I've come to the conclusion that I'm never going to be the best--or, possibly, even very good at all--at the gameplanning side of things. Still, I really enjoy the recruiting process, as well as setting the depth charts, distributing playing time, etc. Given that, I'm trying to figure out how to maximize what I view as my strengths as a WIS coach, while minimizing my weaknesses. I'm thinking that a FB/FCP combo is probably the best combo for a coach like me, given that it eliminates the need to decide on double-teams on the defensive side, as well as the decisions regarding tempo on the offensive side. Am I off-base in my thinking on this?

My humble opinion.
1. Triangle/Zone.
2. FB/Zone.
3. FB/Press - Best chance of maximizing winning. The other 2 are too easy to beat.

Posted by wildcat98 on 10/20/2013 1:46:00 PM (view original):
I've come to the conclusion that I'm never going to be the best--or, possibly, even very good at all--at the gameplanning side of things. Still, I really enjoy the recruiting process, as well as setting the depth charts, distributing playing time, etc. Given that, I'm trying to figure out how to maximize what I view as my strengths as a WIS coach, while minimizing my weaknesses. I'm thinking that a FB/FCP combo is probably the best combo for a coach like me, given that it eliminates the need to decide on double-teams on the defensive side, as well as the decisions regarding tempo on the offensive side. Am I off-base in my thinking on this?

i dont know you well enough to answer this. fb/fcp, in my opinion, is an "expert level" set. i would never recommend it to any new coach nor any coach who wasn't competing near a championship level. this derives from the reality that imitation is the best approach for coaches outside the championship level (and even for many already on that level), and simply put, fb does not play like the other offenses, and surely, fb/fcp does not play like other sets.

there is the upside to FB that distribution wise, there is a lot of flexibility. to ME fb is one of the easiest offenses to play, but as a young coach, it was clearly the worst option for me (i played it at my first school and it took me almost 5 years to get over my grudge against it). if this is something you are already very familiar with, then maybe it is a good option for you, but if not, i would hazard to say its definitely not the way to go.

the question i would ask is, is the intent here to concede that you can't game plan effectively and try to minimize the hit? to me, the best approach to a weakness is to try to improve upon it, which is the exact opposite of what you seem to be asking. 

a couple final thoughts -

with fastbreak, the lack of slowdown makes things HARDER, not easier. yes, it is less to game plan with - but you need to take this weakness into account when you build your team.

with press, you don't have to double team, but never double teaming is not a bad strategy for man/zone teams. i mean, its probably not ideal, but i never could really tell if it helped or not. i generally go with it against high scoring individuals. i don't think you being 100% clueless here puts you at substantial disadvantage to the community.

there is a distinction between "game planning" and "team setup", but many just call it game planning. im not sure which you mean. the act of setting your team up properly in general includes setting distribution, which is easily the most difficult component. picking a defense cannot help you here, although generally, triangle will be slightly more forgiving than other sets. no system requires extensive tweaking in this area regularly, for specific opponents, at least with decently built teams. so, if your only concern is ongoing meddling, there is no favorite.

to me the 2/3 3/2 option of zone is one of the most significant day to day game planning options, so if you really want to avoid that kind of thing, id avoid that.

Thanks for the replies. My main issue is with the game-to-game changes that need to be made. It seems like I construct these really solid teams at Campbell, but am consistently losing in the CT, when it comes down to the "little things" of game-planning: how to beat a slow down team; how to set depth chart matchups, to maximize my advantages and minimize my disadvantages; how deep into the "+" side to go against a team that takes 25% of their FGs from 3 versus one that takes 35% of their FGs from 3; how deep into the "-" side to go for a team that only takes 10-15% of their FGs from 3; when to double-team/when NOT to double-team.

In other words, I suck at GAME DAY game planning. The reason I was thinking FB/FCP is that it minimizes a lot of those decisions that it seems I'm so ****** at making.

 

building a plan for your team (team planning) and successfully implementing that plan is by far the most important part of the game. second comes raw recruiting mechanics (ability to sign raw talent), and third is how to set your team up properly. game planning is fourth. with a 2 minute cursory glance at your team, i can say pretty confidently the kinds of details you discuss as weaknesses on the game planning front are not what is primarily holding you back. you should instead work on building a complete vision for your team, and recruiting more talent. frankly when you go by overall ratings of the team, you are fine, but its the allotment of those ratings that is really holding you back. that means you are in the same boat as 95% of the other coaches in the game :) so don't take this comment too harshly. i just think you are on the wrong track. besides, the more expertly crafted your team is, the less important game to game planning becomes.

Not taking it too harshly at all. I actually felt that I had a nice mix of talent on this Campbell squad, so I'm surprised at your analysis. Where did you identify weaknesses in my team's construction?

