My D2 rupp team UCD is one of the best talent wise overall and in every key category but yet is struggling. I've had a hard time getting consistency in D2. The consistent weakness in all my d3 teams has been rebounding. How important is rebounding for a flex + press team?

Any advice is appreciated.

what do you mean when you say, "best talent wise overall and in every key category" - especially the last part?

it seems to me you are referring to talent and key categories as they pertain to ratings, which is the wrong way to look at players, teams, and the game in general. you have to think, abilities, not ratings. not only is it a less-encumbered way of looking and talking about things, but it better translates to how the engine actually deals with things. the key abilities are offense, defense, rebounding, and guard skills, and you can break some of those down further (offense into 3 point shooting, foul drawing, etc). but really, just looking at the big 4 gets you most of the way there. i think if you look at your team through the lens of abilities, instead of overall ratings and team ratings in a specific rating (like athleticism), you will see why your team is not performing as you are currently thinking they should.

for example, your team bh and pass (going by the bottom line on the team ratings page) looks fine. but if you look at the key players where these things really matter, your pg and to a lesser but substantial extent, your sg, and lesser still but still substantial, your sf - this is actually an area of significant weakness. your starting pg is 73 bh and 48 pass, that is very weak for d2. your starting sg is 59 and 57, also very weak. these things hurt your turnovers and your fg% as a team. the guard skill abilities of your guards are poor, thats a big deal.

look at offense next - ath/spd/lp/per bottom line numbers look fine, yes, but that does not come close to telling the whole story. just looking at your starting lineup (you should take it further), chelsea is a strong scorer - but significantly under utilized at 11ppg. belinski is practically useless on offense. white has great ath/spd which will allow him decent fg%, but with that ft%, hes never going to be that great, hes ok though. lehoux is marginal with 57 ath and 69 lp as his core offensive categories - those are poor - but his spd/per helps him make it to marginal. westlake at 61 ath/62 lp is in a similar boat.

when i look at that lineup, that offense, i absolutely don't think "one of the best talent wise". i think there are some changes you can make - for example, chelsea should be at least in the 20ppg ballpark given the offensive weakness of the rest of the starters. but overall, i think you need to take a fresh look at your team and how you build them, from an ability standpoint. here is a rule of thumb that is extremely useful to coaches, from guys struggling to make the NT, to guys trying to win their 5th national championship. the rule of thumb is, a good player has to have two CLEAR strengths, of the core abilities. for guards, thats off, def, and guard skills. for bigs, off, def, and rebounding. sf is kind of a special case, with 4 core abilities, with reb and bh/pass only being like, "half" core abilities (maybe reb being 3/4ths?). anyway, using that metric, i think you can see most of your guys don't hit the mark. calibrate "clear strength" to whatever your goal is - for a d1 championship hopeful, you might need 90 spd/per/bh to call your guard a clear offensive strength. in d2, trying to make the nt, maybe 75 spd/per is sufficient. im sure you have a decent idea what it takes to be good in each specific area, but if you have questions, feel free to follow up with specific questions, or you can look around at teams around your level and see who is leading them in each area, and what ratings they possess. 

just to be clear, 1 example of each - glenn taylor is a great recruit for you - 64 ath, 80 spd, 89 def - thats a clear strength on defense, no two ways about it. 64 ath, 80 spd, 44 lp, 70 per, 62 bh, b- ft, that is enough to call offense a clear strength as well. 

on the other hand, lehoux is by far your highest overall rated player, but he doesn't meet the bar. with 57 ath and 69 lp, hes not clearly strong on offense - which is fine - if he was on defense and the boards. with 92 rebounding, even with a mediocre 57 ath, rebounding is still a clear strength. but defense, hes got 62 def and 72 sb to go with that 57 ath - definitely not a clear strength.

on rare occasion, this rule can be broken, in 2 cases - but try to use them very sparingly - most coaches are wrong 90% or more of the time, they think a player is a suitable exception (from my experience, with guys i mentor or co-coach with, and usually these guys quickly get to championship level coaching, and still struggle to limit the times they use these exceptions). the first exception that is suitable is by a player who is an extraordinary offensive talent. the most valuable player on the team is your lead scorer (if you use him right, at least, this is almost always true). a guy who scorers 20ppg for you can have such a big impact on your team, you can take someone on raw offensive greatness, as long as they aren't just awful in the other 2 core areas. note this almost always has to be a guard or guardy sf to have such an impact. the second exception is a guy with 1 clear strength and is just below clear strength level in all other areas. sometimes you just have to take guys like that, but don't make a habit of it.

when this rule of thumb takes you to championship contention is when you take abilities one step further - from the player level, to the team level. think about this. if you have 5 players on the court, each with 2 clear strengths, thats 10 total. a great team only need 2 lead scorer types starting, 2 great rebounders, 2 great bh/passers, and can definitely get away with 4 great defenders. as soon as you manage to build a team with all 2 clear strength players, and you line them up right so your pg/sg are the guard skills, your pf/c the rebounders, and you have 2 clear strength scorers and 4 clear strength defenders - you are in title contention. doesn't matter if its d3, d2, or d1. 

