Hi, I want to give HD a shot. I played GID for 47 seasons. So a lot of my dynasty building experience comes from that.

Here are the questions I had about HD.

Recruiting:

1) Does 1 AC scout determine a players potential?

2) Then 1 CV visit to turn a recruit green?

3) I read somewhere to do phone calls initially to find out if a recruit is interested in your school, is this necessary?

4) What are some good recruiting areas/states?

5) Around what prestige should I consider battling for a player?

Roster:

6) When you rescind a scholarship from a SIM AI signed player, does it hurt your ability to recruit?

7) I noticed a lot of teams don't carry a SF and SG and opt to just recruit a lot of PG's. Is this because height doesn't matter in this game? 

Offense/Defense formations:

8) Why do most teams only run Man to Man on defense?

9) How do you determine which offense formation to run?

Practice time (or is it called study hall?):

10) Do you only allocate minutes to 1 offense and 1 defense formation?

11) Generally how many minutes do you put into formations?

Think thats it, lol. Thanks to anyone who responds!

1. Scouting trips will give you the potentials of four specific attributes, which are random. You could do one scouting visit and get everything you are looking for, but sometimes you might do 10 and only get some or none of what you need to know. It can be frustrating in that regard.

2. I never really used campus visits at DIII. Search the forums for information regarding pulldowns and drop downs and use this information to recruit. Consider it your bible for recruiting. I believe there is a thread for new coaches re: recruiting somewhere among the recent topics with tons of good information.

3. Definitely. This is covered in the thread I just mentioned.

4/5. Stay within 2-300 miles of your school at DIII. You simply don't generally have the funds to recruit nationally or to battle for recruits. But to answer your question, distance to each school is more important than prestige at DIII.

6. No. But you won't get any extra funds for that open scholarship until the next offseason. Cut more than one or two and your rep will take a hit, but this shouldn't affect recruiting.

7. neither height nor listed position have any effect whatsoever. If you found a PG with great athleticism, defense, rebounding, low post, etc, there's no reason you couldn't play him at PF or C. In other words, pay attention only to the attributes, not the position listed.

8. I prefer the flexibility of M2M. Lots of coaches run press, but press is difficult to recruit for as a new coach. Some coaches have success with zone, too.

9. I basically just picked motion and went with it. When I started in this game, I tried to recreate Kentucky's Dribble Drive Motion Offense with little success.

10. I'd imagine the vast majority of coaches play only one of each. some may differ.

11. I usually have 45 minutes total for team practice - coul dbe 20 offense and 25 defense, could be 25 and 20, or 22/23, etc. I try to keep the IQ's even so I adjust often.


Some unsolicited advice - ATHLETICISM AND DEFENSE ARE CRUCIAL. A lot of new coaches ignore defense and often ath as well. They are so, so important. Speed too. Don't recruit players with WE's below 20. Some coaches may disagree with me on that. At DII, I would say 30-40 minimum and DI even higher.

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 7:49:00 PM (view original):
Hi, I want to give HD a shot. I played GID for 47 seasons. So a lot of my dynasty building experience comes from that.

Here are the questions I had about HD.

Recruiting:

1) Does 1 AC scout determine a players potential?

2) Then 1 CV visit to turn a recruit green?

3) I read somewhere to do phone calls initially to find out if a recruit is interested in your school, is this necessary?

4) What are some good recruiting areas/states?

5) Around what prestige should I consider battling for a player?

Roster:

6) When you rescind a scholarship from a SIM AI signed player, does it hurt your ability to recruit?

7) I noticed a lot of teams don't carry a SF and SG and opt to just recruit a lot of PG's. Is this because height doesn't matter in this game? 

Offense/Defense formations:

8) Why do most teams only run Man to Man on defense?

9) How do you determine which offense formation to run?

Practice time (or is it called study hall?):

10) Do you only allocate minutes to 1 offense and 1 defense formation?

11) Generally how many minutes do you put into formations?

Think thats it, lol. Thanks to anyone who responds!

Recruiting:

1) Does 1 AC scout determine a players potential? It will to some degree. You need more scouting trips to see all potential clearly. You also can scout states to see a rough estimate of what each recruits potential is.

2) Then 1 CV visit to turn a recruit green? Explain green? Been awhile since I've played GID but I don't think what your thinking applies to this game.

3) I read somewhere to do phone calls initially to find out if a recruit is interested in your school, is this necessary? When reaching up to higher end recruits (both your division and the one higher) you can gauge if the recruit will even consider you with a phone call. You may be a back up type school. This means he may become available to recruit later in recruiting.

