Look, I’m hardly optimistic about the season but I don’t take the lack of content as an indication of anything. Anyone can be hyped up in video footage. If Pike wanted to, he could be doing that. He’s choosing to maintain a low profile likely because there’s nothing to be gained by any other approach. Think about it - if he was raving about the team everyone would more than ever be mocking him bringing up his “best team ever” comments that preceded the loss to Lafayette. There’s nothing he could say right now that would bring more butts I to the seats, so he may as well just keep quiet for now and let the chips fall. For better or worse this is the right approach in my opinion.
Summer Practice - First look
- Thread starter RU-Choppin-Ohio
- Start date
Look, I’m hardly optimistic about the season but I don’t take the lack of content as an indication of anything. Anyone can be hyped up in video footage. If Pike wanted to, he could be doing that. He’s choosing to maintain a low profile likely because there’s nothing to be gained by any other approach. Think about it - if he was raving about the team everyone would more than ever be mocking him bringing up his “best team ever” comments that preceded the loss to Lafayette. There’s nothing he could say right now that would bring more butts I to the seats, so he may as well just keep quiet for now and let the chips fall. For better or worse this is the right approach in my opinion.
There is literally nothing to comment on but you still find a way to comment on it.
Sorry that I don't swallow the Kool Aid like you do.
I am also not optimistic, but last year Pike had a number of NBA scouts and national analysts come to early practices and they basically trashed everyone other than Ace and Dylan. While they were right, I am sure Pike didn’t appreciate it and doesn’t want it to happen again.
Carino once had weekly articles with coach and player quotes…. Pretty quiet this summer
I do like they give little looks into practice in these, but highly curated. It is smart to get fans to feel a personal connection.
It was a different situation entirely. Having two future draft picks put us under a microscope. In any other year the pre-season narrative from Pike has always been whatever he chooses it to be and, honestly, the picture presented more often than not isn’t predictive, in any way (good or bad) of season results. In past years Pike chose to be more vocal about guys like Chol and Agee. If you went back and looked at what was said, and the value those guys ended up bringing, you will see that what was said didn’t matter. A strategic decision not to say much of anything right now means nothing.
Also Pike is on the hot seat. I'm not surprised he's in batten down the hatches no distractions mode.
But will that hot seat be hot enough to buy out his contract because RU is tired of the lack of NCAA Tourney appearances under him( 3 in 9 years , last one 4 years ago ) and the 2025-26 season doesn't bring an invite
- 2026-27: $3.85 million base salary
- 2027-28: $3.95 million base salary + $300,000 retention bonus (paid July 1, 2027)
- 2028-29: $4.05 million base salary
- 2029-30: $4.15 million base salary + $300,000 retention bonus (paid July 1, 2029)
- 2030-31: $4.25 million base salary
Very good point. Is that all guaranteed money? That is certainly Zinn's first big conundrum. Hopefully Pike gets on track and it's not an issue.
Yes, and why people saying "Fire Pike!" are wasting their time (at least in the near term).
Someone, I think Lion, made the (very good) point that if we theoretically have someone step-up to pay the $20M, why not just put that to NIL instead at $4M a year.
Tht's a good idea, except if you get a good coach that can recruit well he/she might just get the boosters willing to invest in the programs success by making RU's NIL comparable to the programs we point out Rutgers needs to be like.
Pike seems to fall short in getting RU MBB to have a strong NIL opportunity for its playrs and he seems to be able to coach less talented players up , but when good players are on roster has a hard time making them part of a winning environment that great things happen.
The best he seems to do is make Rutgers an occasional Dance team and that shouldn't be considered something that earns lifetime employment.
I think Pike is a winner at a lower level, but not ready for prime-time in the B1G
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Meaning if Rutgers terminated his contract after the 2025-26 season, they would owe him $20,250,000.
Only thing that would make it less is by any salary he earns from future employment if he's paid off in installments rather than lump sum.
