I seriously hope so. And its not just the scoring and shooting but the scrapping and rebounding he does so well. Just being able to free-lance more and be Mr. Hustle. He can fill some of the hole there that Caleb provided.
Paul declares for the draft (Maintaining Eligibility)
- Thread starter jordkap
- Start date
Are you using the ">" symbol to mean "greater than"?
Or "roster spot turned into"?
Agree. Only highlighted the shooting and scoring since it took a back seat while his primary responsibility was ball handling/ playmaking and while playing injured.
Can't score, can't shoot, can't play defense and is slow, no chance he is drafted.
Really! Both sides of the court? Slow, poor defender. Very inconsistent on O with a poor shot. Time to move on Paul.
Foolish incorrect statement. But I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
That's a little harsh but people are forgetting how bad our offense was last year.
If you bring back 4/5 of the starters and 6 of the top 7 how do you expect it to be that much better?
I don’t know about that and don’t care to comment either way but I know what did mesh well and that was our Defense as a unit. Mag, Caleb and Cliff are all studs on D and Cam and Paul were very smart defenders who played their roles well and both rebounded well too. Hyatt came off the bench mainly to shoot but blocked shots and rebounded well on D. It was beautiful to watch even when our Offense did not always click. The ball goes in and the ball doesn’t go in. Defenses took things away from us, etc. But one constant was our D. Only teams who shot lights out had good games against us and that can be said even after Mag got injured but we were just good without Mag. The OG core groups with Hyatt coming off the bench was a great Defensive unit.
Paul is never going to be a shooting scoring role. It's just not in his DNA
100%. He is a pass first guy. That’s why he lead the Big Ten in assists in 2021-22 and was 5th in 2022-23.
Ummm okay! No chance of that, so I guess he’s coming back. Hopefully, Pike learned from his mistake this year amd moves him to the wing .
I hope Paul comes back. This would be good news for us heading into next year.
Scarlet Jerry
Scarlet Jerry
We got destroyed by Iowa twice. Scored under 50 to Michigan and seton hall. You need to have a balance of both.
I said going into the year that our biggest loss is going to be late shot clock. We were constantly bailed out by geo and Ron in this department.
This year there were times we would dump it in the post to cliff with 6 seconds on the shot clock. PM needs a ball dominate guard to differ too. That is the point.
Year 5 has got to feel different. Less appealing. I felt old as a senior. Many of my friends moved on the year before. Also, the feeling like you should be starting your life.
Exactly. It's a whole different perspective when you're actually in that moment compared to when you're years past it and looking back.
He’s motivated to play in the NBA. Besides his proven passing skills, he’s going to need to become more of a shooter/scorer to give himself a shot at the NBA. He played more on the wing beginning with the 2nd half of the PSU game through season-end when Simpson was also in the game.
Time will tell concerning his role this season, assuming he returns, and I suppose this will be influenced by who is brought in from the portal.
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wouldn't be surprised if Paul does involve that in his decision on whether he returns or not.
I feel he's using the evaluation he gets from decaring as a tool to see how he fits in pro leagues outside of the NBA or their G-League.
He plays way too many minutes to score as little as he does.
Especially playing with Caleb Hyatt Simpson. Might be a different story with Griffiths and Ndongo and Cam
Lets face it. That shoulder was bothering him all year and was the reason he struggled often. A healthy Paul will be a great asset to next year's team.
I don’t know why many RU fans continue to ignore this fact.
Regardless of what was going on Paul played very poorly over a protracted period of time.Pike refused to turn the reigns over to Derek until it was too late.Not gonna happen next year.We remember the good times with Paul,but those flashes were few & far between this year. Hey if Paul is willing to have a limited role ok.Primary ball handler absolutely not IMO.
Did you watch Derek early in the season? He was a deer in headlights. He couldn’t handle the pressure and turned the ball over way too much. That’s to be expected as a true freshman. He figured it out the last few games. That’s not anyone’s fault, just a natural progression.
On the other hand Pike has a senior PG that lead the big ten in assists the previous season. Of course he rode Paul. The problem was Paul was injured multiple times. Every time he started getting healthy (take Michigan St at MSG), he would re-injury one of his shoulders (as he did late in that game). Blaming Pike is just ridiculous.
Agreed was a problem. Pass first meaning he passes
He lead the league with less then 6 assists with 2 volume nba talented guards. He also had an athletic big who lead the nations in dunks. Not impressive .
Paul not a great shooter, can’t get by anyone , terrible inbounding the ball, misses way too many bunny layups.
Everyone could see DS was the more dynamic player. Those last 8 games he starts on the ball were in the tournament . Pike wanted Paul to succeed and waited too long and cost us the tournament. If you say it’s injuries then it’s even more Pikes fault playing a player who’s hurt .
People are retroactively trying to say Simpson would have played like he did the last couple games all season. The reality is, after Indiana, Simpson was not that good the entire season. True freshman so it's fine. He finally played a lot better the last few games, but that doesn't mean he could have done that all season.
Rewatch the PSU game DS won that game by himself and it was the first time he was used volume minutes on the ball. Agreed early he was not ready but clearly that was not the case. After the PSU game perfect opportunity for Pike to give him another shot against Minnesota. Pike went back to Paul and buried DS in the corner and only gave him 11/12 min??
Not all season but those last 8 games yes. We would have been dancing
He wasn’t that much better the last few games he just got up a ton of shots
He was a lot better in the B1G tournament - not just because he got up shots, but because he was putting pressure on the defenses with dribble penetration, which was a wrinkle our offense hadn't had throughout most of the year. Spencer would occasionally pick some moments to drive, but Mulcahy was more deliberate in backing down defenders. Simpson's game has much more slasher to it, and it opened things up for us offensively.
He was also 4th in the league in assists/game this year (and 3rd in assist/turnover ratio), without Baker and Harper. While also being 4th in the league in steals/game.
All after missing games with a shoulder injury early in the year.
Don't know why people love crapping on Mulcahy.
I still don't get the "turn the reins over" sentiment. Simpson should have gotten more minutes - but not at significant expense to Mulcahy's minutes. In the final games where he finally saw starter-level minutes, he saw them come from Hyatt's bucket - not Mulcahy's.
I'd have liked to have seen Simpson on the floor more after Mag went down - taking 1-2 minutes each from Spencer/Mulcahy/McConnell and the rest from Hyatt. He offered a skillset that we didn't get from other players - but you don't just swap Mulcahy/Simpson's minutes.
I think Mulcahy's natural position is more of a point-forward at the 3. Putting Simpson at the 1 spot allows him to put dribble penetration pressure and draw the quicker defenders away from Mulcahy, allowing him to operate and drive the offense against wings instead.