I'm pretty happy with the improvement so far.  True FR Jay Bird  has gained a team high 33 points through 11 games.  He has turned avg in Ath, so he will max around 65 there..but his other High potentials are still blue.  His Reb, Def, and LP will be outstanding.  Only +2 WE so far is underwhelming, but he's averaging less than 15 mpg with his 59 ST.

Several others have gained in the mid-20s so far.  I'm very happy to see Travis Fuson gaining 11 points already in Per and still showing High.  He'll be the primary scorer next season when Tolley is gone.  Allen Woods is quickly becoming a scoring threat, now at 42 Per and still High.  Adding a 60+ Per to his disgusting Ath/Spd should play really well.  Roy Black has gained 9 in LP up to 46 and is still High..he's just an amazing bench player to have around and really deserves to be starting.

Game 12:  #7 J&W (9-2, RPI 7) at Emmanuel (5-7, RPI 29), line J&W by 12

Well I screwed this one up, but fortunately it worked out anyway.  I looked at the gameplan last night, but with the day off I forgot to change my lineup back from the previous game.  So we started a very young lineup against a pretty good Emmanuel team.  They were 5-7 coming in, but had played a very tough schedule and lost some close games. 

I noticed there was a big difference in defense between their PG and SG (and they play M2M), so I gave Tolley a little more distro than normal and took Fuson's way down.  And of course it seemed to make zero difference as they both took about the same number of shots they've been taking.  +1 for gameplanning mattering.

I knew Emmanuel would take almost no 3's, so my only question was whether to play -2 or -3.  I stuck with -2, but I think that's a debatable decision.  I mean if I knew for a fact that they would only shoot 1/4 on 3s, then should I play -3? -4? -5?  I worry about creating foul problems the further I go with it, so I tend to stay away from the bigger numbers unless I think it's needed.

The game was very competitive in the 1st half, with Emmanuel's Johnson and Seda taking advantage of my FR frontcourt.  We eventually pulled away in the 2nd half for the 65-52 win behind Tolley's efficient 26 points.  Emmanuel hurt themselves too much with 16 TOs (running slowdown) and only 15/26 at the FT line.

Big win for JW, especially considering my lineup mistake, as Emmanuel is nearly always in the race for the division title in the GNE.  Up tonight is a team having a similar season to Emmanuel, St Joe's.  They're 7-6, but with a 13 RPI and 1 SOS.  I will probably experiment with the lineup some more now after how this game went.

" I knew Emmanuel would take almost no 3's, so my only question was whether to play -2 or -3.  I stuck with -2, but I think that's a debatable decision.  I mean if I knew for a fact that they would only shoot 1/4 on 3s, then should I play -3? -4? -5?  I worry about creating foul problems the further I go with it, so I tend to stay away from the bigger numbers unless I think it's needed. "

This is the way I think about it too, and like you, I'm not 100% sure that's the best way to go.  I will play -3 if I think I need to (if the team is very good or has a rebounding edge on us or something), but I pretty much never go -4 or -5.  Haven't tried to crunch any numbers regarding how much these create extra fouling, but I would be interested.  Other things (like the opposing team's speed) are probably relevant here too.

Game 12?  Getting a little behind, aren't you?

Yeah I guess I got busy and a little tired of updating every day.  I haven't really been doing much anyway in terms of gameplanning.  The big thing is I've used lots of different lineups to get everyone a start here and there and more minutes.  I think that really helps to maximize improvement.  Plus that makes it way less obvious to future opponents what lineup I might use on a given night (mainly thinking of the NT when I say that). 

I've been spreading out the distro a little more recently instead of having Tolley take all the shots.  Fuson is 86 Per now and more than capable of scoring.  Black is really becoming a beast at 55 LP and still High.  Allen Woods is at 50 Per and still High..it makes me drool a little thinking about that Ath/Spd with 70+ Per.  Jay Bird is up 12 in Reb to 69 and still High..he'll turn into the dominant rebounder I was hoping to get when I signed him. 

writing these things up everyday is hard! But a great job and interesting reading!

I was thinking I should dust off this thread now that the NT is starting.  I feel pretty good about how J&W is playing right now, and I think we have lots of different lineup options depending on the matchups.

The 1st round matchup is a simmy with 29 team Ath and 30 Def.  So I'm not too worried about this one.  They shoot a ton of 3s and I think I'll probably just let them continue to do so. 

1st round NT:  1-seed Johnson & Wales vs. 16-seed Plattsburg St. (Sim AI), line J&W by 37

As I said yesterday, this team chucks up a ton of 3s, averaging 23 attempts per game with a 3pt% in the .380s.  But after looking at their ratings, I was happy to just play -1 and let them bomb away from deep.  Jim Lei had a real good season, averaging 18+ on close to 50% on 3s..but embattled SR Marc Tolley  has shut down far better players than Lei.  He scored 11 points on 4/13 (3/9 from 3).  The rest of the team combined for 1/14 from deep, with Alex Calaway leading the charge off the bench and shooting 1/7 (1/5).  Players like that can shoot 3's against me on every possession as far as I'm concerned.  J&W cruised to the 87-56 win, disappointing only those who laid the 37 points with Vegas.

