Posted by seble on 5/17/2012 3:32:00 PM (view original):
As far as recruit generation goes, I still don't believe that the quality of players is the problem. I believe the problem is how recruiting works.
The elite schools have a powerful advantage, due to prestige and money. That could work ok in theory if those elite schools were battling hard for the elite players. The result is that a lot of resources would be spent on those battles, making the second-tier guys vulnerable to the lower level schools.
What has actually happened is that those battles seem to be rare. So the elite schools can lock up those players relatively easily, allowing them to have plenty left over for the second-tier players.
I know there are a lot of people that enjoy the current recruiting system, but I personally think it could be a lot more fun, and a lot less frustrating in general. It's also not very realistic at all. It's essentially an auction system, nothing close to a process of convincing a person to come play at your school. So we're discussing a number of paths that we can take to improve recruiting, ranging from minor tweaks to a complete overhaul. Obviously an overhaul is a major undertaking and we would not take that on without being sure it was the right path.
seble - please carefully consider my response here, as i am very carefully trying to craft it. your post here is EXTREMELY important, and i think this is the most important topic in the game, and your post hits RIGHT at the crux of it all.
you are right, elite schools have a powerful advantage, due to prestige and money. i agree, in theory if those elite schools were battling hard for elite players, a lot of resources would be spent, and it would open things up for lower schools. *THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS AND I AM TOTALLY WITH YOU IN THEORY*.
but the reality is simple. IF you want what you said you want, elite schools to battle, 2 things have to happen.
1) first, there have to be truly elite recruits. that is NOT the case today. there are just way too many exceptional recruits right now. there is NO john wall in this game, and nothing close. why? because there might be 10 or 15 near perfect players at every position. you wonder why people don't in practice battle more? its very simple - its because they don't have to. they can just go grab another recruit who is almost as good. thats why i keep saying, there need to be less recruits at the very top end, and more recruits at the top middle. more recruits that a mid major could potentially get, that are enough worse than the elite recruits to slip through the cracks, that would be good enoguh to compete. they dont need to be 90 in everythng, we need more, 70 ath, 90 spd, 70 def, 30 per, 90 bh, 90 pass guys, instead of all the 95 everything guys, and then some 90 everything guys. you have to have players who are markedly worse, but who can compete, *IF YOU CRAFT A TEAM WELL*. that is the crux of it. you need more bigs who are almost as good at reb/def as the elite bigs, but cant score. you need more bigs who are almost as good scoring wise as the elite bigs, but who arent as good at reb/def. that way, a carefully crafted team of much less sought out players, can compete. that would really help restore mid majors. and by reducing the truly elite recruits, you increase competition for those recruits.
2) regional recruiting makes your theory impossible. regional recruiting has many benefits, which i am sure you are aware of, or else you wouldn't have stuck with it so strongly. here is my proposal - feel free to tweak. make the TOP 5 players at every position, have NO distance component to their home and campus visits. simply put, that would dramatically increase the schools who could compete for them. correspondingly, you need to make those 5 players the elite players, if you will, which is not always the case with recruit generation today (often 2 stars are better than 5 stars)
if you do #1 and #2, then viola - you now have 2 great things. either one is not enough, you need both. first, there are players good enough to make it worth fighting for, and second, there are enough schools who are willing to fight for them, to make battles happen! but if you just did #1 - then in all the non-populated areas, you'd still have a school in texas, a school in colorado, etc - where you just simply take the best recruits, because you are A+, and the next guy is B+ or A-, so if there are 4 elite recruits, you get them all. and youd still have the A+ schools in north carolina trying not to battle each other, *because its in their best interest*. im not saying they are colluding, but there are enough elite recruits, its *clearly* in the best interest of the a+ schools to try to avoid each other, and simply divy up the spoils. REDUCE the elite players, and you can totally turn that around! and by opening up competition for those top 5 recruits, you further increase the chance of battles. there just has to be a big enough difference. and the way to accomplish that is NOT to simply have the same shape players who are worse. you need to make players who can do certain things as well, but who have significant weaknesses, that make them *clearly* not on the same elite level.
