The team needed to learn how to play without Mag, just as any team would need to adjust to a new rotation. Unfortunately, it came on the road at Indiana and Illinois and not at home against Columbia and Sacred Heart. I have faith in the coaching staff that they will build up on whats worked and stay away from what hasn't. A number of fans were worried that we couldn't replace Harper and Baker this year, and yet this team seemed stronger with a streaky Cam and a dash of Simpson. It won't be easy, but this team is too hardworking not to adjust and right the ship
The Sky Is Not Falling
- Thread starter GreaseTruckCaptain
- Start date
They looked fine without him in the second half vs Michigan state. Better than with him in the first half actually.
We all knew it was a good possibility the team would lose the last 2 aways games, there is no surprise here.
We are two road games v. top half B1G teams removed from being referred to as the second best B1G team… per Tom Izzo for whatever that’s worth. But of course we are now Mag-less. Let’s see what we do from here.
We have wins against the three top teams in the current standings.
(Purdue 1-0, Indiana 1-1, and Northwestern 1-0 with the rematch at Rutgers to end the season)
Of our six remaining games four are against four of the five bottom teams.
Indiana 9-5 has to play @Northwestern, Illinois, at Mich St., at Purdue, Iowa, and Michigan.
Northwestern 9-5 has Indiana, Iowa, at Illinois, at Maryland, Penn St., and at Rutgers.
Illinois 8-5 with the Minnesota game postponed. at PSU, at Indiana, NW, at Ohio St., Michigan, and Purdue.
5 teams at 8-6 including Rutgers.
Rutgers has Nebraska, at Wisconsin, Michigan, at PSU, at Minnesota, and Northwestern.
So all the teams above us have tougher (on paper) schedules.
Would be a great disappointment to not get to 19-12, 11-9. A 3-3 finish.
4 wins very possible to be 20-11, 12-8. Could be 21-10, 13-7. Sweep for 22-9, 14-6...why not dream!
(Purdue 1-0, Indiana 1-1, and Northwestern 1-0 with the rematch at Rutgers to end the season)
Of our six remaining games four are against four of the five bottom teams.
Indiana 9-5 has to play @Northwestern, Illinois, at Mich St., at Purdue, Iowa, and Michigan.
Northwestern 9-5 has Indiana, Iowa, at Illinois, at Maryland, Penn St., and at Rutgers.
Illinois 8-5 with the Minnesota game postponed. at PSU, at Indiana, NW, at Ohio St., Michigan, and Purdue.
5 teams at 8-6 including Rutgers.
Rutgers has Nebraska, at Wisconsin, Michigan, at PSU, at Minnesota, and Northwestern.
So all the teams above us have tougher (on paper) schedules.
Would be a great disappointment to not get to 19-12, 11-9. A 3-3 finish.
4 wins very possible to be 20-11, 12-8. Could be 21-10, 13-7. Sweep for 22-9, 14-6...why not dream!
So refreshing to have a new poster that isn’t a troll. Welcome to the board.
Yeah Purdue lost 2 road games in the last week. Sky must be falling on them too. Lmao
Maybe Illinois and Indiana are better home teams than Rutgers is on the road.
We are not losing Senior Day at home. The only game which is not a “should win” is Wisconsin on the road. Yet we beat them there last year with Johnny Davis.
We will extinguish any remaining hopes Michigan has of a tournament berth.
Fully expect at least 5 wins in this final stretch..
We will extinguish any remaining hopes Michigan has of a tournament berth.
Fully expect at least 5 wins in this final stretch..
Let the rats jump off the ship, watching them scurry back on will be even funnier.
You cannot be serious. Mag had 7 points and was about to score his 9th point when he torn his ACL and was the only player playing well and might have scored 15-20 in the game. Paul and Caleb had 0 at the half. The failure in the first half was all of the rest of the players both starters and the bench not Mag. We didn’t look fine. Paul just went off and was finally aggressive . If he did that in the first half and Caleb came to play from the start we would have been up 10-15 instead of down 6. Mag was not holding them back from performing. What a terrible take.
Actually, the sky-high expectations ARE falling. Perfectly natural.. we are Rutgers fans, after all. Everyone is challenged in this.. fans, coaches, players.. even the media.
To my way of thinking.. with our full strength, good teams with good coaches had a plan that sometimes worked. That was to rough us up. They all claim how "physical" we are and they get the media talking that way.. and they all come in pushing and shoving us around. And it works... mostly. We lost to Miami, Temple and SHU that way.
Mag was one of our more physical players and he is out. I don't think we can just become a truly physical team overnight. So even with Mag we had to overcome with hustle and that D turning em over and scoring before they could rough us up. Tough if I see another call where we are unimpeded to the basket and a defender grabs our guy and gets a common foul... well.. I'm stewing just thinking about how many intentional fouls the refs owe us. Worse yet.. they call the foul to stop us from scoring it seems.
To my way of thinking.. with our full strength, good teams with good coaches had a plan that sometimes worked. That was to rough us up. They all claim how "physical" we are and they get the media talking that way.. and they all come in pushing and shoving us around. And it works... mostly. We lost to Miami, Temple and SHU that way.
Mag was one of our more physical players and he is out. I don't think we can just become a truly physical team overnight. So even with Mag we had to overcome with hustle and that D turning em over and scoring before they could rough us up. Tough if I see another call where we are unimpeded to the basket and a defender grabs our guy and gets a common foul... well.. I'm stewing just thinking about how many intentional fouls the refs owe us. Worse yet.. they call the foul to stop us from scoring it seems.
The most urgent problem is ovecoming a mediocre offense which translates into long scoring droughts.Injuries and ref calls will happen and the coaching staff has to adapt.The lack of consistent scoring is a recruiting problem that won't be fixed with the current roster.
