I’ll put this another way. I think that the importance of adjusting to the loss of Geo’s ball handling is high on the list of question marks going into the season. We took for granted how steady a ball handler Geo was. It was noticable when he checked out of the games and I think compensating for it may end up impacting line up combinations. Ron was a pretty good ball handler for a 3-4 too. Mag, Hyatt and Dean are not. Therefore, I think playing any two of them together with Cliff at the same time could make us very turnover prone against teams that apply back court ball pressure.
Sleeping on Reiber?
- Thread starter SBP
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I’ll put this another way. I think that the importance of adjusting to the loss of Geo’s ball handling is high on the list of question marks going into the season. We took for granted how steady a ball handler Geo was. It was noticable when he checked out of the games and I think compensating for it may end up impacting line up combinations. Ron was a pretty good ball handler for a 3-4 too. Mag, Hyatt and Dean are not. Therefore, I think playing any two of them together with Cliff at the same time could make us very turnover prone against teams that apply back court ball pressure.
The program is where it is at now because of defense. We start playing people that force us to play zone they better be real good offensively
If Dean can attack and dunk against Cliff, he should be able to do against most teams. Cliff mentioned this. Also playing at the 4, Dean will have a height advantage against most defenders. Pike has also praised Dean’s ability to hit the 3. When Cliff goes out, Dean will stay on the floor with Woolfork or Chol. Hyatt and Mag will share minutes subbing for Dean and Caleb. If Dean plays 22 and Caleb 27 that will leave 31 minutes for Mag and Hyatt. IMO Dean will be a better contributor than either of them. But Pike has the flexibility to adjust the lineup and minutes based on the competitor.
Nobody really applies back court pressure. If it's a late game situation where a team needs to press us then we might need to have an extra guard in
I’m not talking about full court pressure. Press break can sometimes be easier to navigate using designed plays with fewer ball handlers when you have length like we do.
Even with Geo, the style we struggled with the most was the perimeter trap (whether 2-3 zone or man D with one defender taking a gamble leaving his man to trap. NW game comes to mind. The objective of that style is to create turnovers but also to distrupt ball rotation - the latter was successful against us unless Paul/ Geo / Caleb all were in the game or Pike played Miller. Miller didn’t get enough credit in my opinion for assisting with this role - instead our fans complained about Jones not subbing in. We needed multiple guys who were comfortable handling the ball to come help. The way you burn that type of defense is by not being phased by the pressure and then one eventually one of your handlers breaks the double team and either dishes to the guy left open or has a lane to the basket.
All the other things being discussed on here about Cliff’s potential are meaningless if we can’t get him the ball in the post in the first place. We lose Geo as a ball handler - add Cam and Simpson to the mix. So we have 5 potential ball handlers on the team instead of 4 (Paul, Caleb, Miller) but Ron was better help at forward than what we have this year and Geo is a much better handler than our best this year.
Teams certainly force opponents out of their comfort zone by picking up tight on man once they cross half court (Jalen Miller). This can be a huge disrupter.
Geo really wasn’t fazed (at least it didn’t appear that way) by this.
We'll see if that's a big issue, but I'm not too concerned but it is a bit of a question. Paul Cam and Caleb can all handle the ball and use their size to shield their defender
None have the speed to really burn their man if they are picking them up early and make them pay though. Miller and Simpson can bring that if we need it. This team has so many options with different skill sets so Pike will need to adjust if it becomes an issue. We also have a lot of height to pass over the top of traps.
Overall, I expect passing to be improved this season
None have the speed to really burn their man if they are picking them up early and make them pay though. Miller and Simpson can bring that if we need it. This team has so many options with different skill sets so Pike will need to adjust if it becomes an issue. We also have a lot of height to pass over the top of traps.
Overall, I expect passing to be improved this season
Yes - this too. Paul in particular is impacted by what your describing. He’s otherwise a very good (if not elite) ball distributor absent that type of pressure. Caleb can break pressure better than Paul but isn’t as good at distributing the ball as a PG and isn’t explosive in driving to the rack.
The issue is when the primary handler gets stuck you don’t want it to be that they are forced to dish off to someone coming to them for help far from the basket who isn’t a good handler (Mag, Hyatt, Cliff).
Paul does need to improve in this area. He needs to be more aggressive and attack and make them pay. He also can likely pick up some cheap fouls this way
Cam and Caleb should be those people. You can't have all 5 guys on the court coming to the ball anyway
When you have a confident, veteran handler like Geo - two is usually enough. When you don’t, having 3 of 5 guys on the floor be able to help with ball handling becomes more important for ball rotation. It’s a subtle thing - but could be a factor this year because Paul / Cam and Caleb probably won’t all 3 play together more than 20 or so minutes. Depending on where Simpson is in game readiness, this is where I think we may end up seeing more Miller minutes than fans are predicting. He was referenced by some as a D3 level offensive player last season - he did not get enough credit for the ball handling element of his game as a frosh (in my opinion). I think he’s going to help more than most are predicting this year.
