Oh I am well-versed in whinenavy...he's a grade A chooch.

Stine ; you are right! I mean, why not ask for some changes. It would be great to be able to upset some top teams from time to time. As of now, I will do as you did : try and move to a big 6 as fast as I can or join a mid-major where I can find coaches so I get money. At IUPUI, I like it a lot. But I won't be able to compete and get the players to take the next step. So I might as well move.

5 seasons at eastern Washington...0 tournament wins...wtg guy...funny that the 2 guys talking most about low d1 here, I've been more successful than at the level...keep Goin ham guys...

i have 22 seasons of sub-big 6 D1. 11 NT bids, 6 of which were at-large bids in the MWC. i've had just 1 elite player, good enough to start on any D1 team. the majority of my teams were built deep. this enabled me to compete and get to the NT...but i've only won 4 NT games in those 11 appearances. so you do definitely hit a talent wall in the NT eventually, as tkimble clarified in his later post. but really in any case, when first taking over a new midmajor D1 team, you have zero chance at swinging for the big recruits, so you have to build a team full of decent guys anyway.

I certainly think there are some changes that could be made to D1.  But if you lower the value of prestige and level the playing field  in terms of conference recruiting money, aren't you just making it the same as D2 and D3?  I like the fact that D1 attempts to mirror real life.  Obviously 4-5 star players just don't consider attending Murray State.  I wouldn't be against promises meaning more, or some other tweaks - but if you level it out too much it would just be like the lower divisions.  Recruit generation seems to be a consistent complaint, so improving that area may help somewhat alleviate these troubles.

But really - aren't we just all talking to ourselves?  Is anyone from WIS even listening?

you're right, brian, I think there has to be a balance between leveling it out and keeping the major conferences major. Baseline prestige and conference money are fairly major factors, but they might be overpowered right now. So the key would be scaling them down a bit with a more fluid prestige and a little less conference money without defanging them altogether. As far as promises go, I think big schools are going to be able to offer starts to the 5-star guys. It's the more developmental players where that may be a factor. A small school will let them play for years, a big school would stash them on the bench until they're an upperclassman

A few suggestions that can hit on this:

1)  Switch the money for scholarships and NT bonus - so rather than $15k/schollie, $20k/game it is $20k/schollie, $15k/game (PI can stay at $5k per)
2)  If you're going to increase the value of promises you need to significantly increase the penalties for breaking them.  I'd advocate removing the 'buffer' of promises/minutes, and make it a virtual certainty that they'll transfer.  I'd also make it so that if a coach breaks too many promises they become less effective for him.
3)  A bit more radical - make players expect promises/PT as FR.  It should be explicitly spelled out in a player call or eval.  I think a lot of people get upset when elite schools sign studs and bury them as FR.  For example, I signed the #3 SG and a Top-25 overall kid at Duke this past seasons.  He played in 15 of our 27 games, for a whopping total of 79 minutes.  In college basketball as we know it today, that would be ridiculous.  Make it a sliding scale; he might expect 10 mpg at A+ Duke, occasional start and 20 mpg at B+ Wake Forest, Start + 25 mpg at B- Charlotte.

I like those last two suggestions, but I'm not totally sure that beefing up the amount of cash per scholly is a great idea. It seems to me that it has the biggest benefit for (a) superclass teams, and (b) teams with a bunch of EEs. Maybe that's just an acceptable loss in evening out the mid-major/BCS divide, but it at least causes me some concern, more so than the other two, which look great. 

NO need to beef up schollies. Just get less money for NT wins : 50 % less. And get high rank players to get promises rather than have them accept a+ team offer and finally sit on the bench.

Posted by colonels19 on 6/2/2015 7:34:00 AM (view original):
Look at my new Orleans team

there are some really good posts on the first thread about d1 advice, its actually one of the best pages of advice ive seen in a while.

colonels, i really need you to understand this, because its so ridiculous/annoying - when you get challenged on your opinion on a topic, posting about your moderate success in some regard, when you are disagreeing with coaches who are vastly more successful than you, does not carry any credibility. it does not help your position in any way whatsoever - especially when you are the guy doing the disagreeing in the first place! im not just talking about me here, you called out another coach saying sounds like a guy without low d1 experience, in the post i responded to - and then post about your success, when you just sort of ripped on a guy with a better resume than you. it really makes no sense at all! we aren't saying, "we are right because we succeeded", so for you to be the guy who does it, is a little bit insane.

anyawy simply making the NT by playing all sims means absolutely nothing. you make the NT every year but get no where every year. congratulations. now, im not saying its trivial to make the NT every year, you have done a decent job there. but the reality of HD is simple - you can make a lot of mistakes and still be moderately successful. even most championship teams have a significant number of obviously deficiencies, and even the best coaches admit to areas they are far from perfecting (recruiting, for me - thats a pretty big one!). so, saying, i was moderately successful while i did X, in no way says anything about whether X is the right tactic or not. its just like when people say, i make pretty good NT runs all the time and i don't game plan. ok, fine, but game planning isn't that huge and sure you can not do it and be way more successful than you have been. but that doesn't mean game planning well wouldn't make those same teams more successful - of course it would.

but back to the actual point here - sure, you can be decent without making the effort to recruit players with specialties (and a decent # of guys on NO are specialized anyway). but its really hard to be great without doing it. crafting a team to line up the strengths of your players in productive ways, with players who have clear strengths (instead of just overall are ok at everything), its pretty much team building 101. its hard to be great at but even rookies are shooting for that common goal. im honestly surprised anyone would disagree with that.

the issue about filling your spots, you can fill them all, thats fine, but for many coaches (especially new ones) its hard to get the kind of talent that can compete with better d1 teams, with all the disadvantages you have. thats true for pretty much everybody. so to compensate, it makes sense to take a player or two less, and put that money to good use getting that special offensive player who can push your offensive efficiency up huge as lead scorer, or something along those lines. its not the only way to do it there, of course, but it is a good way to go and should be considered (not necessarily adopted) by all new d1 coaches. 

