Rebuilding Rutgers -- A DDSCB2016 Test Diary

[jksander]

Oops. jk beat me to the punch!

Welcome to the party, Wayne!

[Wayne23]

Been here all along. Hate to be a rainmaker but Gary's going to drop 1.1 any day now.

[jksander]

[jksander]

Been here all along. Hate to be a rainmaker but Gary's going to drop 1.1 any day now.

Is it a "total reset" update? If so I'll probably play this one out until I hit a crash.

[Wayne23]

Chances are, at this early stage it would be. I don;t know for sure though. That's why I'm holding off on starting a new dynasty. Chomping at the bit though.

[slybelle1]

Chances are, at this early stage it would be. I don;t know for sure though. That's why I'm holding off on starting a new dynasty. Chomping at the bit though.

Didn't seem like a ton of game breaking issues reported...so interesting that it would be a total reset unless we are unaware of other issues.

[Wayne23]

I honestly do not know. It depends upon the type of errors and what it takes to fix them, as you know.

[jksander]

STARTERS
PG - Greg Tate (6'5” 213 lbs Sr) Union City NJ (Emerson HS) 3.4 GPA
SG - Kendall Kamara (6'5” 201 lbs So) Summit NJ (Summit HS) 3.1 GPA
SF - Mark House (6'7” 198 lbs Jr) Bayonne NJ (Bayonne HS) 3.1 GPA
PF - Trey Jordan (6'6” 192 lbs So) Manchester NJ (Manchester Township HS) 3.5 GPA
C - Kevin Majerus (6'9” 237 lbs So) Piscataway NJ (Piscataway HS) 3.8 GPA

PRIMARY BACKUPS
PG/SG - Donte Jackson (6'0” 183 lbs Jr) Teterboro NJ (Bergen County Tech HS) 3.2 GPA
SG/SF/PF - Brad Blackman (6'6” 220 lbs So) Jersey City NJ (Jersey City HS) 3.0 GPA
PF/C - A.J. Holt (6'8” 241 lbs Jr) Longmeadow MA (Longmeadow HS) 3.9 GPA

BENCHWARMERS
PG - Richard McGee (6'1” 171 lbs Fr) Old Tappan NJ (Northern Valley Regional HS) 3.7 GPA
SG - Clarence Jones (6'0” 176 lbs So) Marlboro NJ (Marlboro HS) 3.7 GPA
SF - Matt Wright (6'8” 224 lbs Jr) Parsippany NJ (Parsippany Hills HS) 3.8 GPA
PF - Doug Barr (6'8” 197 lbs Fr) Boonton NJ (Boonton HS) 3.3 GPA
C - Greg Jenkins (6'9” 277 lbs Jr) Lawrenceville NJ (Notre Dame HS) 3.2 GPA*

REDSHIRTS
SG - Morris Cobb (6'0” 189 lbs Fr) Gloucester City NJ (Gloucester City HS) 4.0 GPA
_________
*Walk-on

We're not a deep team, and our over-eager AD did us no favors with this brutal non-conference schedule. I can't help but wonder if he's still out there looking for a permanent coach, with me as the “interim” opportunity. Regardless, I aim to do what I can with the players I have, and when Josh Greenwall turns up next fall, I'll let him loose on everyone and they'll see that Rutgers is on the way back. With only eight players I really trust on the court for significant minutes, I'm keeping our expectations on building a foundation for things to come … with most of this team coming back next year along with Greenwall, we're going to need to be a well-oiled machine … no one's gonna hand you anything in the Midwest 10!

I'd love to enter the conference with a winning record. With two ranked road games along with Florida State, New Mexico, Philly and South Philly plus that tip to the Midwest Invitational, that's going to be a tall order. We should have a solid RPI heading into the conference, but that won't help if we don't get wins.