Pikiell could decide to take a lower lump sum to recive a full one payment buyout rather receiving his full contractual salary ( less the money he's earning coaching someplace else) every year until his contract expires
But even him taking less won't mean a small payout, between $10 and $15 million probably would be the best Rutgers could hope for.
Here is the problem with your first sentence: No "good" coach is going to move to ANY P5 hoops program without an UP-FRONT assurance of a significant NIL pot, and/or a more significant pot from the Revenue Sharing pot- i.e. away form football (which ain't happening).
I believe the WVU coach hired by Indiana made it a contractual condition to be provided with at least $6 million in NIL separate from revenue sharing. Even Pitino at St. Johns, who one would presume could fund-raise with the best of them, given his track record and long-time connections to raising booster money (even when it was not legal), would not go to St. Johns without that one big booster guaranteeing at least $2 million per year for NIL only.
How is RU going to do that? It is NOT a chicken and egg thing .. .you literally cannot get a good coach with proven NIL fundraising ability without first guaranteeing him the NIL will be there separate form his efforts.
And frankly, I have no interest in plucking an up and comer, or a low major coach who is "hot", who is not an NIL machine .. What makes anyone think that such a coach would be any better than Pikiell - who was just that type of coach. Despite last year's failure (and it was a failure), Pikiell has not forgotten how to coach .. he just has not yet properly adjusted to the NIL and transfer portal environment - which are unfortunately linked (i/e/ you need more NIL $$ to get better and more reliably predictable portal transfers).
I think you might be giving Pike more credit than he deserves as a coach.
He did turn Stony Book around but except for his last season(11th) it wasn't a NCAA Tourney team
and his first 3 seasons there were worse that the last two of the previous HC
I do agree unless a coach like you want to replace him will come, Pike should be allowed to run out the string before
thinking about who will be the next HC to place a bet on.
Unless the money is there a gamble ,tying to prove he's can succeed in a top conference, will be the only type of HC
willing to take the job.
In my opinion:
Pike hasn't forgotten how to coach, but just like Gary Waters > who was a good coach , his all around ability to run the RU basketball program doesn't have everything needed to be a constant winner in a top Basketball conference.
One positive and one negative I noticed...
Zrno and Nwuli seem pretty vocal/intense. Was worried about this team having no personality/intensity/leadership.
Badalau looks a little lost on D but maybe to be expected since he started late.
Also -- Baye Fall shooting a 3? Didn't see that coming lol.
Seems a big question mark is if Badalau can get up to speed defensively, cause definitely seems his shooting/passing could be very helpful. It is kind of fun how this team has like a million interchangeable parts, and the addition of Dorian Jones only adds to that. Only question is if it can be somewhat like Michigan State last year or if instead it’ll just be 12 crap players. Zrno shows some good passing and at least looks like Baye Fall is making an impact.
This doesn’t seem fair. Pike took over a 7 win program that was the laughing stock of high major D1 basketball and got us to the NCAAs after a 30 year drought. 30 years is a long time. This feat is not “nothing” and it would be naive to dismiss the past and assume any up and comer could / would be able to do the same thing. It’s not easy to recruit to a program that has a history of being terrible. Full stop. That was before NIL even existed.
Last season’s failure with Ace and Dylan simply reaffirmed (in the spot light) what we already kind of knew. Pike is not comfortable nor is he good at coaching an offense first style. He’s not going to win at Rutgers with that approach and that’s not how he was successful at previous stops. He didn’t have the horses to be competitive last season on D and that reality was why we sucked. Those blaming this on NIL need to get their heads out of the sand some, because while money would’ve helped, it is likely the case that we could’ve spent less money than we did on the group of transfers / frosh we brought in and been much better on D. The offense really choked the year before and so Pike got scared and lost his way on the recruiting trail. That’s what happened, We didn’t need proven scorers with Ace and Dylan coming in. We needed defense first kids to balance the ticket. Yeah - it’s true we couldn’t afford a good center but it wasn’t just the 5 - every position outside of our back up PG sucked at D. Frosh Montez Mathis type kids wouldn’t have cost us more than Acuff.
