OT: Pikiell's doing good work | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Pikiell's doing good work

Matrim55 said:
Not a good comparison. Pikiell's in his 13th year as a D1 head coach, is approaching 250 career wins, and if he gets Rutgers to 20 wins this year he'll have gone for 20+ in 6 of his last 7 seasons and 7 of his last 9 despite heading one program (Stony Brook) that literally didn't exist and another (Rutgers) that has one 20+ win season in the last 35 years.

There are questions as to whether he can recruit and retain enough top-level talent to get a team to the top of a P5 conference, and so far he's only proved to be an OK, not great, tournament coach.

There's no question, however, as to whether he can be a consistent, winning head coach at a sub-P5 level.

Buonaguro is a bad comp for Pikiell. He's probably a better comp for Ollie, tbh.
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Oh, oh, I didn't mean to compare Pikiell to Buonaguro as to quality, only that he's done a good job with Rutgers last year and this year but shouldn't assume that means he'll get better every year and become Rutgers' Jim Calhoun.
Having said that, he's done pretty well with a roster of no names who seem to be playing aggressively and playing good defense. Lots of spirit shown today and I didn't see a lot of
uncontested shots by Seton Hall.
 
Scrutiner said:
Oh, oh, I didn't mean to compare Pikiell to Buonaguro as to quality, only that he's done a good job with Rutgers last year and this year but shouldn't assume that means he'll get better every year and become Rutgers' Jim Calhoun.
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Yeah, definitely not saying he'll be that. But maybe he could be Tony Bennett-ish?

Obviously it's too early to jump to that kind of expectation, but Pikiell's done nothing but impress over the past decade.
 
Jesus could coach Rutgers and I’d hate them and want them to lose every game.
 
Matrim55 said:
Looking forward to seeing how they handle their January schedule. If they run the table at home they'll head into the last month of the season at 16-8 and maybe on the NCAA tourney bubble. Run the table at home + steal road wins at Penn State and/or Illinois (very possible), and they'd probably be considered a tourney team.

Pikiell's already proved he can build a small program from scratch. If he can resurrect a P5 program from the dead, the dude will become a hot commodity.

And it needs to be said: Rutgers aren't doing this because they have one lights-out shooter or something. They're just really, really well coached – defend well, rebound well, don't turn it over much, hit their rotations, etc.

It's nice to see.


Perhaps. We'll definitely know more at the end of January. The low bar is beating Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska at home, at the very least. Add in Ohio State and one road win, and this thing'll have legs.
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Like you said before, the Big 10 is so down this year that it's not much of a stretch to imagine this coming to fruition.
 
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Matrim55 said:
Not a good comparison. Pikiell's in his 13th year as a D1 head coach, is approaching 250 career wins, and if he gets Rutgers to 20 wins this year he'll have gone for 20+ in 6 of his last 7 seasons and 7 of his last 9 despite heading one program (Stony Brook) that literally didn't exist and another (Rutgers) that has one 20+ win season in the last 35 years.

There are questions as to whether he can recruit and retain enough top-level talent to get a team to the top of a P5 conference, and so far he's only proved to be an OK, not great, tournament coach.

There's no question, however, as to whether he can be a consistent, winning head coach at a sub-P5 level.

Buonaguro is a bad comp for Pikiell. He's probably a better comp for Ollie, tbh.
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Doesn’t matter. If ko is “ struggling “ with getting top talent to the aac as well as Larry brown did and tubby and ( both national champs) mick and even mr Williams, Stevie p ain’t got a chance. Bottom line ( and it has taken 3 years for me to get here), we could recruit better at the bottom of the acc or nbe, than in the middle or top of the aac. Let’s hope WSU kills it this year and gets us to add another good program ( Dayton. Vcu?) maybe we can be another nbe type conference. Our issue is the bottom of this league is killing us. ironically , if we and say smu struggled for a few years and any other cellar dwellers emerged, this conference would be legit.
 
MervthePurvis said:
Doesn’t matter. If ko is “ struggling “ with getting top talent to the aac as well as Larry brown did and tubby and ( both national champs) and mick and even mr Williams, Stevie p ain’t got a chance. Bottom line ( and it has taken 3 years for me to get here), we could recruit better at the bottom of the acc or nbe, than in the middle of top of the aac.
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This makes zero sense.

