “good” but he absolutely must be replaced. We cannot go into the season with a total of 3 players suitable to play either the 3 or the 4. And no, Powers in combo with two smaller guards is not a suitable back up plan. We must add another wing / forward. A defensive addition is what we really need now. Without this I have concerns but they are closer to concern of us having the types of issues we had the year we lost to Hofstra in the NIT after Mag got hurt than that we will just flat out stink - like last year. So again, progress.

I think RU improved its floor..last year the floor was going 8-23 and 1-19 in league but a ceiling of 16-15/8-12...in that respect Pikes did a good job in not having the team be a total train wreck however the goal as it should be this year is the ncaa tourney..any other post season tourney is meaningless see Crown and NIT

this year RUs floor looks to be 16th and 5-15 /13-18 but its a very tough leap to get to that 10-10 mark in the league. The team may be better but getting better than those around them is the issue. Given that we are still in situation where ceiling is like 18-13/9-11, that still leaves them short of the ncaa tourney given the expected weak ooc schedule.....one BIG question is whether the team is ready to played gelled from the get go...cant lose to a **** non conference team and do poorly in vegas and lose to shu...the shu game is a must win for the Pikes

mjjoyce51 · Apr 24, 2026

bac2therac said:
again alot of question marks much like Rutgers who is running back the same small guards from a 14-20 team while adding pieces perceived to be an upgrade in the frontcourt. With USC, Indiana and Maryland appearing to have substantial upgrades, I dont see how any of those bottom 6 from last year can move up and contend for a NCAA bid. It would rely on Wisconsin and Iowa also falling apart to sub 500 big 10 marks

I would agree I’m not expecting Rutgers to make the tourney this year. But if there was a prop that put odds on one of Ohio state, Wisconsin, or Iowa to be in the bottom 4 I would bet it.

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

Good luck

RUfan1977 · Apr 24, 2026

mjjoyce51 said:
I would agree I’m not expecting Rutgers to make the tourney this year. But if there was a prop that put odds on one of Ohio state, Wisconsin, or Iowa to be in the bottom 4 I would bet it.

A reasonable bet would be that Rutgers goes 17-17 and 8-12 in the Big Ten. Could be a couple wins higher or lower.

This will likely be an up year for Indiana and Maryland who are both getting a ton of talent coming in. It will likely be a down year for Purdue losing 4 key starters and rebuilding mostly with freshman and players within the program. Don’t see a lot of movement with Penn State, Oregon and Northwestern so expect them to be 3 of the bottom 4. Who that last bottom team is could be Iowa or Minnesota depending on how well players live up to their potential.

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

check again on Oregon..they just had a pretty good haul in the last week

Oregon

Tyrone Riley IV (from San Francisco), Andrew Meadow (from Boise State), Pharaoh Compton (from San Diego State), Jasper Johnson (from Kentucky), Taylor Bol Bowen (from Alabama)

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

Washington just added a 6ft6 guard who averaged 11.8 per game at Texas Tech

they also added a big scorer from San Fran, a guy fro Gonz, and a 11 pt scorer from Davidson

Washington

Parker Friedrichsen (from Davidson), Steele Venters (from Gonzaga), Ryan Beasley (from San Francisco), LeJuan Watts (from Texas Tech)

bac2therac · Apr 24, 2026

my angst comes is the rutgers transfers besides Gurdak are coming from low majors and with the exception of penn state and maybe NW the Big 10 are getting their portal hauls from high mid majors and alot of majors..both the nec and maac are 28th and 25th rated conferences...sure it worked out with Francis...thats not the norm usually....defensively I am quite worried. I think this season most schools approached rutgers with the idea that they could outscore them eventually as rutgers put very little resistence up defensively. RU may look great offensively but I do not see how the defense has been improved

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 24, 2026

bac2therac said:
I think RU improved its floor..last year the floor was going 8-23 and 1-19 in league but a ceiling of 16-15/8-12...in that respect Pikes did a good job in not having the team be a total train wreck however the goal as it should be this year is the ncaa tourney..any other post season tourney is meaningless see Crown and NIT

this year RUs floor looks to be 16th and 5-15 /13-18 but its a very tough leap to get to that 10-10 mark in the league. The team may be better but getting better than those around them is the issue. Given that we are still in situation where ceiling is like 18-13/9-11, that still leaves them short of the ncaa tourney given the expected weak ooc schedule.....one BIG question is whether the team is ready to played gelled from the get go...cant lose to a **** non conference team and do poorly in vegas and lose to shu...the shu game is a must win for the Pikes

