Say you're taking over a new team and don't have the last seasons stats handy, or most of last years players are gone - anyone have any tips on setting distro at the beginning of the season?

Obviously, player ratings and opponent matchups give you most of the story, but sometimes the guys that are numerically superior (to my eye, at least) underperform, and switching them with the backup player gives better results.

What I do now - for the exhibition games, I set a very rough idea of what I think the best distro will be, but also add just a little more to the bench guys, and make sure everyone gets some decent PT.  I'd gladly lose an exhibition by 50 if it gives me a better plan when the games count.  Also, if I was the coach to set the non-conference schedule and I know I'll have this problem, I'll schedule weaker teams the first game or two to further fine tune (trying to make sure I face each different defense).  IMO, it's better to beat a 250 RPI team and learn more about your lineup than to lose to a good RPI team that would've won regardless of your settings.  You can balance this by scheduling some tougher than usual teams later, but if you're faced with this lineup situation anyway you're probably not thinking about NT seeding until next season.  Lastly, I try to stay open to making significant changes to distro and depth if the results indicate, instead of sticking with what I think "ought to be."

What are some other ideas? Seasons like these are tough to coach, but squeezing out one or two more wins never hurts.

What I like to do is pick my starters and use a 0 for distribution in the exhibition games.

The SIM will pick the distros for those games and I can at least see what it thinks about the team.

You can use that info to help set your initial distros.

Posted by hughesjr on 6/23/2010 11:56:00 AM (view original):
What I like to do is pick my starters and use a 0 for distribution in the exhibition games.

The SIM will pick the distros for those games and I can at least see what it thinks about the team.

You can use that info to help set your initial distros.

I've tried that as well with decent results, although once or twice I've errantly stuck with a player getting too many plays for too many games because the RNG rolled his way for those 2 games.  If one is willing to do that through the first two exhibition games a much clearer pattern emerges, however it's often difficult to cede control of a fresh new team to Simmy for so long.