2015: A top-25, 5-star combo guard (Jalen), a top 100, 4-star big man (Enoch) and 2 of the top 3 postgrad transfers
2016: A top 10 overall class including a McDonald's all-american PG, a high-4-star SF and a high-4-star PF, and borderline 4-star PF & SG
2017: 4-star SF, 4-star C, 3-star PF, one high-rated JuCo transfer and one low-rated JuCo transfer
2018: 4-star top 60 SF, 4-star top-100 PG, 4-star top-150 C, high 3-star SF

Is it as good as our glory days? No. Is it good enough to get us into the top 2 of the AAC and top 20 overall? Hell yes.

Recruiting can bet better, but it damn sure isn't the problem.

EDIT: And let me just add that we've had multiple 4-stars commit and then go elsewhere during this time (MAL, Prince Ali, Willie Jackson).
 
SouthBayHusky said:
Don’t you mean 4 years ago? If your measurement is consistent, that was the 2014 season, and we’re in the 2018 season. And, I don’t think anyone here hates KO. We want to be competitive and somewhat relevant. If we fail to make the tournament again this year, it makes literally 1 appearance in four years, and that’s unacceptable, and why attendance is reaching a record low. It’s just not sustainable. Obviously, we’re all praying KO gets the program back to some relevancy, but there are few to no signs of improvement. This is just a fact. But I wish people would please stop saying that because the fanbase is dissatisfied with Kevin Ollie’s performance that equates to hatred for him. Our allegiance is to a team, not a coach, and when your beloved team fails year after year after year after year, you can’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results. He deserves the end of the season, and everybody is rooting for us to win, but just because were rooting and wanting to win doesn’t mean people aren’t fans when expressing realistic expectations that we will probably not win. That said, there’s always a chance of a little Husky magic late in season and it at least gives us a sliver of hope, which even the most dissatisfied of us will cling to.
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When you behave in a manner some UConn fans have behaved at our games and that behavior is actually condoned or "understood" by members of this board, it's absolutely about hatred for Ollie.

And it's not a fact this program has shown little or no improvement this year, that's called begging the question, so much so I think that statement is categorically incorrect

In making your conclusions, you've already written off the current season, which is a far cry from being over.

8 new rotation players, two returning rotation players, another key injury AND one of our stars still recovering from a torn ACL. We're still in a much better place than we were in May 2017, and this team needs time to jell. Any team under any coach in the world would need time to jell under such circumstances. Those are the facts.
 
I love the job Pikiell is doing at RU and what he did for SB. I wish him continued success, and if there comes a day we're looking for a new coach sometime down the road, he'd be a great candidate.

As for former UConn players having potential to be great coaches, Caron Butler may have the necessary intangibles, hope he gets into coaching (if he's looking for something to do that is)
 
What Pikiell has done at Rutgers is akin to Moses parting the Red Sea or Jesus walking on water.

I'm a believer, and if KO moves on we need to pry him loose from them.

Pikiell will have bigger schools offering top dollar for his services.

Rutgers will miss him when he's gone. I wonder how far he takes them, he's special.
 
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djct1999 said:
Coaching matters.
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Yes it does and if you watched the game Kevin Willard was awful and handed them the game. Luck plays a part too and Sanders, a 39% overall shooter made everything he looked at the last minutes of the game. The Hall was up 63-54 and had the game locked until Sanders went off, but mostly because of TO's, real fast bad shots by Seton Hall who didn't even try to set up a play to get the ball to Delagdo during the stretch that absolutely killed them. There were no set plays Sanders just took over and went crazy.

Hey Steve's a good coach, but there was a lot more into the finish of that game than you'd care to share because this is all about how bad KO is I know:rolleyes: ...Fact is this place would be a mess if KO had that lead and lost it the way Willard did, it was an awful display of coaching, or not coaching shall I say.

But we have the only bad coach in America, the worst.
 
Pikiell is a good coach there is no denying that, and he is doing it at places that are hard to win at. Pikiell knows how to coach, motivate, and has an identity that he wants his to play with. I'm sure that AD Dave is monitoring the situation and the next 2 games against Arizona and Auburn will tell him everything he needs to know about Ollie and the program moving forward.

PS: Corey Sanders is a good college player equal to Jalen in many respects. He was a top 60 player out of high school.

