LIAR

needmorecowbell

Heisman
Oct 28, 2007
9,638
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Stop. We lost to Lafayette and UMass. Barely beat Lehigh. Got schooled on the glass against multiple cupcakes. This thread was called for at the time.

And even if we do turn things around and somehow make an NCAA run (still have a ways to go), the success would/will be about overcoming weaknesses up front (not as a result of the best combination of BIGs ever as Pike advertised). The way Pike talked up our BIG men pre-season was wrong and unhelpful for all involved (including the players as it added unnessary pressure). I’ll bet he learned a lesson from it and won’t do it again.
You think calling Pike a liar was called for? That is what this thread is about.
 

zappaa

Heisman
Jul 27, 2001
75,014
91,811
103
Things will get worse !!!?

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂


And loving it.
Hope we continue with solid play against the excellent teams we still have to play
 
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GoodOl'Rutgers

Heisman
Sep 11, 2006
123,974
19,586
0
No it wasn’t because you can’t make statements like you and others made after 5 games. Curious I didn’t see a post by you on this particular thread after we beat purdue
what were you saying on Nov 22?

Here's the game by game results... you tell me if Nov 22's loss had you thinking Pike was right and we had the best team ever and we didn't miss Young and Myles and Mathis

vs Lehigh 11/10/21 73-70 W (OT)
vs Merrimack 11/13/21 48-35 W
vs NJIT 11/16/21 75-61 W
at DePaul 11/18/21 70-73 L
vs Lafayette 11/22/21 51-53 L

That's an OT win vs Lehigh..
not scoring 50 vs Merrimack
standard win vs NJIT
then losses to Big East bottom dweller DePaul and then Lafayette.. again, barely scoring 50

Show us the posts where you insisted that all was well... hell.. show us Carnio's columns where he insisted all was well
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
12,640
78
You're wrong. The problem with your posts and many others in this embarrassing thread is that you guys let your emotions get in the way of the way team basketball works. You make absolute statements "we're not making the NIT", "Pike should never have said that", and other "the season is over" type posts. It's a long season and teams develop. The team is still developing. The posters who said that Paul should never play again, or that Caleb stinks, or that Hyatt will never work out are singing a different tune now. And remember the following:

Coach Pike knows more about basketball and his team than you or I will ever know.

I’m not sure which posts of mine you are referring to? While I’m optimistic about the direction the team is moving in, I still stand by my statement that this group of BIGs currently isn’t close to the best collective unit Pike has had at that position and nothing good came from him advertising them that way pre-season. Don't twist the context to be about development. Pike didn’t say - I think we have the potential to develop a really strong front court over the course of the season. That would’ve been typical coach talk and totally fine even with a disappointing start. But that’s not what happened or what this thread was referencing.
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
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You think calling Pike a liar was called for? That is what this thread is about.
He’s a great coach. I bashed the people calling for his head pretty openly on here. Ridiculous to put him on the chopping block even with a down year.

But yes, it’s fair to say that he wasn’t being forthright with the open statements he made about our 5s being his best group ever. There is simply no way he could’ve believe that to be true at the time. It wasn’t just one brain fart game.
 

RUInsanityToo

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what were you saying on Nov 22?

Here's the game by game results... you tell me if Nov 22's loss had you thinking Pike was right and we had the best team ever and we didn't miss Young and Myles and Mathis

vs Lehigh 11/10/21 73-70 W (OT)
vs Merrimack 11/13/21 48-35 W
vs NJIT 11/16/21 75-61 W
at DePaul 11/18/21 70-73 L
vs Lafayette 11/22/21 51-53 L

That's an OT win vs Lehigh..
not scoring 50 vs Merrimack
standard win vs NJIT
then losses to Big East bottom dweller DePaul and then Lafayette.. again, barely scoring 50

Show us the posts where you insisted that all was well... hell.. show us Carnio's columns where he insisted all was well


Here's my post on November 23. Pretty spot on when compared to the overly emotional histrionic fans that you are defending in this post. Apparently there are some people in life that continually need to go backwards in order to identify, micro-evaluate and assign blame on others instead of hanging in there for better things to come.

What Pike said in the pre-season is much less relevant to me than how he continues to correct course going forward.

It looks really bad right now but progress is often not linear. Pike gets a long leash IMO....especially based on the last 2 seasons and how low we were as a program when he got here. We all make mistakes, its how we correct from those mistakes that define us. Lets see how he corrects from this early season failure as well as from players not quite cutting it (either rotational changes or future recruiting or portal).

