My team is among the highest rated in the conference, but we cannot seem to beat any teams that are anywhere close to us in rating.  Anyone who is more successful than me in this game and has the time, please take a look at my team and help me see where I'm going wrong.  I'm about ready to quit on it because it's not worth the money to keep playing if I never see any real improvement.

Too low at athleticism and too low at the defensive stats. Not sure you have enough good rebonders, it would take one more IMO. Offense seems allright.

You are not having that bad a season.

Don't look at overall ratings. Your ratings are good because of ST, DU, and WE.  Like zorzii said Ath and def ratings are to low for DI. Also you're going uptempo in a zone. I was told that is not good, once I started going normal or slowdown with a zone I started doing better.  Also a couple games you are going 3-2 +5 and getting destroyed on the boards or by there post players.  You're post players aren't good enough to go that high +.  Don't be afraid to doubleteam in a zone look at your weakness and your opponents strength. Zone is tough. It took me asking a lot of help to finally figure it out go deep in the NT. BLK is very important in zone. I wouldn't start Dotson. I would play slowdown mostly or normal and that will keep your best players on the floor longer

Agree with most of what the above posters said...
* Overall ratings mean absolutely nothing. Ath/ Def/ Speed/ etc. do. Key areas for key positions matter... Bigs don't need speed as much, I don't care if my guards block shots, etc. 
** +5? I never do that. 

One question for terps- why is it bad to go uptempo in zone? I've almost always run press but started a new d3 team that is zone and I go uptempo all the time because I am deeper and can tire out the other press teams. Just curious. 

Posted by stewdog on 10/23/2015 3:59:00 PM (view original):
Agree with most of what the above posters said...
* Overall ratings mean absolutely nothing. Ath/ Def/ Speed/ etc. do. Key areas for key positions matter... Bigs don't need speed as much, I don't care if my guards block shots, etc. 
** +5? I never do that. 

One question for terps- why is it bad to go uptempo in zone? I've almost always run press but started a new d3 team that is zone and I go uptempo all the time because I am deeper and can tire out the other press teams. Just curious. 

A couple of  coaches through sitemail told me it was counter intuitive. (If that is the right word.) Maybe that was just for my team. I usually only go 9-10 deep and my starters were studs.

I am of course aware that WE/ST/DU are of very limited value in calculating how good a team is.  But just for the sake of argument, my team's combined number in those three is an even 200.  We're a 698.

Bradley, who just beat me like a redheaded stepchild, is an overall rating of 684 with 206 tied up in WE/ST/DU.  So when you account for that, they are actually worse than if you just looked at straight up ratings.

Same thing goes for Missouri State, who I have lost to twice but it was at least close.  Their WE/ST/DU adds up to 210.

I have been going uptempo in those situations because I have been comparing depth of bench.  If I have a deeper bench, I will go uptempo because I figure that both teams will be tired out more and if I have a superior bench, I should win.  If the other team has a deeper bench, I usually go slowdown for the opposite reason.  It seems logical but I suppose I didn't really think much about in-game implications.

Overall ratings mean nothing .. you need specific ratings for specific positions.

Speed for a C is not usually important, Speed in a PG is very important.

Have you read this thread

Posted by sinatra on 10/23/2015 4:34:00 PM (view original):
I am of course aware that WE/ST/DU are of very limited value in calculating how good a team is.  But just for the sake of argument, my team's combined number in those three is an even 200.  We're a 698.

Bradley, who just beat me like a redheaded stepchild, is an overall rating of 684 with 206 tied up in WE/ST/DU.  So when you account for that, they are actually worse than if you just looked at straight up ratings.

Same thing goes for Missouri State, who I have lost to twice but it was at least close.  Their WE/ST/DU adds up to 210.

I have been going uptempo in those situations because I have been comparing depth of bench.  If I have a deeper bench, I will go uptempo because I figure that both teams will be tired out more and if I have a superior bench, I should win.  If the other team has a deeper bench, I usually go slowdown for the opposite reason.  It seems logical but I suppose I didn't really think much about in-game implications.

Looking at overall minus WE/ST/DU is slightly better than just looking at overall, but you still need to look at position specific ratings. 

Bradley rolled you because of the 3-2 +5.  That was straight coaching error.  They do shoot a ton of threes, but they don't do it very well, and while you did hold their three point shooting under their regular average you were -11 on the boards and let them shoot over 80% of twos.

I'd also get Bruno out of the starting lineup ASAP, you don't want a 4th option offensively to be that bad defensively.

Guys like Dotson, Bruno, and Gwinn can seem good but their ath/def is too low to start on your team and expect to win.  They can be decent players coming off the bench(again not the best, but if you do have them they can be decent off the bench if you aren't expecting anything more than a PI or NT 1st round) And like everyone has said you can't look at overall ratings, and you can't just subtract we/sta/dur you really need to look at the overall(ath/def) and most importantly the actual players.  Really losing to bradley isn't a huge shock the only position I would firmly say you were better at was SF, combined that with the error is gameplanning and that's why you lost.