i hope this makes some sense, for most people i go through this with, its a complete shift in the way they view this game. we are all trained to look at ratings, we talk about ratings, compare ratings, recruit off ratings - its all wrong! its really the complete opposite of what you should be doing. its all about abilities. ill often ask someone, what don't you like about that player? they will say something like, well, his speed is a little lower than i like at sg. so... what does that mean? is his offense, defense, and guard skills not where you need them to be? a rating tells you nothing, an ability tells you so much. it will take you a few months to shift your approach of the game to the ability view approach, but i guarantee it will help you dramatically, if you take that on.

you really should start taylor and chelsea at pg/sg respectively, and give them most of the distro - that simple change should up your team at laest 5ppg, which is a profound difference. i hope you realize my comments here aren't suggesting your team is bad or anything - but its clear the way you look at them is not how i would look at them, and i think that is the biggest long-term comment i wanted to give. in doing so, i sort of negllected answering your actual question. sorry about that ;) 

your guard rotation is really your biggest problem, in terms of utilizing the talent you have. taylor is the best player on your team, you cant not start him! chelsey is the one elite scorer, for a bottom half NT team - you can't haev him so low scoring! so yeah, that will be huge, taylor startiung helps shore up your guard skills weakness, and give him a lot of scoring too, at least double digits, upwards to 15ppg. chelsea has to be 15-20ppg. the rest of your starters are weak offensively, you really will live and die by your guards here - which is way better than what you are doing now - living and dying by guys who suck on offense ;) its REALLY hard to live on big man offense in d2 anyway, i had plenty of championship d2 teams where almost all my scoring came from the 1-3 - there is nothing wrong with it.

on your backup line, gott needs to play, and he should be a major scorer for you off the bench, at least double digits. his actual stats (not ratings) are not graet, but his IQ sucked to start the year. now he is a solid player, and should be GREAT off the bench. why do you start belinksi? he is so bad, you have 4 guards better, that one really confuses me. what ratings are you viewing as so important to be doing that? it is kind of confusing to me. marsh should be your backup sg (gott has better bh/pass, which you DESPERATELY need at your pg position). belinksi should be your last man who only gets time because you run press. 

at sf, white is a great defender, your press should be netting you good turnovesr with solid ath/spd/def at your guards, and a guy like white. i think its really your offense and bh/pass at the 1-2 that is killing you, so i think if you make these changes i am suggesting, you will see a whole different team come out there. caffey can be your other big scorer off the bench, with gott - that lp/per will be great against the standard backup sf, who usually is not very good. 

your bigs are a significant weakness here. the offense is tolerable - having crap offense is fine - but you really need to focus more on reb and def. in press teams, because at the 3 you should usually be leaning a guard type, for better defense and turnover-creation, you have to nail the rebounding. you have 2 guys who are ok, sloan kind of sucks, and gary is an aberration. don't be afraid to take 1 walkon instead of a guy like gary, he is killing you. use willard as your backup pf, and gary as your backup backup sf and pf. he is really bad. but still - outside of backup pf - you don't have guys who are just awful, who will really hold you back. you have 2 strong scorers on the starting lineup (with my suggestions at guard), and 2 on the backup line - use them hard, and you should have a quality offense here. by putting better bh/pass at the pg spot in particular, it should help your problems there. rebounding will be a weakness but you should be easily able to make the NT with this team, if you properly manage your offense, which is by far the biggest problem in how you currently utilize this group of players.

good luck!

Wow. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this! I need to print it out and read it a couple of times. This is very analytical which is exactly what I need. I can't thank you enough. I learned this game in phases. First I couldn't win more than a few games. Then I figured out how to win but not make the tourney. Now I can make the tourney pretty consistently but can't compete deep into it that consistently. So I'm hoping your advice will help me clear that hurdle.

And to answer your question on belinski, I thought he would be a better scorer which is why I play him more. No question that my depth charts need work. I truly believe I've had good teams in the past but didn't understand who to play where and how much. You have definitely given me a lot to think about. Everything you are saying makes sense but I have to change my way of thinking about players. It's really a fundamental shift for me. I have several teams too so it's going to be a lift but I'm excited about implementing your suggestions. And yes I regret recruiting Gary. Originally I was going to redshirt him as he was agreeable to it but for some reason I did not. Probably a byproduct of having too many teams at one time. Anyway, thank you again

belinski puts up 8.8ppg. You don't think that's better than the 5th best guard? Or is because his BH and passing skills are too low to be effective at D2? That's the only player I'm not totally sure I understand on if you don't mind expanding on that.