Pike likes to run a lot of players. This past year the rotation was shorter. But previous years it was like hockey lines rotating in. And Pike also likes to play around with a lot of combos in the OOC games. So: 1. Nothing is set in stone and Pike uses the early games as data before making the decisions in the big games, and 2. Depending on 1, there is a good chances the starters aren't eating up 30+ minutes a game.
I want to see a lot less of Paul turning his back 40 feet from the basket.
It is. Ball handling is something that can improve year over year so we’ll have to see his development. I’m not concerned that the team will be a turnover machine. Pike hates turnovers almost as much as he hates bad defense and won’t let that happen. If it becomes a problem - He will put Miller at the point and slide Paul and Caleb over to 3-4. Our usual forum coaches will complain about lack of offensive firepower, but it doesn’t help to have better offensive players in the game if you can’t get them the ball in position to score because your turning the ball over.
Sure in hindsight this post is a bit embarrassing but most of us thought Reibers would develop a bit more (rather than regress pretty badly) and very few (if any) foresaw how important mag would become.
Just saying
Not really
It's not the bad takes (everyone makes them - some more than others).
It's the "You're dumb. Worst poster. You don't understand the first thing about basketball and should just stop watching" responses to someone disagreeing.
In the other "Dean should start" thread, I pushed back on the "Dean is an elite 3pt threat" by suggesting 7 for 12 was a small sample size and needed to see more.
You would have thought I killed someone's mother.
Fun fact: His 7 for 12 (58%) turned into 5 for 21 (28%) this year from 3.
It's the "You're dumb. Worst poster. You don't understand the first thing about basketball and should just stop watching" responses to someone disagreeing.
In the other "Dean should start" thread, I pushed back on the "Dean is an elite 3pt threat" by suggesting 7 for 12 was a small sample size and needed to see more.
You would have thought I killed someone's mother.
Fun fact: His 7 for 12 (58%) turned into 5 for 21 (28%) this year from 3.
Well it’s not like we had a ton of depth where you could say he just got beat out. The Mag improvement is irrelevant as he didn’t even play much once we lost Mag for the season. Clearly this projection was off by a wide mile. To look back and rationalize it seems silly.
In hindsight???
He's likely not even part of this roster next season so that's a huge crash and burn for a thread like this.
There were a number of us that clearly explained why Dean was not a 4 in this thread. While I was disappointed with his lack of development, that would not have changed anything in terms of what position he was best suited to play unless he suddenly developed quick feet.
I got it.
Fwiw I wasn’t meaning to comment on the “Reiber is a 4 vs a 5” debate (even though i see now that scang was quoting a post talking about Reiber at the 4).
I was thinking more generally - who would contribute more this year - Reiber or mag
This time last year (because of some flashes that Reiber showed the previous year AND since Mag hadn’t really showed much because of his injuries) it wasn’t totally unreasonable to think, this time last year, that Reiber could contribute more than Mag.
That was the sum of my thinking. Again…fwiw
Yes it was. Mag as always been extremely versatile lending itself to being able to plug multiple positions on both sides of the ball. Dean never was. Nothing about what happened this season changes any of that which was always the reasoning provided to you and others who expected Dean to play at the same time as Cliff. It was never really feasible. Paul often guarded 4s on the switch with Mag. We needed that. It was never an option for Dean to defend a perimeter player.
If Dean had a big butt he could keep from getting bullied down low. Twenty five years from now (and twenty pounds later) at the ‘Y’ Dean will be a force near the basket…and still knock down threes.
This is the problem Dean has. He is not quick enough to play the four and not strong enough to defend in the post. He also at times shows a lack of good basketball instinct. This hurts his defense a lot. I’m sure all of us are rooting for him but time is growing short. Not sure that he makes sense for us at this point.
I think it is up to Dean. The 2023-24 season begins now for him in the weight room.
For him to help he doesn't have to give 10-15 minutes every game and have an impact. The margin is so small between a 5 seed in the NCAA and a 1 seed in the NIT. If he makes a huge impact in 2 games where matchups allowed him to not be a defensive liability he makes a difference.
Think back to 2012-22 Rutgers Mag had one big game against Purdue. Do we make the NCAA tournament last year if Mag doesn't play in that game? NO. Mag didn't really do all that much beside that game though.
I bumped this bc the OP of this thread said no one was wrong about their takes on Dean...
Saying he was the starting 4 and in no world is Mag a better basketball player is about as wrong as it gets
Everyone has bad takes but if you're gonna make a thread with this bold take and then pretend no one was wrong.... had to call him out haha
Ok he never looked like a stud! He dud have good moments (few) and played well in a backup role fighting hard for being small.
I disagree about him on the press, didn’t see what you saw but I could be wrong. My question: if he was that great on the press as you saw then why did Pike not use him at All in that role over the last 20 or so games? Is he not good as you stated, or was Pikes coaching bad not using him??
Mag got hurt, Hyatt was benched, and Dean still didn't get run at the 4