there are a lot of other good ideas, that id be happy to discuss, on your point about the auction system. but the above 2 points are SO important, i don't want to water them down at all. to me, there maybe should be 2 phases. 1), fix the auction system. 2), try to design a better system. #2 should involve a long commentary and much communication with the community because its a really abstract question, tons of coaches have ideas, and you will definitely have a better product if you get all the feedback and then try to take the best of it, to design a new system. but #1, fixing the auction system, does not have to be that difficult, really. and it would totally turn around d1. please, i would really, really appreciate it, if you would tell me why specifically you don't think making changes #1 and #2 would work. ive talked about them with a ton of this games most successful coaches and almost all of them think its a good idea. most of the feedback ive gotten that wasn't in support, was from people wanting to go a different direction, i.e. away from auction style. so i really am mostly wondering what you see as a downside, in the auction format. i really want to understand because for years ive been wanting #1 and #2, and any time i hear anything from the site staff that sounds like you guys are getting close, it never has the all-important PAIR of changes. you don't need to do away with regional recruiting. you just need to do away with it for the recruits you are hoping elite schools will battle for. and if there is 1 thing i understand, it is the dynamic of coaches at the high level of competition in this game. i guarantee coaches would battle, like you want them to, if there were 25 elite recruits, all recruited nationally, and then a drop off where you still had good recruits, who could compete, but who were clearly non-elite. the problem today is there are enough elite recruits to build a school COMPLETELY out of elite recruits, and that takes away all the skill and ruins the game. if an a+ school had 5 elite recruits, which would be tough if theres only 25 a year, who are mostly leaving after say 2 years, then coaches who have no elite recruits, but a bunch of good ones, could actually compete! it would do wonderful things for recruiting, for the balance of top-end teams (nobody wants a team where there is no strategy is setting them up - which is the case if every player is 90 in everything! that is why people railed against the coin flip dynasty days, when there were teams full of elite recruits, but the problem is, there still are today!), AND it would do wonders for restoring mid majors. the way to restore mid majors is not to have enough elite recruits for them to get a share - its to make few enough elite recruits that there arent 30 BCS teams who have 8 players better than all but the top couple mid majors!! its to make it so there are players who are SHAPED CORRECTLY, like, a big with 80 ath, 95 reb, 90 def, 90 sb, 30 lp, and low per/bh/pass. like a SG with 80 ath, 95 spd, 60 def, 95 per, 70 bh, 70 passing. those players are *clearly* inferior to the elite recruits. BUT LET ME PLAN A TEAM FULL OF TEN OF THEM, AND I GUARANTEE YOU I CAN MAKE A TEAM WITH THE SYNERGY TO BEAT ALL BUT THE MOST ELITE OF ELITE PROGRAMS. and that is what *HAS* to be possible for mid majors to be viable. that is it, exactly. and, i have to add - team planning (taking imperfect players, and arranging them in a way so they are optimally complementary), is one of the most fun, most enjoyable parts of the games - and that has really been ruined to a large extent, because the good teams are so good, there is not as much room for them to team plan - and for the mid majors, even if yo uteam plan, you have no chance against a team who has 5 starters and 2 backups better at everything, than every player on your team. team planning is flat-out awesome, and needs to return as a key mechanic of distinguishing the ranks of the d1 NT teams. of course, its still a significant factor, but it once was *the biggest factor in the whole game* and that is incredibly exciting and enjoyable. that is why its so important that recruit generation does not simply result in players who are like, 95 in everything, then some who are 90 in everything, then some who are 85 in everything, 80 in everything, as a means for differentiation. recruit generation needs to be smart, and make role players, who are very good in those roles. elite at one thing, and decent at others. some of those exist today, but many have something that they are SO bad at, it makes them unplayable, and the recruit is wasted. having d1 recruits who are 70 ath, 90 spd, 15 def, 80 per, 90 bh, 50 passing, isn't helping anything. nobody can compete with that. i hope that makes sense. you are talking about introducing a way of ranking players by roles - im not sure if you borrowed that from me, but that was my feedback when you suggested doing it by position. well, you need to generate recruits on those same lines. you need to generate pure point guards, pure shooting guards (who still have 60-80 def, bh, pass), pure rebounding/def bigs, pure offensive bigs (who are still decent, you know like a 90 ath, 95 lp, 75 reb, 75 def player would be useful to somebody). so what im saying, is yeah, have 5 point guards who might be 90 ath/spd/def/bh/pass with good per. but then the next tier of PGs needs to be like 90 ath, 70 spd, 80 def, 30 per, 85 bh, 95 passing or something (i posted a different one earlier). and you need bigs who are 65 ath, 95 reb, def, sb, 60 lp (as opposed to 95 ath, 95 reb, def, sb, that is a major difference, especially when the elite bigs often have 50 bh/pass and the top end role player bigs have little to none). also, just taking this one step further - there should also be a step down of role players, for the next tier of schools down. recruits should really progress mostly as role players, but you know, with a handful of flat players (like, a guard with 80 ath/spd/def/per/bh/pass who is great at no role but servicable). but mostly like, the d prestige schools, they need to be recruiting NOT the players like today, guys who are **** and totally flawed in key areas, but instead, maybe their pg is, 50 ath, 85 spd, 65 def, 20 pass, 85 bh, 90 pass. maybe their reb/def big is 70 ath, 85 reb, 85 def, 85 sb, 20 lp. a guy like that can at least play, and not get flattened. we need to stop generating all these bigs with 50 rebounding low or medium potential. they just dont work for anybody, in any role! the lower end schools need guys who have lower ratings - but still have a good shape. guys with bad ratings and bad shape simply have no place in d1. its not fun and its not good for the game.