PS: With the way Rutgers is playing and already getting Montez for next year,if Pikieel gets them to middle of the pack in the Big 10, recruiting may be on the upswing as well, as New Brunswick, NJ is an easy place to recruit to with NYC literally next door.
 
People want to get rid of KO so bad they stop looking at the facts in front of their dopey faces.

I want our ex-Husky to succeed too, great guy and seemingly a solid coach although I doubt the answer. But before we start crowning him the new messiah, can we see the season unfold? I mean RU was 11-1 last year and ended up 15-18. They're 10-3 now, not as good as last year and Hall handed them one yesterday. Yep they handled Bryant, NJIT, CCNY, Coppin, Fordham and even CCSU by 4 (he'd be crucified here for that score by all you hypocrites) but can we see how they walk through the B10 before we make this decision to call the Prez to have her tell AD David Benedict who he is ? LOL, this place is such a joke.
 
mauconnfan said:
I mean RU was 11-1 last year and ended up 15-18. They're 10-3 now, not as good as last year and Hall handed them one yesterday.
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Like I said, we'll know more at the end of January. But their three losses all came against ranked teams (FSU, Minnesota & Sparty), and they played two of those – FSU & Sparty – hella tough. Sparty in particular struggled a lot more with Rutgers than they did with UConn.
 
Tuna said:
Yeah, the results of two games will tell him everything he needs to know about the future of UCONN basketball. You are a true simpleton.
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If we lose both by 30+, they'll tell him quite a bit.
 
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Huskymagic said:
Pikiell is a good coach there is no denying that, and he is doing it at places that are hard to win at. Pikiell knows how to coach, motivate, and has an identity that he wants his to play with. I'm sure that AD Dave is monitoring the situation and the next 2 games against Arizona and Auburn will tell him everything he needs to know about Ollie and the program moving forward.

PS: Corey Sanders is a good college player equal to Jalen in many respects. He was a top 60 player out of high school.

PS: With the way Rutgers is playing and already getting Montez for next year,if Pikieel gets them to middle of the pack in the Big 10, recruiting may be on the upswing as well, as New Brunswick, NJ is an easy place to recruit to with NYC literally next door.
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Literally? It's 40 miles away, over an hour by car.
 
Matrim55 said:
This makes zero sense.

2015: A top-25, 5-star combo guard (Jalen), a top 100, 4-star big man (Enoch) and 2 of the top 3 postgrad transfers
2016: A top 10 overall class including a McDonald's all-american PG, a high-4-star SF and a high-4-star PF, and borderline 4-star PF & SG
2017: 4-star SF, 4-star C, 3-star PF, one high-rated JuCo transfer and one low-rated JuCo transfer
2018: 4-star top 60 SF, 4-star top-100 PG, 4-star top-150 C, high 3-star SF

Is it as good as our glory days? No. Is it good enough to get us into the top 2 of the AAC and top 20 overall? Hell yes.

Recruiting can bet better, but it damn sure isn't the problem.

EDIT: And let me just add that we've had multiple 4-stars commit and then go elsewhere during this time (MAL, Prince Ali, Willie Jackson).
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This is filled with flawed 4 star players though.
Jalen & Alterique were good gets. Vance was a top 25 player that plummeted in the rankings as people saw his game, dropped closer to 100 than 50. Vance was hurt, and while here he lumbered around and played soft. Enoch was clearly over-ranked. We have plenty of posters from the Fairfield area who were more than dubious about Enoch having seen him play live multiple times. Seems the fans here knew more about him than the national analysts (note: I'm not saying Ollie shouldn't have recruited him, but rather that he played like a project ranked 200-300). Carlton, a 250 ranked kid, needs a lot less development.
As for 2017, was Carlton considered a 4-star?
 
upstater said:
This is filled with flawed 4 star players though.
Jalen & Alterique were good gets. Vance was a top 25 player that plummeted in the rankings as people saw his game, dropped closer to 100 than 50. Vance was hurt, and while here he lumbered around and played soft. Enoch was clearly over-ranked. We have plenty of posters from the Fairfield area who were more than dubious about Enoch having seen him play live multiple times. Seems the fans here knew more about him than the national analysts (note: I'm not saying Ollie shouldn't have recruited him, but rather that he played like a project ranked 200-300). Carlton, a 250 ranked kid, needs a lot less development.
As for 2017, was Carlton considered a 4-star?
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And yet Louisville wanted Enoch and Notre Dame wanted Durham. The three kids who left are more talented than anyone on our roster not named Jalen, Alterique, and Larrier. Vance is a better shooter than anyone on the roster.
 