And to be clear, if I question you (now or in the future) it's not because I don't agree or want to argue. Rather it is just because I'm seeking to understand. And it's my way of gaining knowledge. So hopefully that's the way you read it. Sometimes posts don't always accurately portray intent. On that same subject... I do think my team sucks. All of them do in my opinion. They're average at best (at least up to today). I hate being just average so I'm willing to learn and certainly don't take offense or am sensitive to that. If I were winning titles, maybe I might be then :)

Posted by kbc167 on 6/29/2014 6:37:00 PM (view original):
belinski puts up 8.8ppg. You don't think that's better than the 5th best guard? Or is because his BH and passing skills are too low to be effective at D2? That's the only player I'm not totally sure I understand on if you don't mind expanding on that.

And to be clear, if I question you (now or in the future) it's not because I don't agree or want to argue. Rather it is just because I'm seeking to understand. And it's my way of gaining knowledge. So hopefully that's the way you read it. Sometimes posts don't always accurately portray intent. On that same subject... I do think my team sucks. All of them do in my opinion. They're average at best (at least up to today). I hate being just average so I'm willing to learn and certainly don't take offense or am sensitive to that. If I were winning titles, maybe I might be then :)

im not sure if this is a totally generic statement, or specific to me... somehow i have gotten the unwanted perception of needing to be right, or not wanting to be disagreed with, or something - which truly, could not be further from the truth. i think i suffer from the text-based message intention loss that you mention (experts say only 7% of communication is the spoken work, with like 30% being tone and the rest non verbal - so its not really a surprise). i guess what happens is i generally relish when someone challenges me on something, to me thats how you learn... so i generally greet that challenge with enthusiasm, trying to lay out why i disagree in detailed fashion (unless i see im wrong right there on the spot, which happens fairly often), so we can quickly get to the root of it. i guess somehow that comes across the opposite of how i really want it to :O so yeah, no offense taken or anything. ill take another look at that dude.

well, i definitely didn't take full notice of his lp and ft skills, which are both a big boost, so i probably under estimated him. lets see how he stacks up. hes clearly behind chelsea, who is the best scorer on the team and probably the most important player you have, and is clearly behind taylor who is better than him in all 3 core areas (off, def, guard skills). i'd also take marsh, that 30 speed and 7 ath is pretty important in a press defense, although the -13 bh and -3 passing hurts. marsh is a decent scorer too, thats a bit of a wash, i guess. i generally prioritize defense in my press teams. im also a little surprised belinksi is being pretty productive for you on offense - even against your tougher competition. his spd/bh are pretty poor but if hes living on 2 pointers, that definitely matters a lot less. maybe he is better than marsh, i would take marsh for the defense generally, but you do need offense on this team, belinski has great ft% too which is really great to have on a non-3pt scoring guard (who still scores enough to make that ft matter). he doesn't draw too many fouls, as you'd expect from his ath/speed, but still.

i think gott is also probably pretty close right now, being young, although he will certainly be better next season, with continued growth. his spd/per can go a long way offensively, and his defense will shore up. right now it is pretty close, i think i'd rather have the 3pt scoring, given that your team isn't really a foul-drawing oriented team, and should be a 3 pt team giving more distro to taylor and chesley. fta are increasing in value the more you get (getting into double bonus earlier, getting opponent in foul trouble, both increase the value of subsequent fouls drawn compared to early fouls drawn), so if you build a team to draw a lot of fouls, that can be great, but on a 3pt team, fouls don't get that boost and generally 3pta are your best bet. 

so, taking a closer look, i think those bottom 3 are all pretty close. you could play belinski at backup sf, he can probably score as much as that other dude, but with better bh/pass, which can help shore up your weakness in that area. i personally value defense in the press too highly to play belinski over marsh, but i don't think doing so would be unreasonable. you can't play belinski or marsh at pg, well, you shouldn't, i should say - so i think its still gott at backup pg, and marsh at backup sg, but it is closer than i initially thought.

great analysis by gil

new and upcoming coaches should read this analysis for what it teaches about how to evaluate players and construct teams

and I need to re-read it to emphasize these truths in my mind

Posted by fd343ny on 6/30/2014 10:11:00 AM (view original):
great analysis by gil

new and upcoming coaches should read this analysis for what it teaches about how to evaluate players and construct teams

and I need to re-read it to emphasize these truths in my mind

no.... you don't get to read it ;) last time i talked to you, you went on to beat me in the championship, lol. so... no soup for you!! 

you gave me EXCELLENT advice indeed!

I agree. Not just new coaches. A lot of seasoned ones don't know any of this too. Thanks again gillispie

gillispie, whats your opinion on my Cal Tech tark team? I "think", based off what you've said that the reason the team fared poorly was because of poor rebounding. I also do not know if I had the right shooters in place. 

Posted by kbc167 on 7/2/2014 11:49:00 PM (view original):
gillispie, whats your opinion on my Cal Tech tark team? I "think", based off what you've said that the reason the team fared poorly was because of poor rebounding. I also do not know if I had the right shooters in place. 

tark just rolled, sorry... even i can't take a swing at that one ;)