[jksander]

Code: Select all

Rank  RPI    Date   Opponent              Score          Record          Leader(s)
             11/16  New Mexico            W 72-60        1-0             G. Tate (14 pts 5 reb 4 ast) K. Majerus (12 pts 4 reb)
             11/19  Florida St            W 74-69        2-0             K. Majerus (17 pts 5 reb) M. House (14 pts 4 reb 1 ast)
#24          11/21  (n) Pitt Christian    L 49-67        2-1             K. Majerus (15 pts 6 reb 2 blk) M. House (10 pts 5 reb)
#24          11/26  Virginia Tech         L 69-84        2-2             K. Majerus (17 pts 8 reb 2 blk) D. Jackson (11 pts 5 ast)
             11/30  @ #18 Louisville      L 65-95        2-3             G. Tate (17 pts 4 reb 7 ast) D. Jackson (11 pts 4 reb 2 blk)

At the very least we can enjoy looking back on that one week where the AP decided that two home wins to start our rebuilding process were enough to propel us to #24 in their particular polling exercise. All it did was set us up for a dose of reality when we were crushed by Pittsburgh Christian in a game we knew we were out of before the half. We're playing better as a unit than I'd expected so early, but we're not ready to have our heads blown up so big quite yet. If we can't handle Pitt Christian, we'll never handle Maryland, IU or Michigan (State or otherwise).

[jksander]

Code: Select all

Rank  RPI    Date   Opponent              Score          Record          Leader(s)
             12/7   Philadelphia          L 70-77 (OT)   2-4             K. Majerus (23 pts 5 reb 3 blk) G. Tate (14 pts 5 reb 2 ast)
      #135   12/14  @ #10 South Bend      L 66-86        2-5             M. House (14 pts 2 reb 3 ast) K. Kamara (13 pts 7 reb 1 blk)
      #99    12/21  South Philly          W 76-63        3-5             M. House (22 pts 10 reb 1 blk) G. Tate (16 pts 2 reb 5 ast)
      #97    12/27  Miami (FL)            W 66-52        4-5             G. Tate (15 pts 6 reb 4 ast) M. House (9 pts 7 reb 2 ast)
      #97    12/28  Wisconsin             W 68-48        5-5 (1-0)       K. Majerus (18 pts 6 reb) M. House (6 pts 9 reb 2 ast 1 stl)
      #97    12/31  @ Minnesota           L 52-77        5-6 (1-1)       G. Tate (19 pts 5 reb 5 ast) M. House (10 pts 6 reb 3 ast)
      #141   1/4    @ #22 Maryland        L 64-91        5-7 (1-2)       M. House (13 pts 6 reb 3 ast) T. Jordan (12 pts 4 reb)
      #141   1/7    #6 Michigan St        L 61-80        5-8 (1-3)       K. Majerus (19 pts 7 reb) K. Kamara (13 pts 11 reb 3 blk)
      #129   1/11   #22 Michigan          L 73-89        5-9 (1-4)       G. Tate (16 pts 4 reb 6 ast) T. Jordan (14 pts 5 reb)
      #129   1/14   @ #4 Indiana          L 85-104       5-10 (1-5)      K. Majerus (14 pts 8 reb) D. Jackson (12 pts 3 reb 4 ast)
      #133   1/18   Minnesota             W 65-60        6-10 (2-5)      T. Jordan (13 pts 7 reb 1 stl) K. Kamara (13 pts 2 ast 2 stl)
      #133   1/21   @ #21 Ohio St         L 55-74        6-11 (2-6)      T. Jordan (16 pts 5 reb) G. Tate (9 pts 4 reb 4 ast)

Midwest 10 Conference Midseason Standings
01 #20 Michigan (6-2, 13-4)
02 #5 Indiana (6-2, 15-3)
03 #8 Michigan St (6-2, 15-2)
04 Minnesota (6-2, 12-5)
05 #23 Maryland (6-2, 13-5)
06 Ohio State (5-3, 11-6)
07 Nebraska (4-4, 7-10)
08 Illinois (4-4, 8-9)
09 Northwestern (3-5, 8-9)
10 Penn State (3-5, 9-8)
11 Rutgers (2-6, 6-11)
12 Iowa (2-6, 10-7)
13 Wisconsin (2-6, 4-13)
14 Purdue (2-6, 9-8)

We're 0-6 against ranked opponents and the season as a whole isn't looking to be a dramatic improvement on last year, though we're not on a double-digit losing stream and we held our own against Indiana in a high-paced game -- the Hoosiers have scored in triple-digits FOUR TIMES in this Mid-10 season, and are averaging 89.9 ppg, the most of any team in Division 1. I was pleased with our three wins in a row in late December, including opening the Mid-10 with a win against Wisconsin. We still have enough winnable games to make this season a lot more competitive, and though I don't have postseason expectations I do expect us to move closer to the middle of the conference before the Mid-10 tourney. With solid team efforts we can at least make life harder for some teams who think they can sneak into the title race. And that's more than could have been said last year.