During the entire offseason, many college hoops sports writers and analysts harped on this year's Rutgers hoops team as an ‘improved offensive group’, offering more speed and improved shooting, despite losing high-impact players Paul Mulcahy and Cam Spencer to the transfer portal and a decommitment from Baye Ndongo.
After all, there were a lot of positives coming out of the Rutgers camp from the summer workouts, overseas trip, and September exhibition games against St. John's and DePaul.
With a smaller backcourt than the proto-typical Steve Pikiell team, many felt Rutgers was going to play a different style of basketball this year where the speed of the game was going to be injected with a high-tempo offense and more three-pointers were going to swish through the nets.
Now, Rutgers is at least 19 games into the current season, and this year's team is on pace to being one of the worst offensive teams since Pikiell first took over the program in 2016. The shots are not falling, the tempo is slow, and at times the ball movement is sloppy.
This year's team is an offensive mess.
BY THE NUMBERS....
According to KenPom, Rutgers rates as one of the worst shooting teams in the country in four main offensive categories, including effective field-goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage, two-point field goal percentage, and free-throw shooting percentage.
Rutgers is dead last in the Big Ten and ranks 356th in the country in effective field-goal percentage at 43.7%, worst among all high-major programs. Rutgers is just six spots better than the worst team in the country, Maryland Eastern Shore of the MEAC (41.0%).
Under Pikiell, Rutgers has never really had a good three-point shooting team, but this year's team has been absolutely dreadful from deep. The team is currently shooting 29.4% from three-point range, which ranks 334th in the country. The only other high-majors shooting worse than Rutgers from three-point range this season are Vanderbilt (28.4%) and Texas A&M (26.7%). Rutgers hasn't shot the three-ball this poorly since the 2017-18 season when the team shot a lowly 29.0%, which ranked 346th overall.
If you thought the three-point shooting was bad, the two-point shooting has been slightly worse in terms of the overall rating in Division I college basketball. Currently, Rutgers is making two-point shots at 43.6% per game, which ranks 351st in the country and worst in the Big Ten. Rutgers is making their two-point shots slightly better than Temple (43.5%) and St. Peter's (43.4%). The poor two-point shooting percentage is an indication Rutgers is settling for too many long-range jumpers and are poor at shooting layups and finishing around the rim.
As far back as Rutgers fans can remember, the free-throw shooting has never been good under Pikiell. This year's team is earning their decent fair share of trips to the line, but they just aren't converting. Rutgers is currently shooting 65.5%, which ranks 330th in the country and last in the Big Ten. Rutgers is shooting free-throws slightly better than high-major Virginia (65.0%).
The team as a whole is just not scoring enough points in games as they rank 311th in the country at 67.9 points per game, another sign that the offense is playing at a slow tempo. In their double-digit losses in Big Ten play this season, Rutgers averaged 0.84 points per possession, well below the national average of 0.994. For much of the season, Rutgers has averaged well below the national average.
Game after game and time after time again, it’s becoming the same old story for Rutgers basketball this season as poor shooting has prevented the Scarlet Knights from winning games. Rutgers has often started slow in many games this season and they tend to go cold from the field for extended periods of time, thus resulting in the Scarlet Knights unable to recover after falling behind double-digits.
Pikiell has said several times in post-game press conferences, if only his team had played a full 40 minutes of basketball where they were making shots, they probably wouldn’t have lost some of the games they did this year.
The defensive effort is certainly there as Rutgers rates as one of the best defensive teams in all of Division I college basketball, but there’s only so much reliance you can have on your defense because you need to score more points than your opponent.
DISSAPOINTMENTS....
There’s absolutely no doubt Pikiell and his team are feeling the brunt after losing Paul Mulcahy and Cam Spencer as well as the decommitment from Baye Ndongo. Pikiell was dealt a difficult hand this past summer, especially due to the poor timing of the decisions by Mulcahy and Spencer to transfer.
Pikiell ultimately tried to replace his backcourt with the best players available in the transfer portal in Austin Williams and Noah Fernandes, but statistically they were not nearly as good as Mulcahy and Spencer. Pikiell had no choice but to thrust players into positions they were simply not prepared for.
Spencer was the leading scorer for Rutgers last year at 13.2 points per game and was converting three-point shots at 43.4%. Mulcahy was second to Spencer at 37.0% from deep and his facilitation of the basketball led to a team-high of 4.9 assists per game.
Rutgers' best three-point shooter this season has been Aundre Hyatt at 33.6%, a significant drop off from Mulcahy and Spencer of last season. Austin Williams and Noah Fernandes have had their moments this season, but their production hasn’t been consistent and both are averaging a combined 34.3% from deep with Williams attempting 13 three-pointers all season.
Oskar Palmquist, known as a reliable three-point shooter, has been very disappointing this year as he’s been unable to deliver from deep. Palmquist is shooting a dismal 26.1% from three-point range.
With Derek Simpson thrusted into the role as the primary ball handler, it was expected his game was to elevate to the next level, but Simpson’s shooting has seen a significant dip. Last season, he averaged nearly 38.0% shooting from the field, but his shooting percentage is way down this year at 32.6%. Simpson continues to take a bulk percentage of Rutgers’ shots but he’s converting two-pointers at 33.1% and three-pointers at 31.0%.
Sharing the basketball and assists have taken a huge hit this season as Rutgers is only averaging 11.9 teams assists per game compared to last season when the team was averaging a little more than 15 assists per game. Despite leading the team in assists this season, Simpson’s 3.1 assists per game have not been close to Mulcahy’s numbers.
The blame certainly doesn’t fall on Simpson as to the reason why assists are down, but Pikiell’s team is just not playing with fluid ball movement and quality offensive sets.
It was an awfully tough ask for Gavin Griffiths to become one of the primary scorers on this year’s team, but the five-star recruit from Connecticut entered the season with high expectations and was known as one of the purest shooters in the 2023 high school recruiting class. Some felt he was going to be one of the best Freshmen players in the Big Ten.
Griffiths did have a breakout game with 25 points against Boston University early in the season, but since then he has fallen into a serious rut shooting the ball. Griffiths is currently averaging 6.0 points per game and is shooting 33.6% from the field and 27.4% from three-point range.
The frontcourt has had their struggles this year, especially in the early going of the season. With Mawot Mag still on the sidelines for most of November and December, a lot of the scoring responsibility went to Cliff Omoruyi. The All-Big Ten center had his early season struggles but has snapped out of his funk as he’s scored in double-figures in his last three games.
Antwone Woolfolk has also had his fair share of struggles and has contributed very little in terms of scoring this season as the backup big man is averaging just 3.7 points per game. With Baye Ndongo decommitting this past offseason and following former Rutgers assistant coach Karl Hobbs to Georgia Tech, Ndongo has had a super productive first season in the frontcourt for the Yellow Jackets averaging 12.7 points per game and 8.2 rebounds per game.
Listen, as disappointing as the offense has been this year, the offense can still be somewhat fixed. I’m not saying this team is going to be an elite group of shooters overnight, but Pikiell needs to identify the issues and have this team play to their strengths. We know this team’s potential and what they’re capable of. Rutgers is doing just about everything else right on the floor, now it’s time to play smarter basketball on the offensive end.
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