Hello guys, I would like some advice for my team. Whether it is distro, minutes, rotation, etc. I lost my first exhibition game badly against a Sim and am just trying to wrap my head around what is going on. I understand my back court is young.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=13327

Thank you.

First thing I can see right off the bat is you probably should find a better point guard and find someone very quickly.

Also, just about all of your guards are underclassmen, so no matter what advice anyone gives you, you're going to struggle.

For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Posted by thewizard17 on 3/24/2016 2:27:00 PM (view original):
First thing I can see right off the bat is you probably should find a better point guard and find someone very quickly.

Also, just about all of your guards are underclassmen, so no matter what advice anyone gives you, you're going to struggle.

Yeah. Well, I'm new to this team(2nd season). I had 4 senior guards go down the drain.

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

One thing your young guards can do (or will soon be able to do) is shoot 3PT. I would be aggressive in having them take a lot of threes. It might help close the talent gap you're going to face against a lot of opponents, and if teams have to respect the three and go + in their game plan, that'll open up space inside for your two upperclass centers.

Tip for recruiting next cycle - I would try hard to get a JUCO2 guard who knows M2M defense. It'll even out your classes a bit and give you more stability in the backcourt.

Last point: don't get discouraged when you get creamed by your killer non-conf opponents. Just get your young guys lots of playing time and start to figure out their strengths for the future.

Posted by bhansalid00 on 3/24/2016 2:43:00 PM (view original):
One thing your young guards can do (or will soon be able to do) is shoot 3PT. I would be aggressive in having them take a lot of threes. It might help close the talent gap you're going to face against a lot of opponents, and if teams have to respect the three and go + in their game plan, that'll open up space inside for your two upperclass centers.

Tip for recruiting next cycle - I would try hard to get a JUCO2 guard who knows M2M defense. It'll even out your classes a bit and give you more stability in the backcourt.

Last point: don't get discouraged when you get creamed by your killer non-conf opponents. Just get your young guys lots of playing time and start to figure out their strengths for the future.

I appreciate the positive words and tips.

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 3:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Wow. I really appreciate that. I understand completely. I'm semi-new to WIS. How good was my recruiting this season honestly?

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 3:14:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 3:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Wow. I really appreciate that. I understand completely. I'm semi-new to WIS. How good was my recruiting this season honestly?

It's a bit hard to tell without seeing your red/blacks/blues for attributes. Beyond class composition (If I am recruiting 5 players in a class, I am almost always going PG-SG-SF-PF-C so they make a cohesive starting 5), here is what I see.

The good:
You didn't recruit any guys with low work ethic. All of these guys should grow and probably maximize their potential.
Your guards have good speed and good perimeter shooting, especially Nichols & McGraw.

The bad:
Your guards are weak in passing & ball handling. And they are going to struggle defensively in M2M. If you play a fastbreak/press team, your backcourt will get eaten alive. On defense, your guards are either going to get beat to the basket, foul or both. And the low BH/P will keep you from being able to get the ball up the court.

I think you recruited a bunch of SGs. When recruiting a PG in a motion offense & M2M defense, you recruit for Passing/Ballhandling/Speed/Defense in that order. You don't need PER in a motion PG.

Here is a dirty little secret: most blue potential ratings have a rough maximum ceiling of 35-40 points. But PER and LP are the exception -- they have almost no ceiling. If you can find a PG that has excellent P/BH/SP/DEF and a low PER that is blue, grab him. I found a guy once in D3 who was 26 PER, 49 BH, 74 Pass as a freshman. By his senior year, he was 99 PER, 85 BH, 93 PASS.

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 3:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Agree with most of this, especially the future planning for recruiting - but I don't know about the line that "Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating."

D2 guys who come to campus with 80 PAS are unicorns. In Naismith D2 (five games in), there are a total of 5 freshmen in the whole country who even have 70 PAS. And given the choice of, say, a red 65 in PAS or a blue 45, give me the blue 45 - especially for a new coach who's trying to build a program. Getting high-high potentials is a huge advantage - and it only take about a season and a half for that advantage to pay off.

Posted by bhansalid00 on 3/24/2016 3:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 3:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Agree with most of this, especially the future planning for recruiting - but I don't know about the line that "Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating."

