Need Paul

[RU72]

Not winning without Paul playing more in control and taking over.Zero points from him along with minimal defense and the Iowa zone spelled first half woes.Need to make lay ups. Let's go!

 

[RUBlackout]

Yep! I said if Paul can score 10-15pg we win

 

[MrsScrew_rivals32693]

He's got 2 so far ....

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

“Don't worry we are in the NCAA tournament”

 

[RUJMM78]

My concern is two straight games where Cliff was outplayed by the opposing center.In addition the lack of consistent scoring from Mulcahy and McConnell makes the offense have too many scoring droughts.Rutgers had too many missed shots around the basket and the 21 point disparity from the 3 point line was too much to overcome.Iowa remains a bad matchup for Rutgers because their NBA style offense ovrewhelmed Rutgers defense.

 

[G- RUnit]

Paul never went to the top of the key. Like SHU he just gravitated to the baseline. Odd.

 

[RU-ROCS]

Iowa did a great job neutralizing Paul’s dribble post up game by playing zone most of the game. When that happens others need to step up. Pike should have put Paul at the top of the key/foul line to break down the zone with passing, but he never did that. He put Mag there, who is nowhere near as good of a passer as Paul.

 

[ScarletDave]

Matchups. Iowa finds a way over us like we do over Purdue and Indiana. It’s the same thing every year. Have to win against the teams we match up with - PSU, NW, OSU - always close games and those are I think the next 3 we have

 

[carmenst]

Something was off with Paul. I think he hurt his shoulder in the Maryland game. He never really tried to post his defender today and back his way into a short turnaround shot. Maybe it was also fatigue.

 

[ScooterSports]

Something was off with Paul. I think he hurt his shoulder in the Maryland game. He never really tried to post his defender today and back his way into a short turnaround shot. Maybe it was also fatigue.

he definitely did grab his shoulder on a play ball vs Maryland. He seemed fine after it though.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Iowa did a great job neutralizing Paul’s dribble post up game by playing zone most of the game. When that happens others need to step up. Pike should have put Paul at the top of the key/foul line to break down the zone with passing, but he never did that. He put Mag there, who is nowhere near as good of a passer as Paul.

I’ll trust Pike, but I was thinking the same thing

 

[RU MAN]

Not winning without Paul playing more in control and taking over.Zero points from him along with minimal defense and the Iowa zone spelled first half woes.Need to make lay ups. Let's go!

And in that zone, Paul should have been in the middle and not Mag. Paul is superb at distributing the ball and knocking down the 15 foot jump shot. When Pike watches film, he should recognize that.

 

[ImBadRU]

Mag at the foul line against zone....not good

 

[RU_DIO]

And in that zone, Paul should have been in the middle and not Mag. Paul is superb at distributing the ball and knocking down the 15 foot jump shot. When Pike watches film, he should recognize that.

I was confused why Paul wasn't in the middle. Isn't he the perfect player to get the ball there?

 

[BigEastPhil]

Paul was -21 today.

He was also very pissed after the game yelling at himself.

He played 31 minutes and was practically invisible offensively today - only generating 1 assist.

I expect Paul to have a terrific game vs NW later this week.

He'll redeem himself !

 

[anon_xekqhstck0ygt]

just a bad game...move on. plus their kid shot the ball out of his mind. those 2 things combined is a loss.

 

[MCKnight]

Puzzling that Paul wasn’t in middle at foul line vs zone as Paul was mostly there last year against zone

our teams always seem to struggle vs zone d. We don’t have enough shooters to expose zone. Surprised more teams don’t zone it up against us. Sure the cupcake teams do, but RU then just goes over the top with the lobs to Cliff because Those teams don’t have the size and length to defend

 

[RUBlackout]

Agree 100% with Paul being in the middle..you need a dangerous mid range shooter but also your beat passer there. It would creat some more space for cliff there as typically have an over the top pass—Mag has shown that is a difficult pass for him(look at the out of bounds play too)
mag should be cutting to the basket in the other block that cliff isn’t occupying.
Would open us up more in that zone

 

[SBP]

Mag in the middle was truly head scratching. Well, they gotta figure out zone offense and fast

 

[Saint Puppy]

Iowa did a great job neutralizing Paul’s dribble post up game by playing zone most of the game. When that happens others need to step up. Pike should have put Paul at the top of the key/foul line to break down the zone with passing, but he never did that. He put Mag there, who is nowhere near as good of a passer as Paul.

This! Paul was backing down guards at will against Purdue and MD - any coach worth anything knows that you simply can't let that happen. Iowa did not let that happen and Paul was neutralized. Paul also had a bad game on top of that - but if we are to get to the next level we need to overcome a sub-par game by Paul.

 

[jrm75]

I agree - Mulcahy in the middle, Mulcahy in the middle. How many times do we have to repeat it?

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Mag in the middle was truly head scratching. Well, they gotta figure out zone offense and fast

It didn’t really matter where we put him.

Iowa’s game plan was not to focus on defending Mag outside of the paint. They dared him to take as many uncontested outside shots as he wanted . That allowed them to often have 2 guys locked on Paul along the perimeter to prevent him from being able to run the offense. It worked very well. Also forced Caleb to expand a lot of energy being the one to create either through dribble penetration or stepping into Paul’s distribution role because otherwise we couldn’t score. It impacted his intensity on defense.

In the second half, while Mag was on the bench, Iowa continued to focus on Paul and denying passes into the paint. They dared Caleb and Hyatt to shoot jump shots and those two burned them several times. The problem was without Mag on the floor the defense couldn’t get enough stops to complete the comeback.

In my opinion, regardless of the style defense, Pike’s going to have to figure out a way to use Mag to set screens to create for others and then crash the offensive glass. He doesnt have a good enough handle to beat defenders in dribble penetration and he isn’t reliable in hitting wide open shots from either mid or long range.