People on here were ripping RU for our not scoring much in the last 4 minutes against Houston who is between # 5 and # 7 in the country and we only lost by 3 points Loyola only scored 16 points in the first half and only shot 22 % over the first 30 minutes and were 8 % on threes at that time. They could have built a house with all the bricks they were shooting. Guys were wide open on threes and they couldn't make a shot. These things happen a lot but some of our posters just love to rip our guys and our coaches. Imagine how Illinois must feel. They got taken to the wood shed by Loyola and Oregon State made Loyola look awful today. That is college basketball.
Talk about a collapse
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And if we didn't go into a Prevent Offense for the last 4 minutes of our game, right now we're all talking about the Final Four.
Rutgers may have missed the opportunity of our lifetimes to get to the final 4. This bracket could not have set up better.
Agree with you guys. I literally cannot believe the path to the final four would have been #11 Syracuse and then #12 Oregon State. I've always been more an RU football guy, but this would have been the pinnacle of RU fandom.
and if
...Myles completed the alley-oop
...or if Myles made the easy layup
....or if Jacob did not throw a horrible pass that was stolen
...or if Geo didn't turn the ball over
...or if Geo got the rebound that instead turned into 3 points for Houston
Rutgers would have emerged victorious.
All these things contributed to RU losing. Simply slowing down the game is not the reason RU lost.
How many of those things happened because Rutgers stopped doing what was working for the prior 35 minutes?
Mike - you forgot the part where Myles was going out of bounce with the ball and whiffed on bouncing it off the opponent. Quite a few other missed box outs as well. Its mind boggling how many things went wrong for us to lose. Maybe taking the air out of the ball was a mistake. But we literally just needed one of these 7-8 things to go the other way and we win.
Yeah, Lou that's another one. It was as if we were jinxed the last five minutes.
At some point people need to accept that the teams who are still playing made enough winning plays, and we simply didn’t. It’s really that simple.
Is this supposed to provide some type of consolation for our melt down in the final 4 last weekend. Not working.
and if houston hit their foul shots we would have lost handily. We could do this all day long....
Does that justify RU getting outscored 14-2 by Houston in the final 4 minutes?
Ok. The game came down to the last two possessions. You have to give Houston some credit for hanging in there.
Second to last possession resulted in a turnover. We were losing by one only. We were still in it to win it in regulation time.
Lat possession was a good look at a three-point shot to tie the game and possibly win it in OT.
In tennis you have two serves to be in the game. We essentially double faulted and lost.
That is what happened. And we double faulted with the ball in the hands of two of our best players.
We lost the opportunity to advance. It was in our hands. That hurts.
In March Madness, the best team does not always win. The team that does not double fault wins.
Second to last possession resulted in a turnover. We were losing by one only. We were still in it to win it in regulation time.
Lat possession was a good look at a three-point shot to tie the game and possibly win it in OT.
In tennis you have two serves to be in the game. We essentially double faulted and lost.
That is what happened. And we double faulted with the ball in the hands of two of our best players.
We lost the opportunity to advance. It was in our hands. That hurts.
In March Madness, the best team does not always win. The team that does not double fault wins.
Because as much as I like Underwood as a coach, Illinois was not prepared to play Loyola. That was terrible coaching by Underwood and a masterful job by Moser.
Crazy things can happen when a team gets hot. Just remember Valvano’s NC State team and Rollie’s Nova team.
I think everyone understands that. Acceptance, however, may take a while.
Not sure if I can watch the Houston-Syracuse game. A Houston win just digs the knife in deeper. Although I honestly would not expect us to beat Syracuse again, a Syracuse win pisses me off because we already beat them. Hope Syracuse wins—it hurts less IMO.
My point was that no matter how bad we looked that Loyola looked even worse and lost to a # 12 seed. Most of you have just continued to bring up how we didn't finish the game. We played a # 2 seed and shot much better than Loyola and we came up short. A game is 40 minutes. Anything can happen in a college basketball game. We don't need to be always criticizing our guys. So many teams have done so much worse.
