What a wasted opportunity for this program. Pike's seat would be hot if we had an AD.
We will never get another blue chip recruit
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Ace and Dylan have to be feeling regret over their decisions. Having Mr Rodger’s as a coach isn’t very motivating
Horrendous performance after having all week to prepare.The B1G Ten coaches know Rutgers man defense stinks and the offense is limited by double teaming Harper.
We are a developmental program. Unfortunately Pikiellball takes the kind of development time we simply don't have. No way you turn down lottery pick players, but Pike's way seems to be best with players who'll be around more than one year.
How does he get this train wreck fixed in time to make the tournament? As somebody else here said, it's getting late early.
How does he get this train wreck fixed in time to make the tournament? As somebody else here said, it's getting late early.
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Pike has done a lot of good things here. He is not the right person for the current state of college basketball.
Unfortunately Pikiellball probably will never work again in the NIL era in a major conference
At a St. Joes or Temple or mid-major yes
I don’t think people really understand just how bad Pike blew this. This is pathetic.
Glad to see the forever forward looking absolute threads are back…. Good call on the “never”
Not feeling bad for Ace and Dylan as they are making crazy money for 18 year olds and will make millions in the NBA.
Sure they were thinking together they could go deep in the NCAA tourney, but they had to know without a supporting cast that was not going to be easy. The irony of it all is that the NIL money that went to Harper and Baily didn't even come from Rutgers. It's mind boggling that with all the hype that Harper and Bailey brought RU couldn't attract half decent complimentary players.
Has nothing to do with attracting players and everything to do with the man choosing those players. I’m sure we had a bunch of guys who’d love to play with them. Put it on Pike
lol I mean it’s still crazy early, but not looking great so far.
But this is pike, and has been for years. He takes FOREVER to get his rotation set in stone. He drops games early in the season and scraps his way back into contention.
That’s why he’s a bubble coach.
Rotations aside, are you convinced we have the complimentary pieces outside of Ace / Dylan to actually turn into a tourney team?
I’m not saying we’re definitively NOT a tourney team — but so far it seems like this team has underlying talent / athleticism issues that won’t be solved by rotational changes
Even if we clean things up and play well I don’t think people are truly understanding just how bad he blew it. To not surround them with B1G players, to not have a rim protector, to not have a cohesive offense. It’s terrible. It shouldn’t be difficult to go into the portal and find a few guys who can actually play at this level.
Exactly! I've said it before we are a long way from Pike's wheelhouse - he is a system coach. I'm also not sure 2 Blue Chip recruits are part of him either. He is a defensive minded, grind it out coach. This team is so far from that it might as well be on another planet. Pike was a good coach for when we hired him.....for this landscape-I'm not so sure.
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Agree, it's criminal that pike couldn't put a real roster together....Martini, Ja Davis ect are not P5 players....Harper and Ace have to score 25 each to have a chance
I’m confused by the premise of this thread, were blue chip players lining up to come here before this and I just wasn’t aware of it?
if we had success with dylan and ace, the odds go up that more blue chip recruits would come in the future. but we are squandering the opportunity.
Amazing that after all these years he still can’t seem to run a productive half court offense. I didn’t see a lot of the game but when I was watching in the second half the turnovers and lousy shot selection was an indictment of whatever we were trying to do.
We don’t need a class of blue chip freshman. That experiment is becoming a failure. Pike needs to learn to hit the portal and mix in freshmen here and there.
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That’s one guy we couldn’t get. There were over a thousand players in the portal. Year 8 or 9 as a coach this shouldn’t be difficult
And if you have enough NIL $$$
My belief is the same as it’s always been with Pike.
I think it’s much less on the players than people think. Personally, I don’t believe he does a great job putting players in a position to make offensive plays.
With that said, I do think he could have done better in the portal, but I have issue with two things:
1. He grabbed a bunch of guys who are not very athletic, and paired them with a couple of NBA studs who very clearly need to play in space on the run.
2. He seemingly wants to play a half court game (IMO because he’s a defense guy), but doesn’t run offensive sets to support that.
