Newbie Questions - Hoops Dynasty

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So I am newish to HD, well at least I have been away from it for a while. I was looking in the world I just joined and saw that most of the better teams play either motion or flex offense and man defense. I was just wondering if those were "cookie cutter" successful teams or if other offenses/defenses DO work as well. Obviously I know it depends on talent and what not but like in GD heavy running teams aren't considered as successful as teams that throw it around.

Also could someone just throw me a list of "core" attributes to look for at each position.

Thanks in advance

12/18/2012 11:09 AM

rogelio

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You can win with any style of offense or defense.

On offense, fastbreak is the only oddball. Fastbreak cannot run slowdown tempo, so you'd need to be sure to have a deep (11 or 12 rotation) that has elevated stamina. That said, it can be very effective as, relative to other offenses, you can short LP across the board and still score. The differences between triangle, motion & flex aren't sufficient to choose against a team just because it runs triangle, rather than flex or motion, for instance. Flex is probably best for 3 point bombing, triangle is probably best if you want to have only a few players that will do all of your scoring (and the rest will be role players), while motion is good for balanced teams.

On defense, m2m teams need DEF & ATH, but can short REB. Zone forwards must have REB, ATH & SB, but you might be able to get away with one player that has low DEF in the front & one in the back court (although the team average in the front & backcourt on DEF must remain relatively high to be effective). Fullcourt press must favor ATH & SPD and requires more depth and stamina to be effective (it is good to have REB as well).

Core attributes (taking DEF is a given at all positions):
C - ATH, REB, LP, SB
PF - ATH, REB, LP, SB
SF - ATH, LP, PER, SPD (perhaps either LP or PER and subsitiute BH)
SG - PER, BH, P, SPD
PG - SPD, BH, P, PER

One key is to make sure you have at least one or two players that can score inside and one or two that can score outside. Inside scoring is LP & ATH and outside is PER & SPD.

12/18/2012 11:46 AM

trobone

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i've fun motion, triangle, FB, press, zone and man.

I decided i didn't like FB and press because i just could not recruit for it. I like triangle a lot, and motion. I used to use zone for everything, but once i got better at recruiting i moved to man for fun.

really, the key is having fun, pick one and go for it. if it doesn't work, you can always try again.

12/18/2012 12:23 PM

hookemhorns7

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Thanks for the info guys, I wanted to take over a really good team and just kinda ride coat tails during my learning curve but I took an OK team and will just see what I can do... all the info you provided is helpful and I will take it into account... Is it a bad idea to practice two offense and or defense styles? Also for DII is it still better to dedicate most of my practice time to IND practice instead of TEAM practice (like in GD)... so something like 20 total into team and the rest into ind. or should I leave it at more the 40 total into team and the rest in ind practice?

12/18/2012 12:41 PM

patsrule755

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most of the time I go with 20 in O and 20 in D then the rest in IND. but it's really up too u whatever works for u

12/18/2012 2:51 PM

trobone

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yea, practiving 2 different sets is generally thought of as a waste of practice minutes. you can't run more than one O a game, so no reason to practice more than one O.

team practice is important, IQ of the players makes a difference in HD. I put anywhere from 20-30 minutes per O and D depending on my team.

12/18/2012 3:23 PM

dvgagz

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Posted by trobone on 12/18/2012 3:23:00 PM (view original):
yea, practiving 2 different sets is generally thought of as a waste of practice minutes. you can't run more than one O a game, so no reason to practice more than one O.

team practice is important, IQ of the players makes a difference in HD. I put anywhere from 20-30 minutes per O and D depending on my team.

Sorry, I'm still new to HD but I thought you could run more than one offense? In game planning it looks like you can use different offenses and defenses depending on winning or losing situations. Am I missing something? I'm curious if veteran coaches utilize more than one set and how successful it can be. Thanks.