So I agree with Lion. It’s probably not the smartest financial or strategic move to pony up the money for a replacement coach that isn’t a proven P5 home run which we can’t afford to hire anyway. The better path right now is to hope that our current coach can find his way and stabilize things by getting back to the approach he’s comforable with and succeeded with in the past.
D first basketball teams tend to pull off more upsets but also lose more games they are supposed to win. D travels but cannot account for the “any given day” shooting factor where a kid just gets hot and can’t miss from long range. When our strong defensive teams shot well, RU basketball looked awesome. On the flip side, when guys aka Minnesota are hitting deep 3s from 2 feet past the 3 point line D first teams usually take the loss - even when the opponent sucks.
That, in my view is where we are at.
You can’t take much away from these videos about the offense ever. We have no idea how many shot attempts it took to compile the collection of made baskets.
That said a the BIG situation looks better than I expected. Ogbole ran the floor well in this footage. He looked healed from the injury. Fall looks physical . I think he’ll be helpful in a Pike system.
That said a the BIG situation looks better than I expected. Ogbole ran the floor well in this footage. He looked healed from the injury. Fall looks physical . I think he’ll be helpful in a Pike system.
These videos at least remind me that even though these young men are semi-pro athletes who are all here on 1-yr contracts, they are still young men who are probably working hard to represent my school and give me some good memories this year.
Being a good pass anticipator is only one of many many attributes of defense in basketball. I’m not saying it isn’t a positive thing to have this skill, of course it is, but it’s common at all levels of the game for poor overall defenders to possess this skill. Being good at picking off passes doesn’t correlate with how good an on ball defender you are, how good you are on at help D, close outs, rebounding, etc. Also - without a lot more context, you don’t know whether a kid who picks off a lot of passes is even a good decision maker to get those steals. That’s important. If you go for the steal 10 times a game and succeed twice but create 8 four on five oppportunities from selling out on the ones you missed, it’s not really a good thing.
let me clarify - I have no idea how good or bad our Euros are at D. I couldn’t tell much for the film Pike put out there.
SO ... very little meaning can be drawn from that promotional video - though it is ALWAYS nice to see.
Here is the little I COULD draw from it - mainly sizes:
1) Grant has definitely and visibly added weight/bulk .. and it looks like "good" weight.
2) Dortch does look like he added weight - but not as visibly .. but it could be because of his starting point, plus where the weight was added.
3) Ware looks .. big .. like ... wide .. And taller - meaning his 6'9" listed height may not be exaggerated as these often are at RU. That says nothing about whether he can contribute at C this year. Just saying he looks big.
4) Baye looks REALLY tall, like a legitimate 6'11" - or even taller .. but to me his legs look really skinny.
5) There is no way, based on several different parts of the clip, that Badalau and Zrno are each their listed heights on RU's official roster page. Badalau is listed at 6'8" and Zrno is listed at 6'7" .. but Badalau looks like he is at least 2" taller than Zrno, maybe 3" taller. Without seeing more extensive clips that show them near or next to each other, I'd lean towards Badalau being 6'8" - though he may be taller (?) and Zrno being 6'5" to 6'6".
6) Equally so, I think I see the reason Buchanan is listed on the RU roster as a guard ... because he is not 6'7 as listed. Zrno looks taller than Buchanan - 1" to 2" taller .. so maybe Buchanan is only 6'5"? Hence, a guard, not a WF. Ware also looks MUCH taller than Buchanan - so if Ware is a legit 6'9", than Buchanan is no more than 6'6", if that.
7) Nwuli looks to be ,5" to 6" taller than Lino Mark - which would make him a legit 6'8".
8) Lino Mark is not scrawny, but muscular .. which is good.