D2 guys who come to campus with 80 PAS are unicorns. In Naismith D2 (five games in), there are a total of 5 freshmen in the whole country who even have 70 PAS. And given the choice of, say, a red 65 in PAS or a blue 45, give me the blue 45 - especially for a new coach who's trying to build a program. Getting high-high potentials is a huge advantage - and it only take about a season and a half for that advantage to pay off.

I was engaging in some hyperbole, but what about a red 65 or a blue 25? Even if that blue 25 is high-high, the best you can hope for is 65-70, which is where the other guy is.

Too often, new coaches only look at for the FSS potential color instead of combining the current rating with that color. I know I made that mistake a lot when starting out.

And the only major exception to that is PER/LP because it doesn't seem to have a ceiling if a guy is high/high. If a PF/C has good ATH/REB/DEF/BLK, is low in LP, but is high-high blue in LP, I'll grab him. My stud D3 center was 21 blue high-high in LP as a freshman. He's at 73 now.

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 4:13:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bhansalid00 on 3/24/2016 3:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 3:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mr_Kid on 3/24/2016 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 3/24/2016 2:30:00 PM (view original):
For a motion offense, Nichols & Leedy passer ratings are too low. Passing is the most important attribute in your guards (esp. PG) in a motion offense. I can't see if Nichols is red/black/blue in passing, but he looks more like a SG to me, long term. For right now, I would flip Leedy and Nichols.

You have five young guards on your roster (Leedy, Nichols, Berman, McGraw, Petersen) and none of them have a passer rating over 50. Unless one of those guys is high-high in passing and going to end up at least 75 pass, your offense is never going to run well.

Everyone is HIGH in Passing besides Leedy.

OK, that's nice. But now you are waiting at least 2 seasons for those guys to be good enough to be successful D2 motion PGs. They don't gain those 20-30 points overnight. Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating.

And you need to not let your recruiting classes be determined by who left, but rather what you want your team to look like 3-4 seasons from now. In 3 seasons, you will three senior guards and one junior guard to go with a bunch of young front court players. As long as you keep letting who left dictate your recruiting, you will always have a heavy imbalance between your front court and your back court.

Assuming you have no plans to cut anyone, here is how I would recruit for the next few seasons if I was in your shoes.

Constantly updating a spreadsheet like that and thinking through how recruiting will impact my team several seasons down the line made a MASSIVE difference for me.

Agree with most of this, especially the future planning for recruiting - but I don't know about the line that "Sometimes it is better to find the guy with the red 80 rating instead of the guy with the blue 45 rating."

D2 guys who come to campus with 80 PAS are unicorns. In Naismith D2 (five games in), there are a total of 5 freshmen in the whole country who even have 70 PAS. And given the choice of, say, a red 65 in PAS or a blue 45, give me the blue 45 - especially for a new coach who's trying to build a program. Getting high-high potentials is a huge advantage - and it only take about a season and a half for that advantage to pay off.

I was engaging in some hyperbole, but what about a red 65 or a blue 25? Even if that blue 25 is high-high, the best you can hope for is 65-70, which is where the other guy is.

Too often, new coaches only look at for the FSS potential color instead of combining the current rating with that color. I know I made that mistake a lot when starting out.

And the only major exception to that is PER/LP because it doesn't seem to have a ceiling if a guy is high/high. If a PF/C has good ATH/REB/DEF/BLK, is low in LP, but is high-high blue in LP, I'll grab him. My stud D3 center was 21 blue high-high in LP as a freshman. He's at 73 now.

Grim, I appreciate the words. Every player but 1 has BLUE potential all over the place. That is one thing I emphasize as a newer coach. One major question I have..should I switch to flex? Start practicing on flex and still run motion until next season?? Thoughts????

I think you're getting good recruiting advice. Here are some thoughts for this season:

• Gooden, Kuntz & King are just excellent D2 PF. I'd start all of them!
• For being loaded with PFs, that team has no C (ie. poor rebounding and shotblocking).
• Why not stick Hoard at PG? He's 22 points above the next option in passing. Try it.
• Your problem then is finding an SG that can shoot and defend.

The way I'd go is Hoard, Leedy, King, Gooden & Kuntz (1-5). Nichols would be 1st off the bench at both PG & SG and Stinson the same at PF & C. The remainder just get assigned by fit and minutes for development. Nichols would start, but his defensive rating is far too low for m2m. I hope he's still has a fair bit of Defensive potential or you'll never be able to get more than bench 3pt shots out of him.

That is one hell of a thought....may try it.