I used a pretty vanilla game plan offensively, with Douglas Redwine getting his 2nd start of the season at PF.  Facing a 2-3 Zone (and it had to be 0 positioning because of the simmy coach), I knew Tolley and Fuson would have a field day from 3pt range.  We made 14/30 from deep, both season highs.  The 2-time GNE defensive POY Allen Woods filled up the stat sheet with 2 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast, and 4 stl. 

So the Wildcats move on to the 2nd round to face Whitworth and coach tim_buggie out of the Northwest conference.  They won a 74-71 OT thriller over Kalamazoo in the 1st round.  This will be the first game all season where they face a team with an RPI better than their current 33.  At a glance, I'm impressed with the 5th year SR PG and the SR SF, both are very good players.  But I do think we can exploit the M2M defense with low 40s team Ath and Def, and I think they'll struggle to find points against Allen Woods and company.

2nd round NT:  1-Johnson & Wales vs. 9-Whitworth, line J&W by 19

With no LP or Per over 70, I didn't really expect Whitworth to be able to score much on this defense, and I just played a -2 and dared them to shoot.  Well they looked much better offensively than I expected, shooting 47% overall and 7/14 on 3s.  SR PG Antonio Weiler and his dubious 666 OVR rating led the way with 13 points.  What really surprised me was the contribution of Landrum, Daily, Swift, Love, and McCleary.  None of those guys even remotely scare me offensively and they combined for 35 points on an efficient 12/20 shooting.  Love even drained a 3 with his 13 Per!

Fortunately for the Wildcats, we were shooting even better, 56% overall and 11/20 on 3s.  We jumped out 36-24 at the half and held the margin pretty steady in the 2nd for the 76-62 win.  Tolley had a game-high 24 points, all from downtown.  TOs were a huge factor as the 20 from Whitworth led to 28 POT.  I was surprised how badly we were beaten on the glass, 32 (12 off) to 24 (6 off), but actually it wasn't a big factor.  Whitworth only converted 3 SCP to J&W's 11.

Up next in the Sweet 16 is the 4-seed Sewanee and 5th year coach madpad78.  Coming off a 10 point win over 5-seed Whittier, Sewanee absolutely lives at the FT line.  They shot 40/47 at the stripe in the most recent game, and it was the 6th time this season they've attempted 40+ FTs.  I'll go out on a limb and say that if they attempt 40+ against us, we will not be advancing.

They have a few impressive wins on the resume, including handing Millsaps their only blemish of the season in 3OT.  They also narrowly lost to Wentworth Tech, a team who beat us handily in non-conf play.  The frontcourt looks relatively young and would be something I'd attack if J&W had a dominant LP scorer (we do not).  But the guards really make up for that with excellent Ath/Spd/Def and enough Per to keep teams honest.  Todd Brown and Gary Shaw make a terrific starting guard combo and would be welcome on any D3 team.  They shot a combined 24/27 at the FT line against Whittier!

Please post tonight's game plan here.  Not that I think knowing would help me a lot. 

Sweet 16 NT:  1-Johnson & Wales vs. 4-Sewanee, J&W by 10

JDub continued our hot shooting with a 53% effort that included 10/20 from deep.  Tolley and Fuson combined for a very efficient 31 points and the Wildcats stayed out of foul trouble.  Sewanee shot reasonably well, 47% overall and 6/17 on 3s.  Brown held his own against Tolley, scoring 14 points.  The game was very competitive throughout the first half, but J&W seized control with a 14-0 run after Sewanee pulled to within 35-32 early in the 2nd half.  Another 13-0 run later on gave J&W a 64-42 lead that we would not relinquish.

I decided to shake up the lineup a little bit by starting super reserve Roy Black at SF and defensive stalwart Ricky Persaud at PF.  I liked the matchup of Black against James Evelyn and expected him to score 15+ fairly easily.  Black ended up only scoring 8 and took a disappointingly low number of shots, but he contributed 6 ast, 3 reb, and 1 stl while Tolley and Fuson did the heavy lifting.

Posted by carl3298 on 10/12/2012 11:49:00 AM (view original):
Please post tonight's game plan here.  Not that I think knowing would help me a lot. 

Up next is carl3298's 2nd seeded 32-0 Defiance squad, fresh off an impressive 89-77 win over the 3-seed Wentworth Tech.  Clearly SR center Joe Bowman  is a focal point, as he averages 18ppg on a ridiculous 62.4% shooting.  The team overall is shooting 54% on the season, and 45% from deep.  Those are the kind of numbers that it takes to beat defense like JDub's. 

I do think we match up well against zone teams, with our best scorers being guards, but Defiance has a pretty stout top of the zone with Edward Lundstrom and Barry Fields.

Great season spas.  I am simply stunned.