Pike is so stubborn - if you don’t defend the way I want you don’t play. Means nothing if you can’t score. Ideally you want both but what does it hurt at this point to start Hyatt AND Jones and see what happens? And sit mcconnell for one game?
Overemphasis on defense
- Thread starter RUSCFORMERLYRULOU
- Start date
Defense keeps teams in games but offense wins games.Right now Rutgers lacks both.
JY would've scored 30 of Lafayette yesterday
Defense and leave a wide open 3 to lose to Lafayette? That's concentrating on defense?
The defense and rebounding have been horrendous so far
This,
our close outs and rebounding minus the DePaul game have been horrendous. You can't preach to be a defensive first team and foul three point shooters, get beat backdoor constantly, lose the rebound battle vs. lesser smaller opponents, and be a horrible close out team. There has to be some balance; you don't have to neglect offense and shooting. Also, as good as your D is, a good offensive team or individual players will find a way to score and if we can't score, you won't be able to match them.
thats why singling out defensive mistakes by a few younger players seem insane when some are allowed to make repetitive mistakes on both end of the court
You give props to the player for hitting the three at the end, but for me the real troubling play was the back door uncontested layup we gave up just before that
All the effort and hard work to get yourself in position to save the game, and all of a sudden no defense at all during a critical moment
Exactly. I seriously don't believe I saw 1 fast break this season. They don't push and always pulling back. Very tough to watch how far they've regressed. No one can tell me they don't miss JY, MJ, and Mathis.
Izzo would never be in this situation.
But if Izzo was coaching us, I agree, there’s nothing he would be able to do with this roster
He legitimately does not care about offense. Listen to the post game presser. His first comments are lamenting a bad defensive series that ended the game.
We just scored 51 points against a team ranked in the 300's. And the first words out of his mouth are about bad defense....when we held the opposing team to 53 points.
It's mindboggling.
We just scored 51 points against a team ranked in the 300's. And the first words out of his mouth are about bad defense....when we held the opposing team to 53 points.
It's mindboggling.
Our offense is bad....no sugarcoating it.
Shooting is so variable. We need to focus more on the shots we are and aren't getting. If we make 3 of the missed 3s we win and the offense still stinks but at least we won. Everyone is so upset about losing this game. This has been our 1st 5 games with the biggest difference is the shooting got worse.
Any coach should analyze the quality of shots an offense gets. It isn't just where the shot is, but what player is taking them.
The other thing as alarming is that a team plays zone against us and we can't offensive rebound. We should be getting 35-40% of our misses and not 20%.
except that Izzo gets in the players faces and demands execution. He doesn't play cheerleader with the crowd and use constant clapping as his motivational strategy.
My point is he wouldn't tolerate Jaden Jones getting torched on D. he also wouldn't tolerate the D and effort from some of our upperclassmen.
You know as a two year team captain for UCONN, you would think he he knows a bit more about leadership on the court and expects more too from those he considers the leaders. I'm baffled.
That is his emphasis because he drills defense and close outs to his players and although the kid had only hit for 2 points , Ron made a big mistake giving him room , something that never should happen if we are playing the defense he has taught. The back door layup allowed by Jaden should never happen either.
The atrocious shooting is treated by him as an aberration , especially when most of the missed 3’s were open shots and going 4-26 is almost a fluke. A bunch of them were airballs and shots that hit the other side of the backboard , things we have never seen . They weren’t even close and some could not be rebounded. Got to say a lot of that is on the players and Pike will not throw his players under a bus. The game was lost because of the atrocious 2 point, 3 point and foul shooting by the players but Pike deflected to defense to protect his players.
However , he has to change the offense run more motion and get the better shooters to shoot and not let anyone shoot that thinks it is their turn to shoot which clearly has been happening in 4 of the 5 games, and extremely evident last night. He has to play more inside out not a lot of dribbling on the perimeter.
My biggest criticism is he is too loyal. This is playing exactly like Deshawn Freeman's senior year.
We could have tried a zone occasionally to confuse the other team …then switch back to man if we made a FT or shot
Mo