Lol you can’t be this dumb. I refuse to believe it. Did we play better in the first or second half? It’s a simple question.
That's the weird thing.. at times the offense has looked good. They KNOW how to run a good offense.. but most times they just seem to be taking rests on offense and look for whose turn it is to go one on one. So weird and frustrating.. but given the effort they put in on D.. and the minutes played by a few key guys.. it is understandable. Strange thing is.. swinging the ball well will tire out the opponent's defense making it easier to defend them.
Simpson could help with a solution.. if he learns to take the shot once he beats his guy and not go all the way in and get blocked. He could come in fresh and use his speed and provide a lot of movement in the D.. if he switches sides often, etc... and prove he can score and is a real threat.
My current biggest pet peeve is seeing our guy with ball attempt to penetrate.. seeing the D collapse on him and NOT having a player rotate along the arc behind him to teh spot he left open. EVERY team we face does that.. every team in basketball does that. But we seem to have guys SPECTATING when someone drives. Maybe that's because our guys who drive typically DO NOT PASS THE BALL.
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We didn’t play better in the second half only Paul did and Caleb gave us something instead of 0. Michigan State played like crap in the first and second half. You are the biggest dumbass on here and you have recently joined with your terrible takes just like your dumbass moniker. Learn the game as you need a remedial course.
Trying to minimize Mag’s absence without looking at all the intangibles he brought that don’t show up on a stat sheet all the time is the shallow thought process you have shown in your posts. Who Mag guards ? Head of the press? Offensive rebounding ? Helping Cliff? Defensive rebounding ? Getting a bucket down low besides Cliff? Mag at the top of the 1/3/1 half court trap? You are too clueless to continue here so just go back to where you came before showing up 4 weeks ago. Clown.
This is glaring. You should almost be able to make that pass without looking this should be so automatic.
We just don't have guys with the mindset to do those kinds of things.
If you can’t admit we played much better in the second half then you’re just a mental midget who can’t handle reality. Sorry dude.
I don’t usually have floor seats close to the action
I was able to see how hard Mag was working out there, and the difference he makes in a game
This injury definitely hurts how far we can go
I laid it out for you and you still miss it. Calling me a mental midget hopefully makes you feel better but it doesn’t affect me coming from someone that knows crap . You think we were so great in that second half or MSU just continued to suck as they did in the first half ? Before Paul took Hall to the hole 3 straight times the score was 47-44. Did you think really game was over and we were going to win ? As I mentioned Paul is the one that played better and went from scoring 0 to 17 points in that second half and if doesn’t convert those 3 straight drives the game is coming down to a last possession game. If you cannot see that then maybe a trip to the eye doctor is in order for you followed by a trip to a brain disorder specialist.
So just disappear we will all be better off.
lol @ “we didn’t play better in the 2nd half”…that’s ABSURD com’on!
Paul and Caleb played the worst half of the year in the first half and scored 0 points compared to MSU’s guards Walker and Hoggard who had 9 and 6 or 15. Yes , as I have mentioned 2 times Paul took over and played better and scored 17 and Caleb helped scoring 9 and they ended up out scoring MSU’s guards 26 -21 as they only scored 6. That is why we won along with MSU just being terrible in the second half as they were in the first half. If you watched any of Izzy’s post game presser and the player interviews they were all thinking they could have won that game if they even played decently . So yes Paul played tremendous in the second half and MSU sucked and still it is a 3 point game until Paul takes Hall to the hole 3 straight times.
Who the he’ll do you think caused MSU’a shirty 2nd half play? US!!
Again…awful take IMHO….very “defeatist” type of attitude and just makes very little sense to me but we’re all welcome to our opinions of course.
The idea that we didn’t play better in the 2nd half against MSU is downright nutty.
Defeatist attitude ? Are you kidding me ? If you cannot acknowledge that Hall went 1-12 and Hauser disappeared , unlike in any other game , and missed a bunch of open shots , then we saw 2 different games. Yes our defense had something to do with it but they were terrible for like 10-11 minutes in the second half until Walker finally hit a jumper. By the way MSU played ****** the whole game as you might remember it was horrendously low scoring until we gifted them 2 late baskets to let them get to 25 at the half.
So you don't credit OUR DEFENSE for their inept offense in the 2nd half? It's all on THEM? Hey, you want to look at it that way, fine, we're all welcome to our opinions. All good.
2 things can be true . Our defense which was pretty good all game was also good in the second half . But also they missed a lot of makeable shots , Hall 1-12 , Hauser missed 1-2 threes and Hoggard missed a wide open three at the top of the key that he made during our loss at MSU .
When Caleb and the rest of our guys were wide open and were missing all those shots in the second half against Indiana when we were about to take the lead and win that game , was it because Indianda’s defense was so good or we just missed open shot after open shot. Both can be true but I am leaning toward we blew it missing all those open shots.
You keep saying the same thing the rest of us aren't changing our minds lol! Again, all good, but (I think) most would just disagree with you. Vehemently. We, as a TEAM, stepped up in that 2nd half. Pretty simple IMHO.
Since when does "WE" mean everyone except those who did play better in the second half?
Dude.. you are just wrong on this. You cannot discount what "we" did by saying only 2 of 5 played that much better. It is a TEAM sport. "WE" played poorly in the 1st half because Paul and Caleb played poorly.. but they played better in the 2nd half and that cannot be included in "WE" there?
Come on now.. that dog don't hunt.
Yes.. GLARING. I'd call a TO the first time it happened it so glaring. Because history shows up that once it happens.. it will happen a few more times.. meaning a few more fruitless possessions will take place. Coaches like to save timeouts.. but I think fixing problems early is just as valuable.