Also have to laugh at the people looking for media statements of brutal honesty from any coach. I'm a fanatic about RU because I love RU, not because the coach says the team is great. Perhaps an assessment of priorities are in order for some fans out there looking to ride Pike back to Stony Brook.
 

GoodOl'Rutgers

Heisman
Sep 11, 2006
123,974
19,586
0
Here's my post on November 23. Pretty spot on when compared to the overly emotional histrionic fans that you are defending in this post. Apparently there are some people in life that continually need to go backwards in order to identify, micro-evaluate and assign blame on others instead of hanging in there for better things to come.

What Pike said in the pre-season is much less relevant to me than how he continues to correct course going forward.
yeah.. that was fair.. but I did not ask that of YOU... I asked it of the US Bowling Congress Bowler whose post I quoted... unless you are saying that that is also you...

But how about this.. how about some writer ask Pike how he turned things around. Why make this about what fans thought while the team was absolutely SUCKING.

The Carnio story thread and this one.. designed to embarrass critics who had every right to be critical.. even to be hyper-critical given how Pike hyped the team in preseason... just are not achieving what the finger-pointing jock-sniffing fans seek to achieve.

This team and the coach deserved harsh criticism while they were severely underachieving and playing like crap. And they have all taken positive steps to change things... that alone shows the criticisms were valid.
 
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PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
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78
If the team went 0-30 there would be no justification for calling the head coach a LIAR. He's a high-character person and a stand-up guy.
Just stop. The OP clearly didn’t mean it that way. We had just lost to Lafayette, UMass, barely beat Lehigh and struggled with Merrimack. Pre-season our coach had hyped up how great our Bigs would be and yet we couldn’t even dominate the glass against bad mid-majors. That was the context of this thread.

Pike is a good coach and good coaches find a way to get their teams on track. We’re moving in the right direction but that doesn’t change the fact that we lack depth at the 5 and Cliff still has a lot of development ahead of him to go toe to toe with Kofi and company.

Bottom line - The OP doesn’t deserve to be attacked like this. Move on.
 

RUInsanityToo

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May 5, 2006
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yeah.. that was fair.. but I did not ask that of YOU... I asked it of the US Bowling Congress Bowler whose post I quoted... unless you are saying that that is also you...

But how about this.. how about some writer ask Pike how he turned things around. Why make this about what fans thought while the team was absolutely SUCKING.

No not me but I did feel like responding as this board became un-readable due to posters like the OP.
 

RUInsanityToo

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Just stop. The OP clearly didn’t mean it that way. We had just lost to Lafayette, UMass, barely beat Lehigh and struggled with Merrimack. Pre-season our coach had hyped up how great our Bigs would be and yet we couldn’t even dominate the glass against bad mid-majors. That was the context of this thread.

Pike is a good coach and good coaches find a way to get their teams on track. We’re moving in the right direction but that doesn’t change the fact that we lack depth at the 5 and Cliff still has a lot of development ahead of him to go toe to toe with Kofi and company.

Bottom line - The OP doesn’t deserve to be attacked like this. Move on.

IMO he does - not only based on him continually clogging this board with nonsense (not sure how you haven't noticed this over the past 24 months) - but because he gave up on Pike (i.e. "Lost Me" comment in the OP) and then doubled down on it several times including today.
 
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PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
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IMO he does - not only based on him continually clogging this board with nonsense (not sure how you haven't noticed this over the past 24 months) - but because he gave up on Pike (i.e. "Lost Me" comment in the OP) and then doubled down on it several times including today.
Oh he’s had some ridiculously negative threads that were uncalled for over the years. I agree.

But this one? We needed OT for Lehigh too man. and Merrimack was neck and neck most of the game. We really sucked and Pike had just spent the offseason pumping up how great the team was - especially the Bigs. Hindsight is always bliss but I bet Pike won’t do that again.
 

GoodOl'Rutgers

Heisman
Sep 11, 2006
123,974
19,586
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No not me but I did feel like responding as this board became un-readable due to posters like the OP.
well, imo, you gotta give real fans a break when they go a little nuts. There are plenty of fake fans here who jump all over Rutgers in their fits of schadenfreude.. but this OP was right after a bad loss heaped upon a bad start to the season of high expectations.

for what its worth.. in the Purdue dire predictions thread I took a wait and see approach saying that when we beat Clemson it was right after a piss poor performance and the team might respond similarly vs Purdue.

In any case, last night's Rutgers team looked real good.. but still had to shoot insanely from 3 to win... we had a 24 point advantage in threes and only won by 8. But they are playing team basketball... lets hope it keeps up.