We didn’t look bad but I get your point. Some people are just not happy and their glass is always half empty it just empty. We had a great season. It can always be better but it was a great season.
Loyola played like crap the entire game. Rutgers was the better team for 36 minutes. This may be the very first time after countless years I disagree with a post of yours lol.
Yes, MANY things didn't go our way. They all had to lose that game in the end.
Anyone can have a bad game. You just hate to have that happen
when it's single elimination. Ask our Final Four team from '76
about that
so, the winning teams scored more points than the losing teams?
wow... no I'm starting to see how this works................... no wait.................
nope... doesn't help, even a tiny bit.
If Geo doesn't foul with 24 seconds giving them the and 1 we have the ball for final shot in a tie game.
We were Houston’s elite 8 game ...and they survived
If their point guard is healthy ...they win the next two and then upset Baylor to get to finals
If their point guard is healthy ...they win the next two and then upset Baylor to get to finals
What about MSU vs UCLA in the pre tournament play in round? I turned it on late and MSU had that game won. UCLA is still playing.
They call this March Madness for a reason folks. It’s not just RU who lost. In fact one team loses every game that is played. Clemson fans might be saying “if we beat RU we could have won the Houston game and....”
They call this March Madness for a reason folks. It’s not just RU who lost. In fact one team loses every game that is played. Clemson fans might be saying “if we beat RU we could have won the Houston game and....”
Spot on comments.explaining why Rutgers loss the game.One more basket and one less foul probably would have won the game.
Unless Houston didn’t turn it over twice and we didn’t hit 2 big 3 pointers with hands in our faces to grab that lead. You can’t just watch the last 2 minutes of a 40 minute game and make comments like this. Agree we had our chances but we did make a lot of great plays, mainly on Defense. Houston was lost on Offense and had to rely on scratching and clawing back I along with some timely calls by the refs. It’s done now. Time to move on to Football.
I do think the change of mindset from win the game to don't lose the game contributed to other factors that also contributed to the loss.
My philosophy is you continue to push so long as you retain the general advantage. If momentum shifts or you see that you are playing even or worse, then you move to a protect mindset. At the time we went slow down we had a slight advantage each possession. We gave that up.
I saw this play out in person in Greensboro in 1979.
My wife said slow it down and I screamed no.
I love Pike, I think he made a tactical error in his timing.
We have seen several large leads shrink but not disappear during the season with this approach. This time our cushion was not large enough, the ball bounced the wrong way, we didn't execute and it combined to create a heartbreaking loss for a team we all can be proud of.
Loyal
Caleb's foul to turn that into a three point play was inexcusable.
The one play you cannot have.
If you foul, stop the shot. If the shot is strong, do not foul.
But you see it far too often.
Loyal
That was the worst call against us. Minimal contact in an aggressive game and no advantage was gained by us. It was an inbound pass and the whistle blew immediately. He wasn’t driving or shooting he was catching a pass. The ref choked there. Then the Houston player choked and missed 2 shots then the refs choked again when they pushed off on Myles and deflected the rebound out.
Credit to Houston because it’s an art form and they are very good at it but they got away with a couple of “Kevin McHale” push offs against Oregon State at the end of the game too. It’s very subtle and refs miss those calls all of the time. Most of the Houston rebounds are just sheer will. Last game they had two Houston players fighting over offensive rebounds on 3-4 occasions and I only watched the last 15 minutes. Those weren’t push offs they were just watching the ball and knowing were it will go which is also an art form. Houston is GREAT at this.
I can’t say enough how well RU did against Houston. Some of our fans have to learn to appreciate our team. Learn the game and love the team.
Momentum shifted in a big way on the missed dunk long rebound and 3 to cut it to 5. That was an oh no moment. I don’t think Pike made a mistake here. The problem was players couldn’t execute.