BTW, I do think I'll still try and construct a FB/FCP team at Ft Hays, just for the fun of it. I've never tried to do that before.

defensively, your team is kind of weak, and thats the most important thing in my book. your team ath/def itself isnt bad but thats not really the point. its not like they are terrible or anything, but in your position id be shooting at least to expect a NT bid. with that level of expectations, i feel like overall your defense could use some work. none of your bigs are strong defensively (at this point in time, at least), and your guards are all weak except morgan, who is solid but not great. rothman is pretty solid but still, thats definitely lower than i'd want them to be, trying to make the NT.

offensively, its an interesting situation. you play a weak schedule so guys with better lp/per and lower ath/spd are able to compete, which is not generally the case in bigger conferences. not one player on the team is a true scorer, but because of the weak schedule, you actually have a couple guys who are pretty good. so i guess thats alright but i personally cant stand teams who are especially effective against weak teams at the cost of being effective against similarly talented teams. the average bottom half NT team is good enough that your offense would really struggle. playing mostly sims, you don't really see it. i had disagreed with that guy in the other forum about it being a bad strategy to shoot to just make the NT, and from there, to work to build up. thats what people usually do from lower prestige, you sort of have to in this day and age. but once you have prestige up to your level, i do agree with him, you don't want to just be trying to romp on sims. i mean, its fine, but you want to give yourself a good shot at a 2nd round and such so you can get a good BCS job, or if you want to stay, so you can get prestige up. its hard to say your offense is bad when you have that stat line, but against good competition, it definitely is a significant weakness of your team. theres no strong spd/per combo guards or anything similar who i would have any confidence in as a lead scorer on my own teams.

final point on offense, i just made this point in a different thread a few days ago. one of the biggest difficulties for NT teams is translating success against weaker opponents into a strategy against stronger opponents. its kind of dangerous to your growth as a coach to rely on offensive guys like knight, morgan, and martz, to the tune of 15ppg, when those guys can't perform like that when you step foot in a BCS conference. the real thing is, as long as you recognize those guys dont cut it against strong defenses, and if you make it to the BCS, you need more traditional scorers who have strong ath/spd (as applicable) AND other scoring ratings to go with it, then you are probably ok. its just bad if you walk away from this experience expecting guys like that not to get killed in BCS conference type play.

also, rebounding wise, definitely feel like you have a need for some more strength in your bigs. i think you can build a significantly stronger rebounding team on that prestige.

the thing is this - your players are like, a lot of them are decent at a lot of things. that is sort of ok in less competitive areas but its really not the right way to build successful teams, its why your struggling to make the NT on a 735 overall, which in a mid major, is a pretty high rating (you should make the NT with that). the trick to this game is having guys who are more slanted. a guy like francis, his 94 lp is basically useless because he isnt very strong offensively. im sure you could have found a 20 lp big who was better defensively and on the boards. the key is to take guys who have clear strengths and acceptable weaknesses, and combine them strategically. so many of these guys are decent in so many ways, its really holding you back. an equal amount of talent could be much more effective for you, and further, i think you are passing on more talented players who are available to you, to get these well rounded type of guys. being well rounded is really not a good thing unless they are well rounded in the sense that they are amazing at everything :)

how far out do you scout? you might need to scout further, consider more recruits. you can regularly find 70 ath/90 reb/90 def type bigs on a C+. a couple of those guys would really go a long way for you (in fact, thats basically my minimum standard for a big at any d1 school - i mean, you can go below in a given rating, like 70 ath 95 reb 85 def is fine). think about this. its pretty common for me to sign a big on a mid major who is like, 78 ath, 96 reb, 88 def, decent shot blocking, and **** all elsewhere. say he is literally 1 in all other ratings (but work ethic and stamina). what do those weaknesses cost him? the answer is very, very little. hes a great ath/def type big for d1 and hes way better than a 68 ath, 86 reb, 78 def guy, with the same sb, who has 50 each in spd, lp, per, bh, pass. thats a 220 point difference and the lower rated guy is better. you mentioned somewhere about wondering if having low bh/pass would hurt your pf, and no, it wont. you can safely sign bigs who have nothing anywhere except ath/reb/def and sb if you play zone (better to have at least decent sb in all sets). none of those other ratings stop your bigs from being quality defenders or quality rebounders. what else do you need from your bigs? nothing. offense can be nice but only so many players on the team need to be scorers.

one thing that i find interesting, now that i think about it, is your comment about game planning... most likely, im assuming this means you are losing the big games you expect to win. its most likely what i described - the quality of your offense is much lower against better teams, and i dont just mean in the general way where all teams scoring goes down against better defenses. your players offense specifically is the kind that works against bad teams and does not against good teams. it almost guarantees you are going to be the underdog in your big games. 

Thanks for all the help! It's definitely going to influence the way I look at potential recruits going forward at Campbell.