It’s still too early to determine a true ceiling. We’ll be adding a couple more scholarship players who will hopefully project to be contributors. Could add up to 4, but I’m thinking it will be back up center plus one other for the main rotation and then 1-2 longer shots. Also, whatever the projected “ceiling” it’ll be far less cemented in than it was last year because well at least have some talent at every position. 3-5 spots were a black hole this year - Buchanan was erratic and there was just nobody else.

RUDivision · Apr 24, 2026

bac2therac said:
my angst comes is the rutgers transfers besides Gurdak are coming from low majors and with the exception of penn state and maybe NW the Big 10 are getting their portal hauls from high mid majors and alot of majors..both the nec and maac are 28th and 25th rated conferences...sure it worked out with Francis...thats not the norm usually....defensively I am quite worried. I think this season most schools approached rutgers with the idea that they could outscore them eventually as rutgers put very little resistence up defensively. RU may look great offensively but I do not see how the defense has been improved

No doubt we upgraded the talent but what’s are identity and how do the pieces fit? On paper it does not make sense but maybe will overhaul is offense .

GM · Apr 24, 2026

I don’t get why in this thread Francis is just dismissed in the convo for significant retention, if any other team was returning a 17 PPG scorer on good efficiency we’d be very scared of them. Meanwhile we are glorifying Minnesota getting a guard who averaged 4 PPG last year and best season in 3 years of basketball is a 10 and 3 season in the mountain west. Can’t be so caught up in comparing player by player. To me, Indianas haul looks like they acquired so many guys that don’t really fit super well and look like the classic overhyped, overpaid hauls they’ve gotten in the past while also losing some of their top players.

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 25, 2026

bac2therac said:
I think RU improved its floor..last year the floor was going 8-23 and 1-19 in league but a ceiling of 16-15/8-12...in that respect Pikes did a good job in not having the team be a total train wreck however the goal as it should be this year is the ncaa tourney..any other post season tourney is meaningless see Crown and NIT

this year RUs floor looks to be 16th and 5-15 /13-18 but its a very tough leap to get to that 10-10 mark in the league. The team may be better but getting better than those around them is the issue. Given that we are still in situation where ceiling is like 18-13/9-11, that still leaves them short of the ncaa tourney given the expected weak ooc schedule.....one BIG question is whether the team is ready to played gelled from the get go...cant lose to a **** non conference team and do poorly in vegas and lose to shu...the shu game is a must win for the Pikes

It’s too early to determine a ceiling for anyone. We’ll be adding a minimum of 3 more scholarship players and we really have no idea how players like Lino Mark will develop year over year. I’m not particularly high on Powers at this moment, but he has upside too. Last year - everyone was propping up Grant but I was never that big on his potential as a high major player. And J Mike we knew kind of is what he is, with modest improvements each year but nobody expected much more than that after several years in the same system. This time, we’re returning 5 guys who only played under Pike for one season. That doesn’t guarantee a big jump, but there’s more of a chance in my opinion go get it from at least one or two guys.

We’re still adding players too - could add up
To 4, but I’m thinking it will be the back up center plus one other projected contributor in the main rotation and then 1-2 longer shots.

GM said:
I don’t get why in this thread Francis is just dismissed in the convo for significant retention, if any other team was returning a 17 PPG scorer on good efficiency we’d be very scared of them. Meanwhile we are glorifying Minnesota getting a guard who averaged 4 PPG last year and best season in 3 years of basketball is a 10 and 3 season in the mountain west. Can’t be so caught up in comparing player by player. To me, Indianas haul looks like they acquired so many guys that don’t really fit super well and look like the classic overhyped, overpaid hauls they’ve gotten in the past while also losing some of their top players.