9) Francis got as much "clip" time as any player in that clip, and DID look pretty god, for the little worth that has in a promotional clip like this .. and not as undersized as I feared .. in other words, he DOS look a legit 6'0", not smaller, and does not appear too skinny.
10) Okay, only 2 o 3 clips within this clip: The promotional clips both show several times when both Zrno and Badalau made excellent judgment and placement passes off their drives.
Here is the little I COULD draw from it - mainly sizes:
1) Grant has definitely and visibly added weight/bulk .. and it looks like "good" weight.
2) Dortch does look like he added weight - but not as visibly .. but it could be because of his starting point, plus where the weight was added.
3) Ware looks .. big .. like ... wide .. And taller - meaning his 6'9" listed height may not be exaggerated as these often are at RU. That says nothing about whether he can contribute at C this year. Just saying he looks big.
4) Baye looks REALLY tall, like a legitimate 6'11" - or even taller .. but to me his legs look really skinny.
5) There is no way, based on several different parts of the clip, that Badalau and Zrno are each their listed heights on RU's official roster page. Badalau is listed at 6'8" and Zrno is listed at 6'7" .. but Badalau looks like he is at least 2" taller than Zrno, maybe 3" taller. Without seeing more extensive clips that show them near or next to each other, I'd lean towards Badalau being 6'8" - though he may be taller (?) and Zrno being 6'5" to 6'6".
6) Equally so, I think I see the reason Buchanan is listed on the RU roster as a guard ... because he is not 6'7 as listed. Zrno looks taller than Buchanan - 1" to 2" taller .. so maybe Buchanan is only 6'5"? Hence, a guard, not a WF. Ware also looks MUCH taller than Buchanan - so if Ware is a legit 6'9", than Buchanan is no more than 6'6", if that.
7) Nwuli looks to be ,5" to 6" taller than Lino Mark - which would make him a legit 6'8".
8) Lino Mark is not scrawny, but muscular .. which is good.
9) Francis got as much "clip" time as any player in that clip, and DID look pretty god, for the little worth that has in a promotional clip like this .. and not as undersized as I feared .. in other words, he DOS look a legit 6'0", not smaller, and does not appear too skinny.
10) Okay, only 2 o 3 clips within this clip: The promotional clips both show several times when both Zrno and Badalau made excellent judgment and placement passes off their drives.
Real nice work by the team putting together the (5 min) video; nice blending in Coach C and Geo, Caleb, RHJ. Seeing the Badalau highlights with the couple of these practice clips - looks like he has solid range (will see). But the take a way (for me) from his highlights - looks like he plays physical and normally see that type of player on other Big Ten teams. Want to see more of Fall - can he actually shoot (even make some foul shots) that would be something unexpected. Just want this team to do well - and I show up here for the general encouragement.
Not when an employee is fired for cause.
The contracts of Keli and Rutgers coaches have "for cause" language that does not fully guarantee the $$. That explains why Hobbs got nothing on his way out the door.
Getting fired for cause at Rutgers is not easy. Mike Rice was fired without cause and received severance despite indisputable video evidence he physically abused his own players.
For cause is a common part of every college AD and coach's contract Keli is just like other ADs in that respect
Rice's case was a little different because he wasn't fired at first. He was suspended then came back after the suspension and other punishment involved, then was fired for cause and settled for less than what he was owed.
RU AD Pernetti, with the approval of Rutgers president Robert L. Barchi, initially suspended Rice three games in and fined him $50,000 when Rice's mistreatment of players was brought to the AD's attention.
Tim Pernetti resigned over the Rice issue after Barchi, after saying he just seen the tape of mistreatment, claimed Rice should have been fired and would have demanded that if he seen the video before agreeing to suspend Rice
blaming Tim for everything even though the RU President was offered to see the video and said no because he trusted Pernetti's judgement,
Pernetti was paid more than $1.25 million to leave
Hobbs wasn't fired, he resigned, so he received nothing and with what was found out about his behaivor left him
with very little chance to force RU to pay him to resign .
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