12/18/2012 7:45 PM

backboy13

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Posted by dvgagz on 12/18/2012 7:45:00 PM (view original):
Posted by trobone on 12/18/2012 3:23:00 PM (view original):
yea, practiving 2 different sets is generally thought of as a waste of practice minutes. you can't run more than one O a game, so no reason to practice more than one O.

team practice is important, IQ of the players makes a difference in HD. I put anywhere from 20-30 minutes per O and D depending on my team.
Sorry, I'm still new to HD but I thought you could run more than one offense? In game planning it looks like you can use different offenses and defenses depending on winning or losing situations. Am I missing something? I'm curious if veteran coaches utilize more than one set and how successful it can be. Thanks.

You can do that at the end of games, but it's a complete waste and nobody does it... You'll want to practice one offense and one defense.

12/18/2012 8:28 PM

rogelio

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The costs outweigh the benefits to practicing more than 1 offensive set. You cannot "surprise" the defense by switching.

It is possible to practice and successfully play a combo defense (press/zone or press/m2m) and even change up end of game settings. However, I would suggest for anyone "new" to the game that it would be better to practice and play only one defensive set as well. The rub gets to be distributing the team practice minutes to make a combo defense work.

My preference would be to practice 25 minutes of O & 25 of D. However, when a guy needs a ton of SH minutes to stay eligible, I tend to take those minutes out of team practice.

12/18/2012 9:14 PM

dcy0827

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Posted by dvgagz on 12/18/2012 7:45:00 PM (view original):
Posted by trobone on 12/18/2012 3:23:00 PM (view original):
yea, practiving 2 different sets is generally thought of as a waste of practice minutes. you can't run more than one O a game, so no reason to practice more than one O.

team practice is important, IQ of the players makes a difference in HD. I put anywhere from 20-30 minutes per O and D depending on my team.
Sorry, I'm still new to HD but I thought you could run more than one offense? In game planning it looks like you can use different offenses and defenses depending on winning or losing situations. Am I missing something? I'm curious if veteran coaches utilize more than one set and how successful it can be. Thanks.

Yes, technically you can run more than one offense, but being that there really is little difference among them, it would be a HUGE waste to devote more than say, zero practice minutes to a second one. Practice minutes are far too valuable to waste on a second offense and my personal opinion is that with the exception of the highest levels of D1, far too valuable to waste on a second defense. Why have two okay defenses when you can have one great one?

12/18/2012 9:45 PM

hookemhorns7

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What about with the Future Stars Scouting? What seems to be an efficient enough use for that? 2 Neighboring states? A populous nearby state and my own state and a couple others? Or do I base it off of recruiting budget?

Seems like when I used to do this I would try to do 2-3 or so neighboring states and my own.

Also are the benefits from the scouting worth the cost?

Thanks again in advance

12/19/2012 8:03 AM

ggallagh

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There are defnitely benefits to using FSS. I would highly recommend using it. FSS gives you a look at the potentials for all the recruits in a state, at an average price of $7-8 per recruit. FSS gets cheaper after signings start, because their are fewer recruits left. Some people will use it early to decide who to recruit as soon as possible. Some people don't even start recruiting until after signings start and can FSS more states for cheaper.

Most people will use ~20-40% of their budget on FSS, but some use a higher percentage of their budget. It probably varies depending on the number of roster spots you have to fill.

There is a benefit to scouting more states, ie if you scout more than 2 states you will get a 10% discount, more than 5 -> 15% discount and more than 8 ->20% discount. As an example, If you know ahead of time that you are definitely going to scout 5 states before signings start, you may as well buy all 5 at the same time and get a 15% discount on each. If you buy them individually, you would pay full price for the 1st state, get a 10% discount for states 2-4 and a 15% discount on the 5th.