Yeah - I think most are just writing off what we’re returning as zeros (or close to that) since our team wasn’t good. I don’t see how you could do that though on a comparatives analysis. We return all but 14 points from the OT win over Oregon for example. So okay, they’ve turned over their roster but we’ve added pieces and also return 5 contributors / starters.

bac2therac · Apr 25, 2026

GM said:
I don’t get why in this thread Francis is just dismissed in the convo for significant retention, if any other team was returning a 17 PPG scorer on good efficiency we’d be very scared of them. Meanwhile we are glorifying Minnesota getting a guard who averaged 4 PPG last year and best season in 3 years of basketball is a 10 and 3 season in the mountain west. Can’t be so caught up in comparing player by player. To me, Indianas haul looks like they acquired so many guys that don’t really fit super well and look like the classic overhyped, overpaid hauls they’ve gotten in the past while also losing some of their top players.

Is Francis going to score more than 17 ppg this year.....he is a small guard who is an offensive player only....we are bringing back a bunch of small guards while possibly improving our frontcourt...the talent level is still below 3/4 of the Big 10. Do you think a top 60 guard who sat the bench at Michigan is better than Kaden, Lino, and J Mike.. well he will have his chance to prove it. Talent matters..its up to the coach to blend them together, Pikes is a notorious slow starter which in the NIL we cannot have...who is playing defense on this team...i see alot of offensive talent but very very little on defense..is Pikes now abandoning his bread and butter. No one coming back from last year really played a lick of defense besides Lino and the guys coming in from low majors are not defensive players

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 25, 2026

bac2therac said:
Is Francis going to score more than 17 ppg this year.....he is a small guard who is an offensive player only....we are bringing back a bunch of small guards while possibly improving our frontcourt...the talent level is still below 3/4 of the Big 10. Do you think a top 60 guard who sat the bench at Michigan is better than Kaden, Lino, and J Mike.. well he will have his chance to prove it. Talent matters..its up to the coach to blend them together, Pikes is a notorious slow starter which in the NIL we cannot have...who is playing defense on this team...i see alot of offensive talent but very very little on defense..is Pikes now abandoning his bread and butter. No one coming back from last year really played a lick of defense besides Lino and the guys coming in from low majors are not defensive players

But why are you shifting the narrative away from Oregon. Stick with what you started. The guards they added put up stats in a mid tier conference the same way Buchanan did. I don’t think it’s a given either of them will have a better season next year than either Lino or Tariq. I don’t care if they are a few inches taller. That’s not everything. I’ll stick with the guys who have experience at the next level, personally.

GM · Apr 25, 2026

bac2therac said:
Is Francis going to score more than 17 ppg this year.....he is a small guard who is an offensive player only....we are bringing back a bunch of small guards while possibly improving our frontcourt...the talent level is still below 3/4 of the Big 10. Do you think a top 60 guard who sat the bench at Michigan is better than Kaden, Lino, and J Mike.. well he will have his chance to prove it. Talent matters..its up to the coach to blend them together, Pikes is a notorious slow starter which in the NIL we cannot have...who is playing defense on this team...i see alot of offensive talent but very very little on defense..is Pikes now abandoning his bread and butter. No one coming back from last year really played a lick of defense besides Lino and the guys coming in from low majors are not defensive players

Do we need Francis to score more? He just had an awesome season and I don’t see why we should expect him to have some big regression, he’s probably one of the best returning guards in the B1G, which we absolutely did not have last year going into the season. The on3 ranking for Grady is his highest, on other sites he’s closer to 80s-90s which I def wouldn’t pencil in as better than better than Lino, Powers etc. We added a big who was top 90 in defensive impact in the country and added a 6’8 lanky athlete with great block, rebounding rates, on top of another year for our returners in Pikes system. There is absolutely ways to compare our team to others now and we at least should compete talent wise next year.

bac2therac · Apr 25, 2026

GM said:
Do we need Francis to score more? He just had an awesome season and I don’t see why we should expect him to have some big regression, he’s probably one of the best returning guards in the B1G, which we absolutely did not have last year going into the season. The on3 ranking for Grady is his highest, on other sites he’s closer to 80s-90s which I def wouldn’t pencil in as better than better than Lino, Powers etc. We added a big who was top 90 in defensive impact in the country and added a 6’8 lanky athlete with great block, rebounding rates, on top of another year for our returners in Pikes system. There is absolutely ways to compare our team to others now and we at least should compete talent wise next year.

