Greene Rice has posted several times already this year about the stages of grief. This board has an even split in all 5 stages and I have quickly and for my own sanity moved from anger right over to acceptance. The reality is that this is a bad team and will not be making any kind of post season barring some miracle turnaround that no one could predict. They actually may be a worse team than any of the most pessimistic could have imagined. Rutgers just suffered a Quad 4 loss at home. A loss similar to Fred Hill's woeful team losing to Jackson State 71-70 on a last second 3. Easily one of the top worst losses ever at the RAC if not top 5. Rutgers has struggled against 4 sisters of the poor and one of the worst Power 6 schools you will find.
Okay opening game Lehigh, you can give them a pass, first game out of the gate, we see schools all over the country struggle, 2nd game and 3rd games were ugly as heck yet still won both by double digits and raised some red flags. 4th game bump in competition but still a terrible program and a purposeless game in which we saw the same game play out from the previous 3, RU no energy, just playing back and forth and the inability to make any stops when it counted. Now Game 5, what did we get...well more of the same, in fact the same movie from the previous 4 games played out, inferior team allowed to set pace and hold leads while RU shooting anemic for long stretches and upperclass starts once again go AWOL and ghost us. Meanwhile the coach seemingly set on his destination of clueless unable but more like unwilling to do anything different. I have seen enough in these 5 games.
Its an indictment on our star players and its an indictment on Coach Pikiell's game prep, in game coaching and recruiting. What we have witnessed shows you how tenuous keeping your program at a NCAA level is. Top 25 one day, bottom feeder the next, just ask Northwestern. Recruiting is everything and when you pile up the misses like Pike did and fail to replace 2 of the top 3 players from last season in a very lucrative 2021 portal well you get you are witnessing. The absolute no shows from a few players we all know you they are have torpedoed this teams chances at any success. The insistence of Pikiell to play a certain player when he can barely graze the rim and giving him major opportunity in a key stretch late was abominable. One has to wonder what exactly does this team do in practice. This easily is the worst looking and rudderless team since the Fred Hill years, even Eddie's team showed more teamwork. None of these players are on the same team, there is no leadership, there does not seem to be anyone who cares (maybe Paul) and the coaching staff has to be held responsible for this utter and spectacular collapse.
No Pikiell should not be fired and he wont be fired next year either. Those are really silly threads. He brought this program from the abyss to two incredible years and one official NCAA tourney, our first in 30 years and first win in 38. For that Pikiell is a hero, he got us to the Promised Land. Yet now he finds his program falling back down the mountain and when you have a fanbase who has raised their expectations, the criticism and heat is going to come when the program is performing at levels not seen since he first got here. College basketball is unforgiving. You are only as good as your last tournament year. Pikiell has the opportunity to build a sustainable program here unfortunately his failures at recruiting are now magnified where the only way he can stop the boulder from completely falling back down into the abyss is to land some multiple talented players going into the next 2 years. There certainly should be plenty of playing time to offer and there should be 2-3 players pushed out the door. This year is what it is. We can hope there are nights when this team clicks on all cylinders because I think they are capable of that and they might pull off some upsets at home but I have seen no evidence that this team is capable of even being a middle of the pack Big 10. Hope I am wrong and they can go hot over a stretch to build momentumn but the odds seem stacked against.
The scary is the upcoming schedule. RU could be in serious danger of losing these next 5 easily and skidding to a 6 game losing streak at 3-7. That is enough for me to accept this team for what is and for most fans sanity i would recommend to recalibrate your expectations to a low setting from here on out
Okay opening game Lehigh, you can give them a pass, first game out of the gate, we see schools all over the country struggle, 2nd game and 3rd games were ugly as heck yet still won both by double digits and raised some red flags. 4th game bump in competition but still a terrible program and a purposeless game in which we saw the same game play out from the previous 3, RU no energy, just playing back and forth and the inability to make any stops when it counted. Now Game 5, what did we get...well more of the same, in fact the same movie from the previous 4 games played out, inferior team allowed to set pace and hold leads while RU shooting anemic for long stretches and upperclass starts once again go AWOL and ghost us. Meanwhile the coach seemingly set on his destination of clueless unable but more like unwilling to do anything different. I have seen enough in these 5 games.
Its an indictment on our star players and its an indictment on Coach Pikiell's game prep, in game coaching and recruiting. What we have witnessed shows you how tenuous keeping your program at a NCAA level is. Top 25 one day, bottom feeder the next, just ask Northwestern. Recruiting is everything and when you pile up the misses like Pike did and fail to replace 2 of the top 3 players from last season in a very lucrative 2021 portal well you get you are witnessing. The absolute no shows from a few players we all know you they are have torpedoed this teams chances at any success. The insistence of Pikiell to play a certain player when he can barely graze the rim and giving him major opportunity in a key stretch late was abominable. One has to wonder what exactly does this team do in practice. This easily is the worst looking and rudderless team since the Fred Hill years, even Eddie's team showed more teamwork. None of these players are on the same team, there is no leadership, there does not seem to be anyone who cares (maybe Paul) and the coaching staff has to be held responsible for this utter and spectacular collapse.
No Pikiell should not be fired and he wont be fired next year either. Those are really silly threads. He brought this program from the abyss to two incredible years and one official NCAA tourney, our first in 30 years and first win in 38. For that Pikiell is a hero, he got us to the Promised Land. Yet now he finds his program falling back down the mountain and when you have a fanbase who has raised their expectations, the criticism and heat is going to come when the program is performing at levels not seen since he first got here. College basketball is unforgiving. You are only as good as your last tournament year. Pikiell has the opportunity to build a sustainable program here unfortunately his failures at recruiting are now magnified where the only way he can stop the boulder from completely falling back down into the abyss is to land some multiple talented players going into the next 2 years. There certainly should be plenty of playing time to offer and there should be 2-3 players pushed out the door. This year is what it is. We can hope there are nights when this team clicks on all cylinders because I think they are capable of that and they might pull off some upsets at home but I have seen no evidence that this team is capable of even being a middle of the pack Big 10. Hope I am wrong and they can go hot over a stretch to build momentumn but the odds seem stacked against.
The scary is the upcoming schedule. RU could be in serious danger of losing these next 5 easily and skidding to a 6 game losing streak at 3-7. That is enough for me to accept this team for what is and for most fans sanity i would recommend to recalibrate your expectations to a low setting from here on out
