Allen has 9 non Big 6 teams in the top 25. Most of the other worlds that are far along in the season do not have many Non Big 6 teams.

Posted by jpmills3 on 1/16/2017 4:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/16/2017 12:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jpmills3 on 1/16/2017 12:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by chapelhillne on 12/18/2016 1:41:00 PM (view original):
As much as I'd like to win the title in Knight with my Kansas team, I would not mind if BakerBarnett's Memphis team won it all. They are currently ranked #1 and undefeated. I think this is one of the upsides of 3.0 is that a team like that has a legitimate shot. He out recruited me for a guy last year, and his team is championship caliber. St. Joseph's is also in the top 10 and undefeated, and ranked #7.

It was completely doable in 2.0. Marshall had an amazing run in Rupp just a while back. In fact, CUSA was the no. 1 RPI conference for a long time. It is a straight myth that mid majors couldn't compete for titles in 2.0.

THAT is incredibly disingenuous. Could it happen?, yeah, if you were Girt or Billy. For us regular, run of the mill, good owners it was somewhere between incredibly hard and impossible.

In a nut shell, if you were awesome, like best ever level awesome, and had help from 5-6 other regular awesome guys it was totally doable.

Only the Sith speak in absolutes.....

Why do "regular" and "run of the mill" players deserve to win titles anyway?

Why do "regular" and "run of the mill" players deserve to win titles anyway?

Pretty much the most pointedly accurate question I have read in quite a while on these forums. "Regular" and "run of the mill" do not deserve to win titles. Nobody "deserves" anything. Success should be earned.

Maybe I am not conveying my point clearly. Under the old prestige based system in D1, it was nearly impossible to beat the people entrenched at the top. The only way to win was do your time, climb the ladder of programs, hope a high baseline team opened and then become an elite.

Many (a majority?) of owners preferred D2 and D3 because you had a chance. I am a pretty good owner, I know what I am doing, I am a "regular, run of the mill" good owner. I was systematically destroyed in D1, not because the other owners were that much better than me, but because they were a little better and had a tremendous advantage.

Think back to the dominant non D1 coaches, jdno, aejones, emy, maybe I am forgetting a few but I could beat those guys. If I had to guess, my record vs those guys was probably something like 20-50. But I could win. I even beat billy, once. Once. I think, maybe I am making that up.

At D1, I got destroyed. I literally NEVER beat an A+ prestige team. Never. I had solid teams , the best team I built would lose by 15 regularly to the top teams. I had no chance. I had a Rutgers team make it to the S16, two guys were drafted, 90's every where. I lost by 20 to Illinois. I lost by 30 to St. Johns.

I play a lot of games, I am a huge dork that way, and in my opinion all (and that isn't hyperbole) good games have two things in common:

1. There needs to be multiple ways to win, any game where there is only one optimal strategy isn't interesting long
2. You need to have the chance to win, any game where it's impossible (or nearly impossible) to knock off the people who are winning is poor design

D1 under the old system violated both those tenants in my opinion.

To counter, when I was at UNH I faced gillespie's utterly ridiculous Kansas squad (#1 overall seed, only 1 loss on the season) in the first round of the tourney. I won by 8. #16 seed UNH beat Gillespie's #1 seed Kansas. I made a sweet 16 run that year and lost out on the elite 8 on FT's with no time remaining.

As t your points:
1) There are multiple ways to win at this game: recruiting different players for different offense/defense combos. Favoring uptempo vs. slowdown and building teams around it. My 'Nova teams are largely defensive walls that control tempo and force teams to take low percentage shots from the outside. I lost an incredibly close NC game to Illinois two seasons ago where his team was a high flying, three point shooting offensive machine. Two polar opposite approaches, both vying for the title. There are a lot of ways to win, but this gets to your #2 wherein you seem to want Gonzaga to be on a level playing field recruiting with a Kentucky or UConn.

2) In DII and DIII everyone has a chance to win. You can take anyone into dynasty status because it is a completely level playing field pretige wise. DI is not supposed to be like that nor would we want it to be like that. The appeal of DI is getting to a high big 6 school--earning your way up. Mid-majors should have runs every now and then but just like in the real world, Gardiner-Webb's Final Four run didn't turn them into a powerhouse overnight. They went back to being a mid major and the reality that that entails. To win at DI, you need to get yourself into a school with the potential (baseline prestige, locations, conference) to be able to be a yearly contender. If you don't want to go through that and learn to recruit against the big boys then stick with DII and DIII. You seem to get a ton of enjoyment out of having success across a lot of DII and DIII schools. That doesn't mean DI wasn't working as it should have. If I could beat out jbasknight and oldresorter for recruits when Nova was only a B+ and they were literally both A++++++++++, by waiting for opportunities, carefully managing my budget, and being aggressive, then anyone can.

I don't want a level playing field, I want a playing field . I want it to be possible, albeit hard to make vcu, butler, or Cleveland st. A power.

my point about only one way to win was exactly what you did. You have to play your way up just like we both said.