you were the one that brought up Francis not me. He is a high volume shooter and scorer..he has a deadly jump shot and deadly at the line but is not a good defender and cannot slash to the hoop. He is our best player by far though. as for the Minnesota guard, oh i would say he will put up better numbers than Powers..and I really do not get the infatuation with Powers here at all

bac2therac · Apr 25, 2026

PSAL_Hoops said:
But why are you shifting the narrative away from Oregon. Stick with what you started. The guards they added put up stats in a mid tier conference the same way Buchanan did. I don’t think it’s a given either of them will have a better season next year than either Lino or Tariq. I don’t care if they are a few inches taller. That’s not everything. I’ll stick with the guys who have experience at the next level, personally.

Oregon just landed beter players than RU in the portal, not sure why you are talking about francis and buchanan since they came in last year. Experience at the next level? you dont think guys from Kentucky and Alabama plus San Diego St and Boise State have experience at the next level...okay,,,but nec and maac and a guy missing for years

RUfan1977 · Apr 25, 2026

bac2therac said:
Oregon just landed beter players than RU in the portal, not sure why you are talking about francis and buchanan since they came in last year. Experience at the next level? you dont think guys from Kentucky and Alabama plus San Diego St and Boise State have experience at the next level...okay,,,but nec and maac and a guy missing for years

Definitely have to agree that it’s hard to argue against someone pointing out that a player who came from a great team with a great high school ranking is always going to be better than a player from a nothing conference. Even if all they did was to sit on the bench, they would have practiced against some of the best college players in the country while a player on a lesser team even if they were the star of the team or the best player in the conference would generally be competing against lesser competition.

For example, just look at how a McDonalds All American like Baye Fall performed versus nobodies from nothing conferences like Cam Spencer or Tariq Francis. Clearly, Pikiel is a failure for going after stars from lesser conferences when he could go after P5 players who never got playing time, but were stars when they played against high school children. Don’t get me into how pissed I am that he didn’t retain a can’t miss player like Gavin Griffiths!

dark_check · Apr 25, 2026

Thanks for this thread and to all who added input. Obviously so important who the other teams in conf keep and who they add. Digesting all this it seems our ceiling is about the same seed we had in this year’s big ten tourney.

bac2therac · Apr 25, 2026

RUfan1977 said:
Definitely have to agree that it’s hard to argue against someone pointing out that a player who came from a great team with a great high school ranking is always going to be better than a player from a nothing conference. Even if all they did was to sit on the bench, they would have practiced against some of the best college players in the country while a player on a lesser team even if they were the star of the team or the best player in the conference would generally be competing against lesser competition.

For example, just look at how a McDonalds All American like Baye Fall performed versus nobodies from nothing conferences like Cam Spencer or Tariq Francis. Clearly, Pikiel is a failure for going after stars from lesser conferences when he could go after P5 players who never got playing time, but were stars when they played against high school children. Don’t get me into how pissed I am that he didn’t retain a can’t miss player like Gavin Griffiths!

Or ace and dylan too

Mr. Magoo1 · Apr 25, 2026

People are forgetting that our B1G schedule this past season was very favorable. We played the bottom 2 teams twice (MD and PSU) and the two teams between us and them both at home only (NW and Oregon). Can’t expect that again next year.

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 26, 2026

bac2therac said:
Oregon just landed beter players than RU in the portal, not sure why you are talking about francis and buchanan since they came in last year. Experience at the next level? you dont think guys from Kentucky and Alabama plus San Diego St and Boise State have experience at the next level...okay,,,but nec and maac and a guy missing for years

But how can you not factor in return players if your going to try to compare the two portal classes? Oregon is retaining one single player from their previous team. Of course their portal class is going to have more in it than ours. We returned 3 starters along with our 6th and 7th guys. Not all of these guys will have as big a role next year but we added 3 pieces who project to start and combine those with our core rotation from last year.

Also - seems like your overflating everyone else’s additions as these automatic home runs while dismissing ours as massive relative long shots. We added a center from VTech who put up similar numbers to the PF they got from Alabama as a frosh.

