Hi folks.
First, this isn't a whine thread. I've got a rather young Valdosta St. team in Knight. Even though we're young, I had NT aspirations. We just missed the big dance, and perhaps its a little late to ask for assistance, but I am hoping that a few experienced coaches might take a look and see what I might have done differently/what I might do to maximize my chances of winning the PIT. We're coming off a nice string of NT appearances and only 4 seasons removed from back-to-back championship games, so right now we have an A+ prestige, and I'd like to maintain as much of that as I can.

A couple of my thoughts - we went uptempo (I've traditionally done so - I like to generate FTAs, and uptempo means more possessions means more chances to get fouled - its worked in the past, but youth may have made it a bad idea). Another thought - my big successes came with the new engine. I had back-to-back championship games in 2 different worlds with athletic, speedy players that had good ball-handling but less than stellar lp and per.  Did the semi-recent changes to shooting or something make it so those types of players aren't as successful anymore?

If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it. Thanks

How the hell do you have two non-redshirt freshmen knocking on 600 overall?  From the same class?  Nice.

Your problems appear to be Turnovers(You had more than your opponents) and Three shooting(Under 30%)

-Predictability: You had no outside shooters to make teams pay for sagging in the lane. You and I have talked a lot so I obviously understand your strategy and that's fine, but you need to be more multi-faceted to at least have an answer for smart coaches who will sag on you. Just looking at your last several losses vs. fcp -4; 2-3 -2; fcp -4; m2m -2; fcp -4; m2m -3; m2m -2). You made the blueprint for beating you amazingly clear. You look to be in a conference with some good coaches, and they will be smart enough to expose you.

-Strategy: Again, I understand your base strategy, but I think you adhere to it far too rigidly. The uptempo that you cited yourself is a good example. There's no need for you to have played uptempo with this young team. I firmly believe that the most successful coaches in HD tailor their strategies season-to-season to take advantage of strengths/weaknesses, and I don't see that here.

You can't keep using the same exact strategy with different teams that have different strengths and are at different points in their development vs. different teams in a different engine. Too rigid.

I agree girt, I didn't go entirely uptempo this season, but I probably went with it too much. I'm also trying to add some outside shooting to my lineup, but it is still young. I guess I am probably on the right track... but I am concerned that maybe my ath/spd/bh guys can't cut it anymore... 

That may be an aspect, too ... imo that belongs under the "too rigid" headline. I think you need to expand your horizons when it comes to not just gameplanning, but recruiting/team building as well.

Quick look suggests your distro is set up wrong as well. I know Miler has sick ath/spd combo, but he's shooting .421 on the season and .333 beyond the arc. I would have dropped his distro a little and upped Sunderland's distro. 

Posted by tianyi7886 on 6/14/2011 8:58:00 PM (view original):
Quick look suggests your distro is set up wrong as well. I know Miler has sick ath/spd combo, but he's shooting .421 on the season and .333 beyond the arc. I would have dropped his distro a little and upped Sunderland's distro. 

I adjusted distro on a (almost) per game basis, adjusting upward for advantages in spd or to exploit weaker defenders - at least in theory.

ETA: I might also have considered dropping his 3 pt setting, but like girt mentioned (and I painfully realized at some point when I took a look at my team early on) there's no per. Miler is the only one who can make any threes at all it seems. I tried giving Rutledge a few chances, but he's a freshman, and his IQ must have made him inept. I expect to be a much better team next season and thereafter, but I suspect there are things this season I did wrong besides recruiting. Even given Miler's ath/spd combo I may have over used him though, although I figured his weak 3pt % was dragging down his overall effectiveness, but I was afraid to eschew any attempts at perimeter scoring, and figured even a less than totally efficient Miler might make the overall team performance better...but I may have been wrong...

I would have set Miler to -2 and load up his distro to something like 20-25. He's going to draw alot of fouls with that ath/spd and be a more effective scorer (not to mention lowering your opponents efficiency should Miler foul out a player or 2). Your team is lacking in 3 but I don't think letting Miler shoot 3 was the right move.

There are also some tempo problems as mentioned earlier. With a FR heavy team, I prefer to run slowdown as often as possible and to load up my starter's min, maybe even set them to getting tired on the depth chart. The first loss in out of conf, your team hit a fatigue wall in the 2nd half. I would never run uptempo, unless my starters are 80+.

But having said that, against horrendous teams, even with a FR heavy team, I think slowdown is bad. It drags down the game too much and reduces the game to about 35-40 possessions per side. With such a small sample size, you are more likely to get upset. Specifically, I'm referring to your loss to the 3 win team.

With tempo, you need to be flexible. And imo, "fairly fresh" for everyone on the depth chart is not always the best idea.

I use a mix of FF and GT. The slowdown thing was a knee-jerk reaction after seeing the fatigue issues plague us in the 2nd half a few times...I deserved to have it bite me against Rockhurst... thanks folks, this didn't really give me anything I wasn't thinking, but it did reinforce some things for me. Appreciate your help. 

"And imo, "fairly fresh" for everyone on the depth chart is not always the best idea." 

This.  Some coaches are insanely rigid about fatigue settings.  Each roster is different and each player can do things others can't.  Even if my team is deep I will, at times, set my starters to "getting tired."  It all depends on the teams in the particular game involved.