So I got a freshman that I had to resort to promising a start to. Not something I'm proud of but it got my guy.

Anyways.... I was starting him when we were playing crappy teams, backup against good teams. He sure seemed ok with it because after six games (starting 3, bench 3), his work ethic was increasing.

In game 7, he was scheduled for a backup game. After it, he sent me an angry email and his work ethic went from +2 to -11. Personally I think that's bull, but anyways.... he started as I had planned in game #8. His work ethic did not come back up at all. Is he going to jump back up to where he was pre-email or am I going to have to inch back up one point at a time if I start him every game?

It'll be a jump.  If you start him the next 5 or 6 games he'll e-mail you something about you coming through for him and his work ethic will come back up.  You can probably only bench him another 2 or 3 games this season if you want to make sure he doesn't transfer...

you're going to have to fufill the promise of starting him... breaking promises results in WE loss... doing it halfway doesn't count.

85% starts seems to be the number. start him until he sends you an email telling you he knew he could count on you, and then if the schedule allows, start him a few more before sitting him again. Once the CT starts, all promises are off...

Thanks, guys. It's been about 20 seasons since I last "had" to do this, so when I saw that his WE was going up, I made the apparently silly mistake of believing that he was happy with the way things were going. Stupid me!

Posted by billyho1515 on 4/6/2011 3:45:00 AM (view original):
Thanks, guys. It's been about 20 seasons since I last "had" to do this, so when I saw that his WE was going up, I made the apparently silly mistake of believing that he was happy with the way things were going. Stupid me!

Nothing's changed here, same as always. There are specific periods that the recruits evaluates where he's at vs. the promises you made him. I believe the first is  after game 7 or 8. So until then, he's giving you the benefit of the doubt. Then he looks at what you've down cumulatively compared to your promise. To say that you think it's BS for his we to drop after initially it went up a bit ... well, that's BS. You made a promise. You didn't stick by it. He got ******. Man up.

The drop in WE is not what I think is BS. However, his WE was improving - the tell tale sign in this game that the player is happy with playing time/starts/etc - so I continued on my merry way.

If he had dropped a point or two or even stayed the same, it would have indicated to me that he was not happy and I would have started him more.

His WE was improving because he was trying his best to impress you.  .  Despite warnings from other coaches on the recruiting trail, he signed with you anyway. But, being only 18, he had never encountered deception and deceit to this extent before.   When your true colors were revealed, he became despondent and quit trying...i.e. the WE drop

If you only promised starts and not minutes you can sometimes get by with just not playing him as much but still starting him. Just use targeted min. instead of fatigue so he won't play as many min. and the guys you want out there can play more min. But I must say this doesn't always work they can sometimes want the min. that goes with starting.

brad - that's what I'm going for. Using the average minutes my guys were getting under the fatigue settings and setting them that way.... with this guy only getting 9-13 minutes and starting.

I haven't used targeted minutes in a long time. But it used to be that, if you assigned a starter 4-8 minutes, he'd play 12-15.  They'll usually play a few minutes more than you targeted, probably because the starters play at the end of close games.

if you are going to use target minutes I recommend NOT targeting all 200 - things happen - fouls trouble, etc, and the system will get those guys their minutes no matter how tired they get...leave it room to get the minutes and still have a cushion where it won't be so determined to put or leave kids in that are spent...

Posted by billyho1515 on 4/6/2011 8:40:00 AM (view original):
The drop in WE is not what I think is BS. However, his WE was improving - the tell tale sign in this game that the player is happy with playing time/starts/etc - so I continued on my merry way.

If he had dropped a point or two or even stayed the same, it would have indicated to me that he was not happy and I would have started him more.

I understand that's what you think is BS. But again, the process has operated the same way for years -- the player evaluates whether you're keeping the promise after seven or eight games. I think it's silly and disingenuous to be surprised that the guy is ****** that you're not keeping your promise.

Just a follow up, like you guys said, we hit another "checkpoint" and since he started 3 of the next 4 games (we also had a bye in there), he sent me an email saying he's glad I didn't make him out to be a liar. His WE is still down 2 right now, but he is starting tonight. I hit a stretch of six crappy teams in a row here in a couple nights, so hopefully I can make him happy there.