Matrim55 said:
Like I said, we'll know more at the end of January. But their three losses all came against ranked teams (FSU, Minnesota & Sparty), and they played two of those – FSU & Sparty – hella tough. Sparty in particular struggled a lot more with Rutgers than they did with UConn.
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Did they lose Sanders in the MSU game? Because that would be equal to us losing Gilbert.

Again they have a lot to prove.
 
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Matrim55 said:
This makes zero sense.

2015: A top-25, 5-star combo guard (Jalen), a top 100, 4-star big man (Enoch) and 2 of the top 3 postgrad transfers
2016: A top 10 overall class including a McDonald's all-american PG, a high-4-star SF and a high-4-star PF, and borderline 4-star PF & SG
2017: 4-star SF, 4-star C, 3-star PF, one high-rated JuCo transfer and one low-rated JuCo transfer
2018: 4-star top 60 SF, 4-star top-100 PG, 4-star top-150 C, high 3-star SF

Is it as good as our glory days? No. Is it good enough to get us into the top 2 of the AAC and top 20 overall? Hell yes.

Recruiting can bet better, but it damn sure isn't the problem.

EDIT: And let me just add that we've had multiple 4-stars commit and then go elsewhere during this time (MAL, Prince Ali, Willie Jackson).
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Post comment is based on the overall melodrama of the board in general hence the “” of struggling.
 
Pikiell won 20+ games at Stony Brook six of his last seven years there, only got the NCAA autobid once, but got three NIT bids and two CBIs. At Stony Brook, in one of the worst conferences in the country to recruit for, that's a pretty darn good record. Remains to be seen if he can recruit and coach consistently at the top level, but if he can turn Rutgers into a respectable and competitive B1G basketball program, that's a clear sign he's got the right stuff.
 
superjohn said:
And yet Louisville wanted Enoch and Notre Dame wanted Durham. The three kids who left are more talented than anyone on our roster not named Jalen, Alterique, and Larrier. Vance is a better shooter than anyone on the roster.
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Right on Vance. But go talk to Louisville fans. All last year they were complaining about their bigs and about Pitino's lack of ability to develop them.
 
Matrim55 said:
With Donyell – who's done great work in his 18 months at CCSU – as associate head coach/big man coach!
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Wouldn't that be going back to 'keep it in the family' method here?
 
intlzncster said:
Wouldn't that be going back to 'keep it in the family' method here?
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While "keep it in the family" was a big reason KO got the job, "keep it in the family" is not the reason he's struggling with it. Right now it just looks like he's not that good a head coach and is probably better cut out to be an assistant.

Hiring Pikiell would be a totally different proposition. If he gets the job he'll have been a head coach for 13 years, the last 2 at a P5 school that heavily recruits the northeast. He has 225ish career wins, multiple postseason appearances, built a program from scratch and looks like he's in the process of resurrecting another from the dead. There is no question he can lead a program.

Hiring Donyell as his associate head coach would address a clear need – we haven't successfully developed our big men for a decade, right? And while there would be questions about his ability to recruit high-level talent (he's never done it), he's put in the work as an assistant for more than half a decade, and as a head coach for two years. And his team (traditionally one of the worst in the country) is improving.

Beyond that, "keep it in the family" could actually be an asset on the recruiting trail. UConn, as it stands, is not going to be a 15-20 year "destination school" for most coaches at this point, so every recruit would hear "yeah, he's after you but he'll be coaching at Michigan/Maryland/Virginia/Tennessee next year." The idea of UConn as a stepping stone would be a weapon.

Not against Pikiell, though. If he comes here, he's here to stay.

Is that a good enough reason to hire him, should the need arise? Not if there are better candidates out there.

But at the same time the fact that he's definitely part of the UConn family should not be a strike against him at all.

EDIT: And just to be clear, I'm still hoping KO figures this out. From what I've seen and heard, though, I seriously doubt that's going to happen.
 
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