4) What are some good recruiting areas/states? It varies from season to season. There are a few states that always has good players but generally you can get good recruits that are within 400 miles of your school.

5) Around what prestige should I consider battling for a player? At lower levels you don't usually need to battle but if you really want a recruit then a few things are needed to decide to battle. Having lots of money (more open scholarships), a higher prestige and being closer to the recruit.

Roster:

6) When you rescind a scholarship from a SIM AI signed player, does it hurt your ability to recruit? When taking over a new team you can cut the sim players without a hit. Once you have your players on the team it can hurt your loyalty which helps you land other jobs. 

7) I noticed a lot of teams don't carry a SF and SG and opt to just recruit a lot of PG's. Is this because height doesn't matter in this game? Different teams try different tactics. Height doesn't add anything extra to the game.

Offense/Defense formations:

8) Why do most teams only run Man to Man on defense? Man to Man and Fullcourt press are the favorite ones to run among most coaches. There are several successful teams running zone.

9) How do you determine which offense formation to run? They all are fairly similar. Mostley it's about getting talent on the roster.

Practice time (or is it called study hall?):

10) Do you only allocate minutes to 1 offense and 1 defense formation? Most people do although there are coaches out there mixing a few defenses.

11) Generally how many minutes do you put into formations? I put 25 in an offense and a defense. I think this number may be used by several coaches.


I hope this helps. There is so much more to the game but I hope everyones answers will help you with your start.

I'll try to add a little to the other responses.

Recruiting:

1) Does 1 AC scout determine a players potential? 

Assuming an Ac is the same as a scouting trip...

You see 3-4 attributed with a scouting trip.  But a scouting trip gives you more info than FSS (ask more if you don't know about FSS).  You can learn whether a player's potential is on the low end of high or the high end.  You can also learn a player's high school offense and defense (which you can also learn through coach calls), which give you a heads up on the player's incoming IQ in your off/def.

2) Then 1 CV visit to turn a recruit green?

I assume "green" means "considering."

That's recruit-dependent.  Sometimes 1 CV will get a guy to consider you, sometimes not.  Often 1 CV will be enough if the player is already interested in talking to you, which leads us into the next question.

3) I read somewhere to do phone calls initially to find out if a recruit is interested in your school, is this necessary?

Phone calls let you know whether a player can be recruited through traditional methods (campus visits, home visits), needs to be "pulled down" by using tactics which he can't reject (scouting trips), or isn't interested at all.  Necessary?  No.  Incredibly cheap way to figure out who you should/could recruit?  Yes.

4) What are some good recruiting areas/states?

Depends on the division, but I think Texas is great for D2/D3.  As others have pointed out, recruiting nationally can be difficult at the lower divisions, so choosing a good geographic location is important. 

5) Around what prestige should I consider battling for a player?

Frankly, it doesn't really matter at the lower divisions.  I avoid battles in D2/D3 unless the player is elite or I will win easily.  Prestige simply isn't that important in a battle in D3.  It does, however, allow you to recruit better players with more ease.

Roster:

6) When you rescind a scholarship from a SIM AI signed player, does it hurt your ability to recruit? 

No.

7) I noticed a lot of teams don't carry a SF and SG and opt to just recruit a lot of PG's. Is this because height doesn't matter in this game? 

Height doesn't matter because the height is already factored in to the ratings.  Yeah, yeah, I know it's a little odd, but it doesn't really matter after playing a season or two.  Some guards or good rebounders, some aren't.  Some bigs can shoot 3s, some can't.  Just like real life.

Offense/Defense formations:

8) Why do most teams only run Man to Man on defense?

I don't think that's true in D2/D3.  It's true for D1 because def ratings are higher.  Man is not a particularly effective defense without good ath/def.  It can be hard to find 60+ def ratings in D3 and even in D2, especially while finding adequate other ratings.

I think zone is making a comeback in D3 because def is slightly less important.  I think press is run by a ton of D3 teams because you can recruit for ath/spd/stam and not pay much attention to def (obviously elite teams have def).

9) How do you determine which offense formation to run?

I don't see much of difference between flex/motion/triangle.  There are some minimal difference, and I think the hoops guide breaks it down well.  I would stay away from fastbreak, especially if you're not running press.

Practice time (or is it called study hall?):

10) Do you only allocate minutes to 1 offense and 1 defense formation?

Some people run a combo defense.  I prefer having elite IQs in one off/def.

11) Generally how many minutes do you put into formations?

I put 25 minutes into my off/def.  Sometimes I'll put more in if I have a really young team or less with a really old team.  

Thanks for the replies, what does FSS stand for?