In terms of the others, I just don’t get what’s so great about their additions. The Kentucky guard basically did nothing. His statistical average is propped up by 2 big games against awful teams in OOC blow outs. SF plays in a weak conference. You have no idea what kind of numbers guys like Lino or J Mike would have if they played in a lower conference.

Caliknight · Apr 26, 2026

All speculation which is basically what a board is for. I’ll see after the first game what we actually have.

bac2therac · Apr 26, 2026

PSAL_Hoops said:
But how can you not factor in return players if your going to try to compare the two portal classes? Oregon is retaining one single player from their previous team. Of course their portal class is going to have more in it than ours. We returned 3 starters along with our 6th and 7th guys. Not all of these guys will have as big a role next year but we added 3 pieces who project to start and combine those with our core rotation from last year.

Also - seems like your overflating everyone else’s additions as these automatic home runs while dismissing ours as massive relative long shots. We added a center from VTech who put up similar numbers to the PF they got from Alabama as a frosh.

In terms of the others, I just don’t get what’s so great about their additions. The Kentucky guard basically did nothing. His statistical average is propped up by 2 big games against awful teams in OOC blow outs. SF plays in a weak conference. You have no idea what kind of numbers guys like Lino or J Mike would have if they played in a lower conference.

major top 25 schools vs lessers..thats all i can go on. I do recall you were touting Buchanan so much last season when i said slow the roll on him..he was an ok player but pretty erratic. Sf plays in a weak conference..well i guess ccst and manhattan are high school

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 26, 2026

bac2therac said:
major top 25 schools vs lessers..thats all i can go on. I do recall you were touting Buchanan so much last season when i said slow the roll on him..he was an ok player but pretty erratic. Sf plays in a weak conference..well i guess ccst and manhattan are high school

The point I was making with Buchanan is that your framing things as if Oregon’s portal class is passing us by based on things like the stats a kid had playing in the WCC, a worse conference than the A-10. meanwhile we have a returning player on our roster who dropped 15.6 ppg / 6.6 rpg for an A-10 team as a frosh. Our guy now has a year experience under his belt in a high major conference too and is further removed from injury rehab. But any of our returning players except Ware could’ve conceivably put up double digit points in a lesser conference. And yes - Manhattan and CC play in even weaker conferences. You never know who is going to be able to make the jump, but at least this year we’re returning 3 players who averaged 24+ minutes and Lino and Powers played a lot by then end of the year. We have five guys coming back who started at least 6 games for us. I get that we weren’t very good, but I don’t see what part about riding Kentucky’s bench lends itself to having more potential for year over year growth? At least our guys played and got meaningful experience. Pair that with 2 impact, all conference types from lower level conferences and a promising frosh center who would’ve been the starter had he stayed at VTech and we’re in an okay place (or at least as good as we could’ve hoped for). Except that we haven’t fixed the D and according to the mods, aren’t all that focused on it. I, for one, am worried about this one thing and feeling pretty good bout everything else. Unfortunately this one thing is a singlehanded deal breaker as we couldn’t even win without D with Dylan and Ace. I really do hope we close this out the right way with a few defensive pieces to balance the ticket. Just have to see.

ru66+ · Apr 27, 2026

bac2therac said:
They will be fine

You say that about all the boys not named RU.

ru66+ · Apr 27, 2026

PSAL_Hoops said:
But why are you shifting the narrative away from Oregon. Stick with what you started. The guards they added put up stats in a mid tier conference the same way Buchanan did. I don’t think it’s a given either of them will have a better season next year than either Lino or Tariq. I don’t care if they are a few inches taller. That’s not everything. I’ll stick with the guys who have experience at the next level, personally.

Don't waste your time with bac.His mostly talking to himself in this tread has nothing to do with objectivity but reflects his hope RU does poorly. He lives for that.

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 27, 2026

ru66+ said:
Don't waste your time with bac.His mostly talking to himself in this tread has nothing to do with objectivity but reflects his hope RU does poorly. He lives for that.

In general - I think it’s fine to have a thread that focuses on portal pick ups for BIG schools. What I’m challenging is the way it was initially presented as if RU has clearly come up short relative to its bottom half conference peers with roster construction.