Say what you want about Hayes, but the kid has a fast release and is pretty damn smooth. I understand he’s not a big athletic kid (who is on this roster?), but why aren’t we running action between Harper, Hayes, and Ace? Allow Harper and Ace to be the threat with Hayes being the pop option that gets open?
I’m not a supreme Xs and Os guy, but every single shot in the half court is contested. It’s been that way for years. Ace went on that run to start the 2nd half and every take was insanely difficult, he’s just crazy talented and sinks them.
I’ve always beaten the drum of not caring if a shot goes in or not. I just want quality looks.
With all of that said, as much as the above has been a consistent issue for Pike, a consistent plus for him has been whenever you felt the team was done, they always go on a tear.
9 games in, I’ll hold off on judgement.
OMG. I wish there was a simple “dislike” button so having to respond in narrative to all this clown nonsense wasn’t necessary.
We will never win another game
We will never get another good recruit
We should all kill ourselves
THE UNIVERSITY WE WENT TO LOST THREE BASKETBALL GAMES IN A ROW
Very well thought out post. I dont like all the exclusive blaming of just "not big ten players" already. These kids aren't complete walk-on level duds. Some of it has to come down to coaching and team building as far as what pieces you need. The NIL excuse is the new "the uncle got bags of money" excuse.
I refuse to finger point at the players when two Southern Illinois transfers ran the Big Ten last year.
And yet anyone with a brain saw it coming, but some believed the kool-aid about the incoming transfers and that the front line was fine. Take two absolute studs who have no idea about college defense and surround them with misfit A10-level players is a recipe for disaster.
Even with all that, Harper is so good and Ace has so much potential that I still think they can be at least near the bubble in March.
The Penn State game is pretty big. I think we pull it out but if we get throttled, the wheels may start coming off.
Recruiting is necessary to meet roster needs,Coaching is necessary to put players in position to succeed.Rutgers half court offense doesn't achieve that objective because it isn't based on player and ball movement to get open shots.The shots Rutgers is taking are mostly highly contested.Hayes is the best 3 point shooter and rarely plays supposedly because of poor defense which isn't limited to just him.
Yes there is some choosing by the staff.....but let's not kid ourselves - this is a money game 1st, 2nd and 3rd and the players are in the driver's seat. More specifically this is an auction where all things being close to equal said player will be going to the highest bidder. We essentially bought a mansion (Dylan and Ace) and looking like we furnished the whole mansion with stuff we got 2nd hand off of craigslist.
No way he could have passed up Ace and Dylan - but I'm sure Pike is getting a crash course in Pros and Cons of this decision. 2 FRESHMAN studs as the cornerstone of your team (no matter how good they are) = PLAYING WITH FIRE!!!
This isn’t an NIL issue if that’s what you’re inferring. NIL comes in play when you’re going for Cliff or Vlad Goldin. That I get. Obviously we can’t afford those guys. But we can certainly do much much better than what we have. You can’t tell me we didn’t have resources to find some B1G level players. Coach also made a miscalculation thinking he could do better than Wolf. Hindsight is 20/20 so I’m not gonna kill him for that, but it’s clear coach needs to do a better job in the portal
Obviously I don’t know, but I doubt he told Wolf to leave. He was just up front with him about what he could expect playing time wise and Wolf thought he would be better off elsewhere. Ditto Simpson who I’m sure Pike would be happy to have on this team as a backup
I definitely think this is a NIL issue. Not sure of our budget, but I'm guessing a large percentage of that went to Ace and Dylan. Then it becomes value players - who do we think is an underrated/bargain commodity who will blossom here? All of our portal players absolutely represent that. We didn't get anybody transferring from another P4 school - these are all step ups.....and none of them look like they are going to come anywhere close to being who we hoped they would become.
Ummmmm to get BIG TEN caliber players you need money for NIL. Again why is this conveniently not discussed or talked about? It’s well known that Pike had zero money for transfers. NIL money comes from the alums and fans. Our roster is lacking the BIG caliber player but it’s not all on Pike.
Ace and Dylan are not Rutgers related NIL. I can’t believe that every one does not k ow that. We got no one worth a damn from the portal because of the lack of NIL. Why does this swept under the rug when discussing the basketball team?