As far as deciding what states to scout, that is an individual preference. It is certainly cheaper to recruit locally, so many people advocate scouting states within a 360 mile radius. Other people might include states that are farther away but don't have many D3 schools in them to compete with. Most probably scout some closer and some farther away. I often have an idea of who I might recruit ahead of time, for example, lets say I want a PF/C with decent ath/def and rebounding. I might set initial search parameters for some bare minimums in Ath/Def/Reb, which would be the most important attributes for that player. Then I might look at surrounding states and see: Illinois has 10 guys that meet those bare minimums, Indiana has 2, Colorado has 15 and Michigan has 20. Lets say all 4 states cost roughly $700 to scout. I might decide that Colorado (even though it is farther away) Illinois and Michigan are worth scouting, but the chances of the 2 guys in Indiana having high potentials isn't worth scouting that state.

12/19/2012 10:42 AM

artie40

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Posted by hookemhorns7 on 12/19/2012 8:03:00 AM (view original):
What about with the Future Stars Scouting? What seems to be an efficient enough use for that? 2 Neighboring states? A populous nearby state and my own state and a couple others? Or do I base it off of recruiting budget?

Seems like when I used to do this I would try to do 2-3 or so neighboring states and my own.

Also are the benefits from the scouting worth the cost?

Thanks again in advance

Future Stars Scouting is essential to building up a program. It gives you information on the growth potential of your recruits, as well as giving you daily updates on the school that the recruit is liking more. I can't state this strong enough...using FSS will help you build your program and there is no other comparable tool on the HD website.

I'd like to also re-iterate the previous point about recruiting. How many states you FSS is dependent on your recruiting budget, which is dependent on how many scholarship openings you have. If you have only 1 opening and you're in a big state, you may not be able to afford to FSS any states. If you have 5 openings, you'll be able to FSS a range of states. I like to put 20-30% of my budget towards FSS when I have more openings.

How to choose which states?
I'll go through before buying the FSS and look for potential players with the baseline measurements that I need for my teams within, say, 3-400 miles. Sometimes, you can skip FSS-ing a state if you're looking and don't find much of interest there to begin with, but To give you an example, in my most recent recruiting period, my school is in Kentucky, and I FSS'd Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Out of these, Ohio, Virginia and Illinois have the biggest amount of recruits, but some of their recruits are pretty far away so home visits and campus visits are pricy...while Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana are all pretty close, but have a limited amount of recruits.

12/19/2012 4:02 PM

jsajsa

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You absolutely must use FSS if you hope to succeed at this game. Unless you are at upper DI, the potential of the players you bring in is the backbone of the success of your program. To not use FSS is to recruit blind.

That being said. there is advice above on how much to use on it. I just want to leave you with some guidelinesquestions in determining strategy:

What is available to me:
(a) How many players to I need?
(b) How much money do I have?

Location Location Location:
(a) Where am I recruiting out of?
(b) What is my world like?

The first group is self explanatory. The second group is what makes it impossible for anyone to tell you "you should be spending x on FSS." I have 3 teams, and let me tell you the way I recruit out of Southern Cal in Smith is completely different from how I recruit out of North Carolina in Wooden, which is completely different from how I recruit out of Penn in Crum. Each geographic location presents its different opportunities, strengths, and weakness. That is compounded by the fact that every world is different. Everyone considers the first question but I feel like very few consider the second. In many areas and in many worlds, recruiting far away from campus is extremely easy to do; of course in others, it can be very tough. Pay attention to how crowded your world is in which areas and what people like to do. If your world has 20 coaches that all like to jump right in on cycle 1 on the DIII New York prospects, maybe you want to spend that scouting money somewhere else. Is the DII conference in your state full of crazy people who all undershoot for their level and take guys you might have considered at DIII? I didn't do well managing my money the first couple times with FSS but with practice you start to get the hang of it. Just make sure that you learn something about the world you are in every recruiting season and that will help you grow into a better recruiter and coach. Recruiting isn't done in a vacuum, which is why there is no blanket answer to the question of how much to spend on FSS. Just make sure the answer is more than $0 ;-)

12/19/2012 5:30 PM (edited)

hookemhorns7

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Ok couldn't find this in the FAQ or anywhere. Does the O and D that recruits use in High School affect how they will do/develop in college? Like is there a benefit to recruiting a player who is used to similar tactics or does it even matter?

12/20/2012 10:22 PM

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