The "team basketball" thing is why I thought very poorly of Pike's coaching early season. We were just awful and it did not look like an organized team.. pickup games have been better organized at times (slight exaggeration for effefct).
 

ancienthooper

All-Conference
Jan 16, 2019
1,190
2,810
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Just stop. The OP clearly didn’t mean it that way. We had just lost to Lafayette, UMass, barely beat Lehigh and struggled with Merrimack. Pre-season our coach had hyped up how great our Bigs would be and yet we couldn’t even dominate the glass against bad mid-majors. That was the context of this thread.

Pike is a good coach and good coaches find a way to get their teams on track. We’re moving in the right direction but that doesn’t change the fact that we lack depth at the 5 and Cliff still has a lot of development ahead of him to go toe to toe with Kofi and company.

Bottom line - The OP doesn’t deserve to be attacked like this. Move on.
So the OP bold caps the coach as a liar and gets a pass because "The OP clearly didn't mean it that way." But when the coach uses standard coach-speak to amp up his team it's perfectly ok that his words are shoved up his bung at every turn and branded a liar. Got it. Move on.
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
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So the OP bold caps the coach as a liar and gets a pass because "The OP clearly didn't mean it that way." But when the coach uses standard coach-speak to amp up his team it's perfectly ok that his words are shoved up his bung at every turn and branded a liar. Got it. Move on.
It wasn’t standard “coach speak”. He went out of his way to emphasize “best ever”. It backfired with the way we started the season.

I love pike but I’m going to do my best not to pay much attention to the pre-season pressers in the future. That’s all.
 
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Usbcbowler

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what were you saying on Nov 22?

Here's the game by game results... you tell me if Nov 22's loss had you thinking Pike was right and we had the best team ever and we didn't miss Young and Myles and Mathis

vs Lehigh 11/10/21 73-70 W (OT)
vs Merrimack 11/13/21 48-35 W
vs NJIT 11/16/21 75-61 W
at DePaul 11/18/21 70-73 L
vs Lafayette 11/22/21 51-53 L

That's an OT win vs Lehigh..
not scoring 50 vs Merrimack
standard win vs NJIT
then losses to Big East bottom dweller DePaul and then Lafayette.. again, barely scoring 50

Show us the posts where you insisted that all was well... hell.. show us Carnio's columns where he insisted all was well
I didn't post all wS well but I sure as he'll didn't post the sky was falling posts like many on here. It's a long season. What will you say if we end up top half of Big and make the Dance.
All many on here are saying is no way anyone after 5 games can come to a conclusion that 1 we suck, 2 Pike sucks and 3 we are not making March madness. That assinine to think that way
 

GoodOl'Rutgers

Heisman
Sep 11, 2006
123,974
19,586
0
I didn't post all wS well but I sure as he'll didn't post the sky was falling posts like many on here. It's a long season. What will you say if we end up top half of Big and make the Dance.
All many on here are saying is no way anyone after 5 games can come to a conclusion that 1 we suck, 2 Pike sucks and 3 we are not making March madness. That assinine to think that way
you say that NOW after wins over Purdue and Michigan.. why didn't you say that BEFORE? Why didn't Carino write that article BEFORE?

And as for what I will say.. I'll say FANTASTIC!.. good thing the coaches and players completely turned things around and played team basketball.
 
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PSAL_Hoops

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Feb 18, 2008
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you say that NOW after wins over Purdue and Michigan.. why didn't you say that BEFORE? Why didn't Carino write that article BEFORE?

And as for what I will say.. I'll say FANTASTIC!.. good thing the coaches and players completely turned things around and played team basketball.
This 100%. Fans were upset and not because of the early set backs but because the coach had doubled down on how great the team would be. it seemed like it should have been obvious (in watching those games) that there would be some growing pains.

i highly doubt you would’ve seen an article from anyone to expect some great turnaround, and shame on our fans following the UMass game.
 

Luvscarletknights

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Apr 1, 2018
3,901
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Coaches aren't always referring to raw talent when they praise a team. As often as
not, they're referring to the character of the group as well
I told anyone that would listen that team can be defined a few ways. IMHO some the players that left were not TEAM players.
 

RUInsanityToo

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This 100%. Fans were upset and not because of the early set backs but because the coach had doubled down on how great the team would be. it seemed like it should have been obvious (in watching those games) that there would be some growing pains.

i highly doubt you would’ve seen an article from anyone to expect some great turnaround, and shame on our fans following the UMass game.