Gillispie : What do you think about these ideas.

1) Cut the NT wins money by 50 %. It would help lonely teams in lonely division, and mid-majors whether it's filled or not.

2) Make high ranked players, say three stars and two stars players be really needy when they choose their team. They should not be happy to come to a big 6 school and sit on the bench. There must be a way to make it difficult for teams that won't play them to recruit these players. Of course, 4 stars and 5 stars will keep going to big 6 teams.

3) Broken promises mean transfer... No other way to prevent it. That way, it would mean recruiting would not be some sort of cheating... to get the edge.

I think it would help out. I am going to make the NT again on my IUPUI... Three years in a row. I had a #16 seed, a #14 seed. I think I am getting a #10-#11 seed this year. But If I check last year tournament, I'd still face a mid-major or a low end big 6 team. It's an improvement, but I know I am a the top of the curve. If I want to improve on this streak, I have to get three or two stars players... I tried this year, had two schollies... But had no shot. I ended up getting a one star fill-in forward, a defender. So my next recruiting season will be key, but I already know that I won't the money... to compete against big 6 or filled mid-majors conferences. So these three little changes would make it easier and probably would help me improve (if I remain there).

First off let me acknowledge I have no D1 experience, and precious little experience at all. But I was struck by the comment from brianxavier about mirroring real life, so I have a few ideas to toss out for your chewing pleasure.

What would be the impact of having some recruits whose potential was unreadable? I would anticipate top schools would shy away from those. But if a fraction of those developed into elite players (a la David Robinson) it could benefit lower prestige squads.

How about if an elite player simply decided to spurn all that money and offers from A+ schools and simply go pro right from high school? Even having that be rare it could still potentially waste a considerable chunk of change - hence leveling the playing field.

Last thought - what about an elite player who simply loves a lesser school/conference so much he will only play there, perhaps for his father/coach? Obviously this could only happen rarely to any particular school/coach - but happens in real life.

Posted by mike1004 on 6/4/2015 10:09:00 AM (view original):
First off let me acknowledge I have no D1 experience, and precious little experience at all. But I was struck by the comment from brianxavier about mirroring real life, so I have a few ideas to toss out for your chewing pleasure.

What would be the impact of having some recruits whose potential was unreadable? I would anticipate top schools would shy away from those. But if a fraction of those developed into elite players (a la David Robinson) it could benefit lower prestige squads.

How about if an elite player simply decided to spurn all that money and offers from A+ schools and simply go pro right from high school? Even having that be rare it could still potentially waste a considerable chunk of change - hence leveling the playing field.

Last thought - what about an elite player who simply loves a lesser school/conference so much he will only play there, perhaps for his father/coach? Obviously this could only happen rarely to any particular school/coach - but happens in real life.

1. You've basically just described internationals, and you are correct, larger schools tend to stay away from these players. Internationals are high risk, high reward.

2. This is no longer possible IRL to go straight from high school into the league, hence the "one and done" rule. I do believe guys can still play professionally overseas, but obviously HD has no such option.

3. This is a fantastic suggestion and while I've never coached DI I feel like this could definitely but something they should consider. At least give it some chance that the kid's childhood favorite is a D2 program close to home or something.


edit: Technically you don't have to go to college to enter the draft; however you must be at least 19 years of age and be at least one year removed from high school.

Gillespie, I'm more successful at low d1 than Stine and tkimble and I proved it...so again what are you talking about?

The problem is that guys like you think there's one right way to play this game and anything edgewise is blasphemy. You guys are the closed minded ones, not me

Posted by colonels19 on 6/4/2015 6:23:00 PM (view original):
Gillespie, I'm more successful at low d1 than Stine and tkimble and I proved it...so again what are you talking about?

The problem is that guys like you think there's one right way to play this game and anything edgewise is blasphemy. You guys are the closed minded ones, not me

thats total BS. i love the big sets, press/man, motion etc, just as much as the next guy - but i also stand up for the bastard children, fastbreak and zone, on a regular basis (keep that in mind, mr. fastbreak is a horrible set nobody should play). there are many ways to skin this cat and i consistently make an effort to bring light to the variety of angles, and promote other ways of doing things, because i think variety is great, and keeps things fresh (my only solo team these last two years has been a zone OR press team - yeah, that's certainly me just following the masses!). its so obvious i am not a stick to the book kind of guy, you are just being obstinate, plain and simple. remember this started with you rejecting the approach of someone else, who had a different approach than you!

the conventional wisdom in this game has long been that recruiting is the most important thing, and game planning isn't that important. there has never been a bigger advocate of game planning than me, and i've promoted team planning as the #1 area of importance in the game, for half a decade. you know, the situation you used to always be in, arguing you against the world - that was me 5 years ago, fighting the idea that the game had devolved into the "coin flip dynasty", just because recruiting gave lots of talent to everyone. i was the one guy arguing against the world that there was still room to separate yourself, through game planning and careful team crafting. the only difference between you and me, is i was right, and you go off the rails down some insane tangent. im sorry you suck at this game and im sorry you are upset that you are wrong, but neither of those things have anything to do with my open mindedness. if you were 20% as open minded as me, we'd never have these disagreements.