RAPID REACTION - Lehigh
- Thread starter Degaz-RU
- Start date
Reminds me of Mike Schmidt talking about winning in Philadelphia, you had the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it in the paper the next day.
The schedule will get tougher and we don’t really know how good or bad this team will be until we face tougher competition. For now we have beaten three cupcakes by 28, 12 and 12. A much stronger argument can be made about how bad this team is when we actually lose. For now, we have seen some glimmers of hope in Rutgers players.
Dylan Grant looks like he is going to be the star of the team, he is leading the team in scoring with 18.3 points per game while shooting an efficient 60% from the field and 78% from the line.
Davis is second in scoring at 12.3 per game while shooting a respectable 48% from the field, 44% from 3 and 69% from the line and as the point guard he has 7 assists, but only 3 turnovers in 97 minutes.
Francis has had a great, good and poor shooting game so the jury is out on how good he will be. Still over 3 games he is averaging 12 points, shooting 41% from the field and 35% from 3 and 86% from the line.
Ogbole has been the biggest surprise and has improved offensively every game. He missed his first 5 shots in game one, but since the has become very efficient on dunks, put backs and layups and is now averaging 7.7 points per game, shooting 59% from the field, but only 50% from the line. He also led the team in rebounding against Rider and Lehigh with 10 rebounds.
Badalau is the least effective starter who had a monster first half against Maine, but otherwise has not been that effective offensively averaging 9.3 points while shooting 32% from the field, 31% from 3 and 56% from the line. His monster half against Maine suggests he has a very high upside and although he played professionally in Europe he likely still needs to gain experience playing in college to reach his full potential.
Buchanan is solid off the bench and is scoring 8.7 points per game on an efficient 59% from the field. He is shooting a horrendous 46% from the line and has gone to the line 3rd most on the team, which is one of the reasons Rutgers is such a poor free throw shooting team.
Dortch has been a high energy backup at center who has used his athleticism to finish at the basket 75% and rebound (11 in 36 minutes). He will be undersized in Big Ten play.
The rest of the bench is a work in progress, which Pikiel will need every remaining cupcake and blowout on the schedule to develop. Fall does appear to be a good shot blocker (2 in 13 minutes) versus (3 in 65 minutes for Ogbole). Zrno mainly contributes by shooting 3s at 33%, which needs to get better. Nwuli has shown a great deal of athleticism but has only taken 5 shots and has only 4 rebounds in 27 minutes. He has shown he can defend. Powers went 4 of 4 from the line in his only game. Mark is very quick and athletic but only has 2 rebounds, 1 assist and 2 steals to show for his 21 minutes of playing time.
As of today, at least half the players on this team are too inexperienced to be effective contributors in the Big Ten and against strong OOC teams, but Pikiel is working hard to develop them. Don’t know how much he can develop them in one season, or how much the players who are playing well will continue to do so in the Big Ten, but the team is not without talent and we don’t know if we will have a losing season. We do know that it will be quite a challenge to have a winning season.
i am serious …tine will tell, but this team …has pieces that are young and need to develop
I fully expect lunps to take …with so much inexperience on the court in total.
I also give it a shot that it will come stsrt coming together later this year …and if we keep the nucleus intact for the year after ….with backcourt reinforcements being added …more can be achieved
Maybe not super intelligent conversation all the time, but at the very least in years past we’d be hoping for players to develop, players to play together and for them to play hard. We may just have that with our best players being the guys that have returned and haven’t cared for the need to test the market. Yet many of the so called fans have hated upon these players, even ones who also coincide with the fans that also complain about the state of college athletics.