On the BH affecting a PF thing, I think you're remembering my question about whether it would hurt Pak, in regards to playing him at SMALL Forward, which you had suggested would be his best position. I don't put any stock in BH for a PF, unless it was like a 1 or something. And even then, it wouldn't be the deciding factor.

i was referring to your opening post in the other thread - 
My thinking on Pak (who is still blue in Speed, Defense, and Low Post, and still has some upside in Athleticism as well) is that he would be my starting PF. His low BH and Passing worry me some, but I don't know how much that even really matters at PF.

to answer your question over there, no, i dont think strong rebounding at the 3 and 5 makes up for his weak rebounding. it helps somewhat. it is true that with enough rebounding on a team, more doesnt really help much - but that is more like, ok you have great guys at the 4 and 5 (where it really counts), and someone solid at the 3, and now you want to decide between a good reb guard or a guard slightly better elsewhere - that extra bump in rebounding probably isnt going to help you. getting really strong rebounding at the 4 AND 5 gets you most of the way to where a truly elite rebounding team is, where you can neglect at the 1 and 2 and to a lesser but substantial extent, at the 3, without taking much of a hit - allowing you to focus more on other skills. but that 4 spot is really important, its really hard to compensate for that low rebounding there (or at the 5).

BTW, you asked about how far out I scout. I usually don't go much further than 500 miles. My thinking on that is that any player good enough for me to want that's outside of that radius is also going to be wanted by teams closer, and will be too expensive to battle for.

As for Pak, is it your opinion then that there's NO place for a guy like him (about 50 REB) at the PF for a low D1 team? Is he only a perennial backup, even with his elite(ish) athleticism, and relative strength in other areas?

I'm interested to hear that answer as well, Guyo, given what I'm trying to do at Fort Hays State in Tark. I was looking at constructing my team in much the same way as you are.

Posted by wildcat98 on 10/21/2013 12:52:00 PM (view original):
BTW, you asked about how far out I scout. I usually don't go much further than 500 miles. My thinking on that is that any player good enough for me to want that's outside of that radius is also going to be wanted by teams closer, and will be too expensive to battle for.

As for Pak, is it your opinion then that there's NO place for a guy like him (about 50 REB) at the PF for a low D1 team? Is he only a perennial backup, even with his elite(ish) athleticism, and relative strength in other areas?

well, pak is much less of an objection than some other guys on that team. i am not as much against him as some other coaches, hes good defensively and offensively, and that goes a long way. the thing is, with c+ prestige, there are better guys available, so i wouldnt recommend taking him. but i dont think he will kill you, either.

you are incorrect in assuming anyone good enough to want, someone else will want. you also have a lot of prestige over lower end teams, a C+ isnt that bad. there are plenty of quality high potential low starting rating guys you can get with that. plus, a lot of d1 coaches dont really do evals. you find those guys who look mediocre even with their highs but they turn out to have high highs in their 4 most important areas - now its a totally different story! there are too many low rating high potential guys for others to eval them all, there really are pretty many guys out there for you to get into.

Posted by guyo26 on 10/21/2013 12:53:00 PM (view original):

Amazing analysis here (as always) coach, but at the risk of sidetracking the discussion, do you think you still need solid rebounding at the 4 in a FB/FCP set?  I picked up a new D3 team in a different world with the express goal of learning FB/FCP.  Took my lumps this year, which was expected, but I was shooting to try for a smaller lineup.  One traditional C and playing a "good" rebounding SF at the 4 with 3 more traditional PG types.  I've read the board rumors about some successful coaches going very small in that set provided they can really push the attributes needed.

So rambling aside, do you think a very good SPD/DEF/STA/IQ team with 3 (maybe even 4) guards, maybe 1 good rebounding SF and a great rebounding C is giving up too much?  Not talking D1 here, my case is specifically D3, maybe D2.

d2 and d3 are totally different animals than d1. in d2/d3, especially in a fcp set, you can make up for lower rebounding with superior ath/spd/def. fb thrives off the ath/spd too so you can get enough bang to offset the lower rebounding. you still would want at least 40 or 50 at that position - which is TOTALLY different than having 40 or 50 in d1. i personally was happy with a 50 reb guy on a fb/fcp d2 team i briefly coached - but he had significantly better ath/spd/def than most bigs on wildcat's d1 team. so its all about tradeoffs. the reality is, in d1, so many guys have strong ath/def that you can't possibly get that much more than what is available, in those areas, by sacrificing rebounding. and speed doesn't really matter much in the 4, it does some for fcp teams and more for fb teams than other offense teams, so thats why i include it for my team but not really in wildcat's situation. 

so in this case, context is everything. you can absolutely do what you describe in d2/d3. in d1, you can still do it to some extent, but i would say in d2 id be reluctant to play a sf at the 4 who didnt have at least 40 and still thats a stretch, hopefully at least 50 rebounding. that leaves a much smaller rebounding gap (the rating itself) than doing so in d1, and you can build a bigger ath gap, the other significant component of rebounding, in d2/d3, than you can in d1 where baseline ath expectation at the 4 is already pretty high. so in d1, its more like you can tolerate a 60 to 80 rebounder, depending on where you are on the food chain, to get extra in other areas. beyond that, theres really just not enough to pick up over the other players available, to justify such poor rebounding.

Perfect, thank you.  For reference, my D3 SF playing the 4 projects to end at roughly ATH/SPD/REB of 45/68/61.  ATH is a hair low, if I can find better in future classes I will, but I figured he could rebound decently now in a FCP/FB set at D3.