I threw Oregon out as an example. It would be one thing if our situation was like last year where we brought back a collection of role players / deep utility players from our previous team. None of our 4 returning players from 24-25 averaged even half the game in conference play, and none of them averaged more than 6.5 ppg (Grant). Ogbole and Dortch put up 2.5 ppg and 1.2 ppg. J Mike 5.4. We have 5 returning players who averaged more ppg in conference play than all of the above had. We return an 18 ppg, 9 ppg, 8 ppg and two 7 ppg contributors. That projects to feel pretty good about getting at least 3 double digit scorers out of that group of 5. You can’t just disregard this when your comparing our portal class to teams that returned no major contributors from their previous team and are replacing them with a collection of question marks. Yes - our portal guys are question marks too but at least we’re starting with a base that already produced in the BIG, and year over year progress from some of the returners isn’t some kind of huge long shot. You would expect at least a few returners to improve.

That said - unrelated to this comparative thread which is mainly a high level look at the talent pieces coming in - we have not improved much, if at all on defense yet. This a definite concern for now but Pike has 3-4 more slots to address this. Don’t need to have lock down defenders on the court at all times, but it’s important to have a couple more reliable options when it comes to getting stops than we currently have.

Eagleton95.99 · Apr 27, 2026

ru66+ said:
Don't waste your time with bac.His mostly talking to himself in this tread has nothing to do with objectivity but reflects his hope RU does poorly. He lives for that.

I'll defend Bac. He's a die hard RU fan that has had his soul crushed by this program. He preemptively looks for the worst to prevent getting hurt again. But if the team starts winning he quickly gets on the wagon and enjoys the ride.

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 27, 2026

Eagleton95.99 said:
I'll defend Bac. He's a die hard RU fan that has had his soul crushed by this program. He preemptively looks for the worst to prevent getting hurt again. But if the team starts winning he quickly gets on the wagon and enjoys the ride.

Yes - for sure and there’s good reason to be concerned at the moment. The D was our biggest problem last year by far and it currently doesn’t project to be significantly upgraded (I’m not sure we’ve even improved it at all). We’re not done so there’s still hope that Pike focuses on it with the last few pick ups. My thing is - I wish our fans (not just BAC) wouldn’t double down on making things out be far worse than the current state. We’ve put together, by Pike standards, a pretty well balanced roster on offense, and we have enough servicable defensive options in the backcourt with Lino, J Mike, etc. (Plus wooten comes in with a strong defensive reputation).

The problem as I see it is we added length at the 3 by way of one of the worst defensive metrics in the NCAAs last year (Smith) and our other addition grades out as average to slightly above average on D (Sydnor). The good news was we sucked at the 3/4 defensively last year so we won’t be worse but I don’t think we’ll be all that much better if our rotation for the 3-4 is Smith, Buchanan and Sydnor only. Powers at the 3 would make the D even worse. Gordak isn’t going to be that big of a defensive upgrade over Ogbole if at all. And we still need a back up. And by the way, Dortch wasn’t good at defending traditional centers, but he came up big for us in the 4 or so games against 5 out style teams. We don’t have anyone to fill that role right now.

seansherm · Apr 27, 2026

PSAL_Hoops said:
Yes - for sure and there’s good reason to be concerned at the moment. The D was our biggest problem last year by far and it currently doesn’t project to be significantly upgraded (I’m not sure we’ve even improved it at all). We’re not done so there’s still hope that Pike focuses on it with the last few pick ups. My thing is - I wish our fans (not just BAC) wouldn’t double down on making things out be far worse than the current state. We’ve put together, by Pike standards, a pretty well balanced roster on offense, and we have enough servicable defensive options in the backcourt with Lino, J Mike, etc. (Plus wooten comes in with a strong defensive reputation).

The problem as I see it is we added length at the 3 by way of one of the worst defensive metrics in the NCAAs last year (Smith) and our other addition grades out as average to slightly above average on D (Sydnor). The good news was we sucked at the 3/4 defensively last year so we won’t be worse but I don’t think we’ll be all that much better if our rotation for the 3-4 is Smith, Buchanan and Sydnor only. Powers at the 3 would make the D even worse. Gordak isn’t going to be that big of a defensive upgrade over Ogbole if at all. And we still need a back up. And by the way, Dortch wasn’t good at defending traditional centers, but he came up big for us in the 4 or so games against 5 out style teams. We don’t have anyone to fill that role right now.