Fans invest their time, money and emotion in rooting for a team, so I totally get/understand fans emotional responses to wins/losses. What I find hard to understand is being upset or emotional over what a coach says. Even if it is doubling down on being overly optimistic, a misrepresentation, a lie, an exaggeration, being overly cryptic, optimistic or pessimistic. Coaches all have different styles and all are put in difficult situations in having to answer questions, generally it becomes like a game of cat and mouse - and they don't always handle things perfectly - just like the rest of us. Maybe its just me, but it seems like a colossal waste of emotional energy to get upset - especially over overly optimistic coach speak.
 
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Shelby65

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I like Pike and he's clearly the best we've had at least as far back as Wenzel. And LIAR is too strong.

But it's not good form to try to spin an obvious team deficit into a superlative. Poor word choice. But should we really care what he says ? What matters is the results.

For how long has Schiano been saying we are going to win championships ? That's the most preposterous claim of all time and no one cares.
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
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Fans invest their time, money and emotion in rooting for a team, so I totally get/understand fans emotional responses to wins/losses. What I find hard to understand is being upset or emotional over what a coach says. Even if it is doubling down on being overly optimistic, a misrepresentation, a lie, an exaggeration, being overly cryptic, optimistic or pessimistic. Coaches all have different styles and all are put in difficult situations in having to answer questions, generally it becomes like a game of cat and mouse - and they don't always handle things perfectly - just like the rest of us. Maybe its just me, but it seems like a colossal waste of emotional energy to get upset - especially over overly optimistic coach speak.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I usually enjoy watching the pre-season interviews in hope of getting a general idea of what to expect. Again, this is a matter of opinion - for me, I’m probably not going to watch them for BB anymore. Not that big a deal - but yeah I’ll be a little disappointed not to have something I used to enjoy to look forward to. WWF shows aren’t really my thing (pretend stuff). I’m only interested in pre-season updates if I feel like I’m getting at least a watered down perspective of the coach’s view of the team. I didn’t feel like that was the case here.

To be clear - I think Pike is currently doing a great job of working with what he has and coaching up our team.
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
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I like Pike and he's clearly the best we've had at least as far back as Wenzel. And LIAR is too strong.

But it's not good form to try to spin an obvious team deficit into a superlative. Poor word choice. But should we really care what he says ? What matters is the results.

For how long has Schiano been saying we are going to win championships ? That's the most preposterous claim of all time and no one cares.
We all know you don’t like Schiano and take every opportunity you can to take jabs at him. Selling a long term championship vision is completely different from what’s being discussed here.
 
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Shelby65

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We all know you don’t like Schiano and take every opportunity you can to take jabs at him. Selling a long term championship vision is completely different from what’s being discussed here.
you are right, it's completely different. peddling that line is far more outlandish and inaccurate than anything Pike said about his 5 position.
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
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you are right, it's completely different. peddling that line is far more outlandish and inaccurate than anything Pike said about his 5 position.
That’s ridiculous. Every coach in America better believe that they are working to one day build a championship program. Now your just embarrassing yourself.
 
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Shelby65

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That’s ridiculous. Every coach in America better believe that they are working to one day build a championship program. Now your just embarrassing yourself.
Disagree....it's a job. Sure, they try their best and say the right things but at the end of the day they know their program's ceiling.

You think Oregon State and Indiana coaches believe they can 'win championships', for example ?

For most programs "you can't get there from here" and the coaches and most fans of course know.
 
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PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
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Disagree....it's a job. Sure, they try their best and say the right things but at the end of the day they know their program's ceiling.

You think Oregon State and Indiana coaches believe they can 'win championships', for example ?

For most programs "you can't get there from here" and the coaches and most fans of course know.
Every coach goes into the job with a plan to build a winning program and it makes every bit of sense to communicate that plan confidently to fans. There’s nothing wrong with generic coach talk - a coach is trying to sell recruits too. Everyone understands this.

Pike doubled down on selling the message that our front court was all star caliber - comparibly better than any other he’s coached. That’s not a generic message. you really shouldn’t say that if there’s a decent chance that unit is going to be your team’s relative weakness off the bat. To this day, I don’t understand why he did that, but when we proceeded to start the season by failing to dominate Lehigh, Merrimac, Lafayette, etc. inside it left fans scratching their heads.

GS, on the other hand, is brilliant at connecting with the media whether you like him or not. He always says the right things publicly and just as important, knows when to shut up and not say anything or say something neutral like “I’m not sure, Keith. Looking forward to getting out there and seeing where we stack up against Michigan”. Pike needs to borrow a page in this playbook going forward. I bet he does.
 

