Most Important Player In Mag's Absence

[GreaseTruckCaptain]

IMO its gotta be Paul Mulcahy

I know theres been multiple posts about who steps up from the bench, but I dont think its reasonable to expect a handful of bench players and freshmen to come close to duplicate Mag's defensive and offensive contributions. To stay on the trajectory we were, our defensive pressure needs to remain a top priority, and Hyatt/Simpson/Woolfolk/Reiber/Palmquist just dont come close. Its no knock on them, just not their games. I don't disagree with putting Hyatt in the starting lineup as Mag's replacement, but he shouldn't be counted on for Mag's numbers. Mag was a one man trap, and while probably more athletic overall than Paul, Paul has the length and experience to try to step up into that role on the defensive side of the ball. Again, not expecting a replacement for Mag, but will be the closest thing we can get. Plus, he has the ceiling and ability to take over Mag's missed offense and rebounding. And I think we can all agree we'd rather see Paul do it than Caleb try to take on more offensively. Let Caleb and Cam keep their defensive assignments, which they do very well.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Always cliff.

Scary thought, what if we get another injury

 

[Kbee3]

Always cliff.

Scary thought, what if we get another injury

I've thought that as well, but would never post such a thing here now.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

I've thought that as well, but would never post such a thing here now.

I was at the Temple game.....

 

[mikebal9]

IMO Paul Mulcahy was the most important player even when Mag was there. We cannot function on offense without him, or when he's not playing his game.

 

[RUJMM78]

Cliff and or Cam are most important.Rutgers needs to score more points with the absence of Mag on defense.The full court press clearly won't be as effecrive

 

[anon1753890747]

We are a very different team than we were last week

 

[Bayonnebomber79]

Without a doubt it’s Paul. As Paul goes, so goes Rutgers

 

[NewJerseyHawk]

Mulcahy is not essential to winning games with or without Mag....we have wings and guards, which we've already have.

Paul (for this current roster and the prior 2 years) is still best suited as a wing 3 point shooter who occasionally makes plays from the wings, passing, driving and hopefully scoring.....he is not a PG who has the ability to drive and score from the top of the key and doesn't have the handle necessary to playmake or generate offense on his own. RU suffers greatly when his overdribbling and dominating the ball.

We have Simpson, Cam and Caleb that can start the offense, move, cut, pass and drive. Paul should be doing more moving without the ball.

In order of essential, it is Cliff, Caleb and Cam Spencer .....the remaining parts are interchangeable towards winning with this current roster.

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Mulcahy is not essential to winning games with or without Mag....we have wings and guards, which we've already have.

Paul (for this current roster and the prior 2 years) is still best suited as a wing 3 point shooter who occasionally makes plays from the wings, passing, driving and hopefully scoring.....he is not a PG who has the ability to drive and score from the top of the key and doesn't have the handle necessary to playmake or generate offense on his own. RU suffers greatly when his overdribbling and dominating the ball.

We have Simpson, Cam and Caleb that can start the offense, move, cut, pass and drive. Paul should be doing more moving without the ball.

In order of essential, it is Cliff, Caleb and Cam Spencer .....the remaining parts are interchangeable towards winning with this current roster.

He certainly was driving from the top of the key vs MSU. Two or three huge layups and a getting to the line.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Cliff-Paul-Mag-Caleb-Cam is mine

Cliff by a lot
Cam far behind 2,3 and 4

 

[MiloTalon13]

Without a doubt it’s Paul. As Paul goes, so goes Rutgers

I'm with you. Look at how we played without him.

 

[Bayonnebomber79]

He certainly was driving from the top of the key vs MSU. Two or three huge layups and a getting to the line.

My point exactly! When PM is cutting, driving and moving the ball the offense is clicking. When he dribbles around aimlessly is when we bog down.

 

[Scangg]

Mulcahy is not essential to winning games with or without Mag....we have wings and guards, which we've already have.