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 9:28:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for the replies, what does FSS stand for?

Future Stars Scouting service.  It gives you all of the potentials for players on a state-by-state basis.  You pay for the state and it shows you the potential for every attribute for every player in that state.  I wrote up an HD helpers guide for GD coaches back during the purge of GD coaches after JConte's lovely update.  I will try to find that and repost here.

Found it.  This is geared towards the recruiting part of the game.

I would add a few things as well targeted at coaches coming over to HD from GD since there are subtle differences in recruiting.

1.  In HD potential is done by attribute whereas in GD it is done as a whole (a recruit is high potential, average potential or low potential).  Understanding potential is key to knowing which players to target in recruiting.  It goes without saying, but the more categories a player is high potential in the better (especially the more "core" categories).  USE FSS TO GET POTENTIALS!

2.  Another coach pointed this out, but high potential is divided into 2 categories: high and high-high.  High-high attributes will improve by 28 points or more.  At the end of this post are the messages that you will get in emails from your AC after scouting trips to help you determine if an attribute is high potential or high-high potential.  Again, use scouting trips to find out if high potential attributes are just high or if they are high-high.  To show what high-high can mean, I have a PG on my D3 team in IBA who is a JR currently.  He started out with a PER rating of 16 but his potential was high-high there.  He is up to 65 halfway through his JR season.  You can't count on all high-high attributes improving that much (most won't), but the point here is to not be scared off of a recruit with a low starting value in a core attribute as long as his potential in that category is at least high and more preferably high-high.

3. In HD the first recruiting cycle is only 2 hours and each cycle after that is 3 hours.  The first cycle runs at 6pm ET.  In GD the first cycle is 24 hours and starts at noon.  It is very important that you make phone calls to the D2 players you are targeting as possible pull downs in the first cycle.  For the ones where you get the backup message, decide which ones you want to target with your scholarships and use the info in the first post in this thread to then execute the pull down.

4.  In HD a scholarhip offer counts as recruiting effort.  In GD it does not.  Offer scholarships as soon as you begin the pull down process for pull downs (once you know you are a backup and the player can be pulled down) and offer scholarships early on for D3 players you are targeting because it will help to get the player to consider you.

5.  Don't listen to anything jbrewman says about pull downs.  He does it the wrong way.

6.  Pull downs can't be done in GD but they can in HD.  Don't over do it the first time you recruit in HD trying to get pull downs for all of your scholarships.  It is too expensive.  I generally suggest only using pull downs for half of your scholarships that first season.  To execute a pulldown is pretty simple (send me a sitemail if you want details...I don't want to clutter this up with those because it can get a bit lengthy).

7. This is not really related to recruiting, but you need to know it when you recruit.  In GD it will not hurt the effectiveness of your practice on player improvement if you take SimAI/walkon type recruits.  In HD IT WILL IF YOU TAKE 2 OR MORE WALKONS.  In GD there aren't really "walkons" just SimAI signed recruits that are crappy.  In HD the Sim will not fill scholarships you leave open but instead your team will take walkons.  Those scholarships are then available to you again the next season.  Due to the negative impact of 2 ore more walkons on player development, try to never take more than 1 walkon because you are slowing down the development off all your players if you do.

Hopefully all of this helps a bit. 

Here are the potentials messages:

High-Highs
Ath
Definitely wasn't the best athlete on the floor - unless I'm an idiot and/or this is the laziest kid ever, we can *dramatically* improve his athleticism.
Spd
if he works hard at it, we could see *massive* improvement here
Reb
Fantastic rebounding instincts - there's no reason to NOT expect HUGE improvement here.
Def
I really think we could see massive improvement by his Senior year.
Sb
he's shown glimpses of raw ability which make me think he just has *tremendous* room for improvement
Lp
skys the limit
Per
I see such solid fundamentals that with enough practice I don't see why he can't be a *significantly* better shooter than he is today
Bh
he has the raw skills to make me think he has *tremendous* upside.
Pass
with more experience I expect to see TREMENDOUS improvement.
Sta
with the right diet and drills, I think we can see a *dramatic* change in his conditioning

Highs
Ath
Good athleticism - I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he could improve substantially if he really works at it.
Spd
with the right diet and conditioning he could be MUCH quicker than he is today
Reb
based on my experience, he can still improve substantially if we work with him and he's willing.
Def
if he's willing to listen, we could really see some major improvement.
Sb
has a LOT of room for growth with the right drills and coaching. / definitely has above average room for growth with the right drills and coaching
Lp
has a LOT of room for growth with the right drills and coaching.
Per
I know this may sound crazy, but I think he has the potential to really improve his shot.
Bh
with the right drills and assuming he's willing to put in the time, I see big upside
Pass
I'd like to see him play more, but still, I really think we could see fairly significant improvement.
Sta
even with that, I think we can really improve upon his conditioning
FT%
the fundamentals look solid, with time and coaching, he could really show some improvement. - i think there is only high potential for FT as i have never seen any other message

nauds, if you have an specific questions feel free to send me sitemails and I will answer them as quickly as I can.

thanks! I will probably be messaging you once I get a team lol. One more question, is there a recruiting tool similar to Yatzr's tool for GID? It exports all the recruits ratings from the recruiting pool and ranks them. Anything like that for HD?

