I saw the thread before the game and didn't bother to respond to it...i saw the crowd, which for a Wednesday night was very good, all things considered.
There were a handful of people for Ohio State but i nevee walked in to the RAC feeling like something was missing or felt cheated about where the effort was with this program.
It is still "Year 1", because of where the roster was inherited and you have a few frustrated fans that have been supporting football and Ash, trying to somehow cross sell that the rebuilds are the same because both coaches are in Year 3....why hoops gets a pass etc..
The one low point in the Pike era to me, wasn't with any of the 1st year blowouts or Year 2 Stony or Hartford after beating SHU....it wasnt the Fordham game either.....it was the home Illinois loss in the finale last year. BUT that was quickly erased with 2 huge lifts vs Minnesota and Indiana at MSG.....and the MSG games lifted the confidence of Geo Baker, to the point where he's able at this stage a few months later, to engineer an upset at Miami and now defeat a quality ranked NCAA tourney opponent from the league like OSU.
The team has changed IMO since the Illinois finale last year. Doesn't mean it's better, just feels different IMO. Since then, Minnesota Indiana and Ohio State have been B1G wins or its been 3 wins and 4 losses in our last 7 B1G games. Anyone can try to say Minnesota didnt care, or Indiana wasn't focused, which is BS....RU earned both victories as solid or big underdogs....and as a massive dog vs Purdue, they played their best game of the 3, in a losing effort.....but all signs of progress.
RU isn't able to win 3 out of every 7 B1G games this year with this roster and youth...but it will compete and has the freshmen pieces plus Carter, Kiss etc, to provide some signs of growth and development. It will have times when Mathis plays well, then maybe Harper or Carter....or Caleb flashes with double digit scoring.
RU played as well as they could vs Ohio State, without a "cant miss" type of shooting performance from 3. If they just shot the lights out, you could chalk that up as a fluke performance. Instead, they scrapped and knocked down an extra 1 or 2 from deep vs some recent games and that was over 40 minutes, enough to keep them close.
Yes the roster is limited, of course it's absent of the elite talents that most of the B1G has in their starting lineupz almost every night. But RU is going to take its chances with our best recruits as freshman and sophs and see what happens. Add 2 to 3 more players that are going to compete for minutes next year and it's a grind that's gradual.
The national trend in 90% of upsets is average or lerdown performance after huge wins. So when Bama beats Kentucky Saturday and is down 20 plus to LSU in the next game 3 days later,.that is usually what happens. There's an ebb and flow over a long season, so Minnesota or Purdue could look ugly at times....
At the same time, with so many underclassmen learning on the fly, I'm more than happy to see what happens after a huge win, when the team goes for points in key spots on the road....all different stages of the developmenr. And without Eugene, who typically plays 30 to 32 minutes and accounts as your leading scorer and rebounder....we won with our leading scorer and rebounder missing essentially the entire game..... Those minutes, mistakes and shot attempts now get spread out to more frosh.
Enjoy this win and a small milestone added to the rebuild.