Paul (for this current roster and the prior 2 years) is still best suited as a wing 3 point shooter who occasionally makes plays from the wings, passing, driving and hopefully scoring.....he is not a PG who has the ability to drive and score from the top of the key and doesn't have the handle necessary to playmake or generate offense on his own. RU suffers greatly when his overdribbling and dominating the ball.

We have Simpson, Cam and Caleb that can start the offense, move, cut, pass and drive. Paul should be doing more moving without the ball.

In order of essential, it is Cliff, Caleb and Cam Spencer .....the remaining parts are interchangeable towards winning with this current roster.

We already saw what happened with Paul earlier this year. It's not good

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

We’d be in trouble if any of the 3 veterans go down now. The defense would go from very good to below average without either Cliff or Caleb now that Mag is out. Yes - one more key defensive player out would have this much impact. I don’t care how bad some of you think Caleb makes the offense but if you think we suddenly go from 123rd to 50th best offense with Oskar, Hyatt and Simpson absorbing his time that’s just laughable. We’re not a good offensive team. We win through defense and doing enough on offense. We weren’t even good last year - 96th.

Paul would always have been a devastating loss. We saw that already.

 

[Rufaninga]

I don't think we can offset his loss on defense
I think we can try and minimize the impact by getting additional scoring.

I tink we need an additional 10pts per game, so I would lean more on Hyatt & Oscar to step up and score more.

 

[YoucancallmeRay]

MVP in order: Cliff, Paul, Caleb, Cam, Mag. Hyatt was better on offense earlier in the season than Mag, but they're about even with Mag's recent output. Rebounding is about the same. Mag is better on defense. To me, there is some drop off overall with Hyatt, but not by that much. And Hyatt should not be coming off the bench. He's next man up and deserves starter's minutes.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Looking at our small sample size of real games....

Temple. No Paul and No caleb. Disaster
AT Miami No Paul. We have Caleb we lose at close one in Miami.

We played the Miami game with no Paul and Simpson got 10 minutes.

 

[fluoxetine]

We’d be in trouble if any of the 3 veterans go down now. The defense would go from very good to below average without either Cliff or Caleb now that Mag is out. Yes - one more key defensive player out would have this much impact.

I think below average is an exaggeration but it would be a huge impact.

Is the question, "most important player" or "player whose importance has increased the most". For the latter I still think it's Hyatt as he will be the one absorbing most of the minutes. Paul/Cliff/Caleb were critical and remain critical.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I think below average is an exaggeration but it would be a huge impact.

Is the question, "most important player" or "player whose importance has increased the most". For the latter I still think it's Hyatt as he will be the one absorbing most of the minutes. Paul/Cliff/Caleb were critical and remain critical.

I guess it depends how you define average. My barometer for it was the bubble. I don’t think we have a top 50 defense without either Mag or Caleb. Without Cliff and Mag, Hyatt would likely be playing the whole game as our rim protector so…

 

[richthedentist]

Mulcahy is not essential to winning games with or without Mag....we have wings and guards, which we've already have.

Paul (for this current roster and the prior 2 years) is still best suited as a wing 3 point shooter who occasionally makes plays from the wings, passing, driving and hopefully scoring.....he is not a PG who has the ability to drive and score from the top of the key and doesn't have the handle necessary to playmake or generate offense on his own. RU suffers greatly when his overdribbling and dominating the ball.

We have Simpson, Cam and Caleb that can start the offense, move, cut, pass and drive. Paul should be doing more moving without the ball.

In order of essential, it is Cliff, Caleb and Cam Spencer .....the remaining parts are interchangeable towards winning with this current roster.

Problem with Paul is many times when he gets the ball with the open shot he passes it up literally and then ends up taking a harder shot

 

[GreaseTruckCaptain]

I think below average is an exaggeration but it would be a huge impact.

Is the question, "most important player" or "player whose importance has increased the most". For the latter I still think it's Hyatt as he will be the one absorbing most of the minutes. Paul/Cliff/Caleb were critical and remain critical.