Shelby65

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Since you bring it up:

FWIW I do think Greg does a good job with the media. He's also a good salesman, which got us the bigger stadium, without which I don't think we later get the Big10 invite. The program was in a much better place when he left than when he started. I get that. 1.0 talked about building a strong foundation, and he delivered.

But that isn't relevant going forward. Going forward I think we need a different skill set. We need a better actual coach. That's my thing.

I've said it before: At all of his prior college stops he's had elite talent at programs that recruit themselves, no matter who the coaches are. It's easy to look good coaching at Ohio State. Coaching ability hardly mattered with the talent he had.

At Rutgers it does matter. We don't get the elite players that PSU does, Miami (did) and Ohio State does. We need someone who's a good coach and can compete with less.

I feel strongly that we need someone who has shown he can win without the built in talent advantage that GS always had before 2001 (not counting his GA yr at Ru before Paterno hired him). Someone who has won on either an even playing field or perhaps even with an under-talented team. Do yourself a favor and look up Leipold, Brian Kelly, Chip Kelly and Clawson career paths. Those guys were winning coaches at past stops without the talent advantages. We need someone like them.

In fact, two of them beat Schiano with much lesser talent (Chip was OC at UNH when they beat us soundly). That speaks to Schiano's coaching deficit. And Leipold whipped us in 2018 with less talent. That's what we need in the Big10 because we won't match most other Big10 teams in talent.

So that's my beef with the hire. We'd be much better off going forward with someone who's been a consistent winner despite having equal or lesser talent. Also, the 8 year contract is also a problem given the above.
 
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Usbcbowler

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you say that NOW after wins over Purdue and Michigan.. why didn't you say that BEFORE? Why didn't Carino write that article BEFORE?

And as for what I will say.. I'll say FANTASTIC!.. good thing the coaches and players completely turned things around and played team basketball.
Because I never post how we are going to do for the season after each game. Check my posts, I complain about posters who after 2 minutes of FB game are bitching about play calls and how we are going to get blown out, I complain about posters who after 5 or 6 BB games state we aren't even making nit.
I complain because flat out comments like those are stupid and the posters making them are showing a lack of intelligence about sports. Just my opinion opinion
 

PSAL_Hoops

Heisman
Feb 18, 2008
13,324
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78
Since you bring it up:

FWIW I do think Greg does a good job with the media. He's also a good salesman, which got us the bigger stadium, without which I don't think we later get the Big10 invite. The program was in a much better place when he left than when he started. I get that. 1.0 talked about building a strong foundation, and he delivered.

But that isn't relevant going forward. Going forward I think we need a different skill set. We need a better actual coach. That's my thing.

I've said it before: At all of his prior college stops he's had elite talent at programs that recruit themselves, no matter who the coaches are. It's easy to look good coaching at Ohio State. Coaching ability hardly mattered with the talent he had.

At Rutgers it does matter. We don't get the elite players that PSU does, Miami (did) and Ohio State does. We need someone who's a good coach and can compete with less.

I feel strongly that we need someone who has shown he can win without the built in talent advantage that GS always had before 2001 (not counting his GA yr at Ru before Paterno hired him). Someone who has won on either an even playing field or perhaps even with an under-talented team. Do yourself a favor and look up Leipold, Brian Kelly, Chip Kelly and Clawson career paths. Those guys were winning coaches at past stops without the talent advantages. We need someone like them.

In fact, two of them beat Schiano with much lesser talent (Chip was OC at UNH when they beat us soundly). That speaks to Schiano's coaching deficit. And Leipold whipped us in 2018 with less talent. That's what we need in the Big10 because we won't match most other Big10 teams in talent.

So that's my beef with the hire. We'd be much better off going forward with someone who's been a consistent winner despite having equal or lesser talent. Also, the 8 year contract is also a problem given the above.
That’s fine - take it to the football board and post all about it there. You’ve just proved my point here which was that your analogy was extremely poor and inappropriate. GS has never spent a pre-season propping up his weakest unit - this would’ve been like GS saying before this season - “fans will be surprised with how good our OL is going to be. Wait til you see them. This is my best OL ever as a Rutgers coach and it’s not even close”.

Again, Pike is doing a remarkable job figuring out how to work best with what he has. He’s a great coach. The context of this thread though was frustration immediately following performances where our Bigs got schooled by terrible low majors reflecting on how a few weeks earlier in pre-season he had literally gone out of his way to brag how our 5s were his best front court ever. If we turn around the season now, it doesn’t matter but that was the context at the time. Again, not remotely comparable to your analogy (which was just yet another GS dig by you - this time on the wrong board).