He fact that it took you 30 seasons or 2.5 years is ridiculous in my opinion and bad game design

Doesn't it go back to what jpmills said? It was possible, just really really hard? That is how is should be at DI. You should not be able to build a VCU, Butler, or Cleaveland St into a powerhouse. Just like in the real world. You can make them a contender for a couple seasons, then just like in the real world the coach jumps ship to a higher prestige, Big 6 program for bigger opportunities. It seems like they had that aspect of the game pretty spot on.

Well, you and I desire different things from the game.

I would say Jim Calhoun and Jim boehim were able to build perennial doormats into national contenders though.

Posted by snafu4u on 1/17/2017 5:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jpmills3 on 1/16/2017 4:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/16/2017 12:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jpmills3 on 1/16/2017 12:10:00 PM (view original):

Posted by chapelhillne on 12/18/2016 1:41:00 PM (view original):
As much as I'd like to win the title in Knight with my Kansas team, I would not mind if BakerBarnett's Memphis team won it all. They are currently ranked #1 and undefeated. I think this is one of the upsides of 3.0 is that a team like that has a legitimate shot. He out recruited me for a guy last year, and his team is championship caliber. St. Joseph's is also in the top 10 and undefeated, and ranked #7.

It was completely doable in 2.0. Marshall had an amazing run in Rupp just a while back. In fact, CUSA was the no. 1 RPI conference for a long time. It is a straight myth that mid majors couldn't compete for titles in 2.0.

THAT is incredibly disingenuous. Could it happen?, yeah, if you were Girt or Billy. For us regular, run of the mill, good owners it was somewhere between incredibly hard and impossible.

In a nut shell, if you were awesome, like best ever level awesome, and had help from 5-6 other regular awesome guys it was totally doable.

Only the Sith speak in absolutes.....

Why do "regular" and "run of the mill" players deserve to win titles anyway?

Why do "regular" and "run of the mill" players deserve to win titles anyway?

Pretty much the most pointedly accurate question I have read in quite a while on these forums. "Regular" and "run of the mill" do not deserve to win titles. Nobody "deserves" anything. Success should be earned.

+1

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/17/2017 7:43:00 PM (view original):
Well, you and I desire different things from the game.

I would say Jim Calhoun and Jim boehim were able to build perennial doormats into national contenders though.

Because the Big East was formed and their schools had money behind the programs. UConn wasn't squat until they had the biggest TV contract in the NCAA's courtesy of the Big East. I grew up going to UConn games in the field house, sitting on pullout bleachers. Then the Big East happened and they had money to invest in infrastructure and recruiting efforts. That is when the pipeline of players from Israel and Africa started (and LA, if we are looking at places far from CT). Before that they just recruited regionally.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/17/2017 7:34:00 PM (view original):
He fact that it took you 30 seasons or 2.5 years is ridiculous in my opinion and bad game design

I just explained this to Mike for a second time in another thread but it didn't take me 30 years to "be successful". Like you I was enjoying what I was getting out of the game. I loved the challenge of coaching UNH in the Patriot because there were some great coaches there and it was competitive and fun (Emy for one--always a challenge!). Then I discovered one of my conference mates (my main rival) was cheating--using two ID's in the same conference (he accidentally answered a question on the wrong ID, then told us the truth when he was called out). This really ****** me off, so I left UNH and took the next step looking for a new challenge.

I took over Villanova at a C+ prestige. By my 7th season at Nova I made the tourney. I have not missed a NT since then (18 consecutive). In that time I have made 6 Sweet 16's, 6 Elite Eights, 3 Final Fours, and 1 Championship Game and had 23 players drafted. Certainly a record that pales in comparison to the elite coaches out there but not terrible.

TL:DR - I was happy where I was at a mid major till a cheating conference mate made me want to leave, so I did and became "successful" at a Big 6 school in a stacked conference by my 7th season.

LOL. I quit when a conference mate was caught cheating too.

It's not like uconn was power the first 8 or so years before Calhoun. They were a bottom division big east team until him. A good coach turned from butler to ucla

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/17/2017 8:00:00 PM (view original):
LOL. I quit when a conference mate was caught cheating too.

If one of the support guys wanted to he would be welcome to go back and pull up the coaches corner for Tark, Patriot league around season 96-97. There is a [electronic] paper trail that verifies everything.

Posted by dadbod on 1/17/2017 8:02:00 PM (view original):
It's not like uconn was power the first 8 or so years before Calhoun. They were a bottom division big east team until him. A good coach turned from butler to ucla

I agree completely that it took them a while to get it going, but it was because of the new found revenue and power conference status that Calhoun had at his disposal that he was able to put his plan into action. He could not have done the same thing at Northeastern (he tried).

And as a lifelong, diehard UConn fan I appreciate the comparison to UCLA but I think we still have a ways to go to reach that level. We came late to the game, so while in the modern era we have been one of the most successful programs out there, we still never had the sustained dynasty levels enjoyed by UCLA and Kentucky back in the day.

We are still better than Duke though.
Because 1999 championship.
And because Duck Fuke.
And because their coach looks like a weasel.
And because Grayson is a little spoiled dirty cheat fartknocker.