Posted by mduncanhogs on 2/17/2012 9:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 9:28:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for the replies, what does FSS stand for?

Future Stars Scouting service.  It gives you all of the potentials for players on a state-by-state basis.  You pay for the state and it shows you the potential for every attribute for every player in that state.  I wrote up an HD helpers guide for GD coaches back during the purge of GD coaches after JConte's lovely update.  I will try to find that and repost here.

wow, thats really cool. I was one of the coaches "purged" by JConte. As far as FSS goes, do you always use it for the state your school is in?

Recruiting:

1) Does 1 AC scout determine a players potential?  No.  See my answer above for full details.  Every attribute has a different potential.

2) Then 1 CV visit to turn a recruit green?  That will depend on the recruit.  In HD players don't turn "green" but rather they "consider" your school.  Most players in the lower levels will consider you with 1 CV, but it isn't the most effective method of recruiting if you don't already know player potentials (and FSS will only give you "high" "average" or "low" whereas scouting trips can help you find out if attributes are high-high (unfortunately you don't get to pick the 4 attributes each scouting trip will reveal).

3) I read somewhere to do phone calls initially to find out if a recruit is interested in your school, is this necessary?  If you are executing a pull down, then yes, it is.  In GD you can't recruit D2 recruits when you are at D3, but you can in HD.  You simply call the recruit in the first cycle and if he sends you back a message letting you know you are a backup option for him he can be pulled down.  The only way to find that out is in the phone calls.

4) What are some good recruiting areas/states?   It is different at every level.

5) Around what prestige should I consider battling for a player?  NEVER battle for players in D3 until you have a hang for the game.  Ever.

Roster:

6) When you rescind a scholarship from a SIM AI signed player, does it hurt your ability to recruit?  Not really, no.  However, you WILL NOT GET MORE MONEY.  In GD you do, but in HD you don't.

7) I noticed a lot of teams don't carry a SF and SG and opt to just recruit a lot of PG's. Is this because height doesn't matter in this game?  Height doesn't matter, but the teams that do that do it because it doesn't matter what a player's given position is.  If he has the attributes to play PF but he is a SG he can play PF with no penalty.

Offense/Defense formations:

8) Why do most teams only run Man to Man on defense?  It tends to be easier to game plan for your opponent when you run M2M.  Conversely, it is also easier for them to gameplan to exploit your weaknesses too.  A lot of teams like full court press too, but it is harder to recruit for.  Zone is the easiest to recruit for, but it isn't as common.

9) How do you determine which offense formation to run?  I avoid fastbreak (it isn't flexible enough for me) and frankly I think flex, motion and triangle are all about the same if you know what kind of players you need to run them effectively.

Practice time (or is it called study hall?):

10) Do you only allocate minutes to 1 offense and 1 defense formation?  No.  You need about 20 minutes for offense and 20 for defense.  Some coaches will go up to 25 and some as low as 15.

11) Generally how many minutes do you put into formations?  20 in each.

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 9:51:00 PM (view original):
thanks! I will probably be messaging you once I get a team lol. One more question, is there a recruiting tool similar to Yatzr's tool for GID? It exports all the recruits ratings from the recruiting pool and ranks them. Anything like that for HD?

Unfortunately there is not.  At least if there is, I haven't found it.

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 9:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mduncanhogs on 2/17/2012 9:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by nauds3000 on 2/17/2012 9:28:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for the replies, what does FSS stand for?

Future Stars Scouting service.  It gives you all of the potentials for players on a state-by-state basis.  You pay for the state and it shows you the potential for every attribute for every player in that state.  I wrote up an HD helpers guide for GD coaches back during the purge of GD coaches after JConte's lovely update.  I will try to find that and repost here.

wow, thats really cool. I was one of the coaches "purged" by JConte. As far as FSS goes, do you always use it for the state your school is in?

I usually do, yes.  You want to spend your recruiting money wisely, so don't overdo it though.