I guess the title of my post was worded poorly and thats my bad. I was trying to get at who's the player on the roster who needs to step up the most to replace Mag's numbers. In other threads it was about the bench guys stepping in and stepping up. While there certainly needs to be some of that, I dont think its reasonable to expect them to all of a sudden be someone they arent. I think Paul has the ability and room to step up (we've certainly seen him go on runs of scoring), and utilizing his length and experience to play the trap defense at the top of the key is the best option for coming close to what our defense looked like with Mag (Hyatt then slides back to getting in passing lanes on the wing, which is more his game). Paul is a veteran and a guy who clearly cares about the team and winning first, so I just hope he can see that his scoring offense is our best chance to keep this train rolling

 

[BigEastPhil]

To OP’s post: most important player (s) in Mag absence has to be everyone individually and collectively. Mag was too valuable

 

[rudad02]

Both Mulcahy & McConnell need to get their heads out of their asses.

 

[fluoxetine]

It was one game. We were 4.5 point underdogs and lost by 6. Everyone needs to relaaax

 

[RUJMM78]

Cliff-Paul-Mag-Caleb-Cam is mine

Cliff by a lot
Cam far behind 2,3 and 4

Without Cam Rutgers would be lucky to score 55 points per game.

 

[Yeah Baby]

Everyone who steps on the court. Dig deep young men you have some big shoes to fill.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Without Cam Rutgers would be lucky to score 55 points per game.

In wins
Indiana he scored 3
PSU scored 3
MSU scored 7

He has scored 116 points in our 9 real wins. That is less than 12 ppg. Now yes that slot is filled by Hyatt and Oskar if Cam is gone so that is a little problem.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

It was one game. We were 4.5 point underdogs and lost by 6. Everyone needs to relaaax

Your analytical angle is not adequately taking in consideration the defenses that Pike cant/won’t use because one player is out PLUS the drop off in talent once 1 key player leaves rotation

 

[fluoxetine]

Your analytical angle is not adequately taking in consideration the defenses that Pike cant/won’t use because one player is out PLUS the drop off in talent once 1 key player leaves rotation

I was more referring to the people who were freaking out because Paul and Caleb had bad games.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

I was more referring to the people who were freaking out because Paul and Caleb had bad games.

Oh. Totally on board with them being outliers

 

[Scangg]

I guess the title of my post was worded poorly and thats my bad. I was trying to get at who's the player on the roster who needs to step up the most to replace Mag's numbers. In other threads it was about the bench guys stepping in and stepping up. While there certainly needs to be some of that, I dont think its reasonable to expect them to all of a sudden be someone they arent. I think Paul has the ability and room to step up (we've certainly seen him go on runs of scoring), and utilizing his length and experience to play the trap defense at the top of the key is the best option for coming close to what our defense looked like with Mag (Hyatt then slides back to getting in passing lanes on the wing, which is more his game). Paul is a veteran and a guy who clearly cares about the team and winning first, so I just hope he can see that his scoring offense is our best chance to keep this train rolling

We needed Paul to step up with or without Mag

Post Mag, Simpson really needs to. He will be the one who consistently gets more minutes now. He can score. He can play D. He brings that explosiveness to get out in transition or get to the rim.

Other people need to play well just like we always need them to

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Oh. Totally on board with them being outliers

Yup - this. We can’t press as effectively to spark a come back. That’s one thing. And then the bigger issue is the hit to depth that was already paper thin. The defense was a train wreck with the subs in at the end of the first half. Our “scoring matters most” fans are dismissing this because Oskar and Hyatt went 4-4 from 3 to close out that stretch and then Indiana got sloppy with turnover on the last few possessions giving our interior defense a reprieve from exposure. Fact remains that Indiana could’ve scored at will in the paint during that stretch which also opened up kick out opportunities for wide open 3s. If our plan is to expect a major offense upgrade with those guys hitting 3s at an insane rate consistently to offset bad defense we’re in big trouble.