This is an underrated point right now. We thought Ogbole struggled against 5 out teams, Gurdak, less athletic, is even worse out on the perimeter. He'll be smarter against the pick and roll though, so maybe doesn't get switched on to a guard or caught in no mans land nearly as often.

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 27, 2026

seansherm said:
This is an underrated point right now. We thought Ogbole struggled against 5 out teams, Gurdak, less athletic, is even worse out on the perimeter. He'll be smarter against the pick and roll though, so maybe doesn't get switched on to a guard or caught in no mans land nearly as often.

The 14 mpg provided by Dortch are deceiving because they were up and down based on match up. I would hope we’re in the market for a back up big who possesses the skill set to fill the role Dortch played in games that weren’t good match ups for Big O because as you suggest - they won’t be good match ups for Gurdak either. Folks thinking Buchanan can just do it are wrong. Pike had to use both DB and Dortch together to have an answer. We don’t currently have anyone with Dortch’s defensive speed and length to fill that role.

The good news about our situation is that the things we need are undervalued skills as long as you don’t target big time scorers. We probably do have the remaining funds available to pick up a center who provides this skill set, along with a strong defensive front court player who doesn’t score that much. The bad news is - it doesn’t sound like that’s what we’re lookin for.

bac2therac · Apr 27, 2026

Also consider the 5 for 5 potential decision which will cause mass chaos

RUDivision · Apr 27, 2026

bac2therac said:
Also consider the 5 for 5 potential decision which will cause mass chaos

5 fo 5 brings back a familiar piece to run point

!

PSAL_Hoops · Apr 27, 2026

bac2therac said:
Also consider the 5 for 5 potential decision which will cause mass chaos

No telling how it would work. Graduating seniors can only return to their own teams if they didn’t enter the portal?

ru66+ · Apr 27, 2026

Eagleton95.99 said:
I'll defend Bac. He's a die hard RU fan that has had his soul crushed by this program. He preemptively looks for the worst to prevent getting hurt again. But if the team starts winning he quickly gets on the wagon and enjoys the ride.

Sorry, never seen any evidence of that be it sports or academics.

RU-ROCS · Apr 27, 2026

needmorecowbell said:
Star? He was 3rd in scoring on his team. He was very good but let’s not get crazy. He had an incredible play-in game and couldn’t hit a shot in the first round.

Exactly. FWIW, Syndor posted better numbers for pts, rebounds and assists as a freshman.

RU-ROCS · Apr 27, 2026

bac2therac said:
my angst comes is the rutgers transfers besides Gurdak are coming from low majors and with the exception of penn state and maybe NW the Big 10 are getting their portal hauls from high mid majors and alot of majors..both the nec and maac are 28th and 25th rated conferences...sure it worked out with Francis...thats not the norm usually....defensively I am quite worried. I think this season most schools approached rutgers with the idea that they could outscore them eventually as rutgers put very little resistence up defensively. RU may look great offensively but I do not see how the defense has been improved

I would add Nebraska and Wisconsin to the list of schools shopping at the mid mid-major level.

cubuffsdoug_rivals · Apr 28, 2026

RU-ROCS said:
I would add Nebraska and Wisconsin to the list of schools shopping at the mid mid-major level.

I find it funny how some fans can dismiss a player's talent just because he didn't start out at a power conference school. Talent can fall through the cracks for a number of reasons, but if they develop in time and straighten up, people will find them. D1 is still D1. It's not like they are D3 players trying to make a major jump in competition.

Tracking what the rest of the Big 10 is doing

Heisman

Hall of Famer

Hall of Famer

All-Conference

Hall of Famer

Senior

Hall of Famer

Oregon​

Hall of Famer

Washington​

Hall of Famer

Heisman

All-Conference

All-Conference

Heisman

Hall of Famer

Heisman

All-Conference

Hall of Famer

Hall of Famer

Senior

All-Conference

Hall of Famer

Heisman

Heisman

Hall of Famer

Hall of Famer

Heisman

All-Conference

All-Conference

Heisman

All-American

Heisman

Heisman

Heisman

Hall of Famer

All-Conference

Heisman

All-Conference

All-American

All-American

Heisman

Oregon

Washington