Your example of U DC should make it pretty clear how important ath/def are. 

Posted by tianyi7886 on 8/24/2012 1:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jsajsa on 8/24/2012 1:31:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tianyi7886 on 8/24/2012 1:28:00 PM (view original):
There is a world of difference between winning with "elite per/sp and ridiculous elite rebounding" and winning with "40 team ath and 40 team def at D3." I'll bet you a pretty nickel his ath/def are pretty good, probably at least in the high 40s. 

Actually, I remember for sure they weren't. ATH may have been low 40s but defense may have been mid 30s. That was his style - until moving up to DII this season I never saw his team defense rating above 40.

I'll only believe it when I see a roster. The relationship between ath/def is pretty strong, which has been brought up in various threads. To have an 8-10 point gap for team average for ath/def is huge. 

I can back jsa up... the ath/def was extremely subpar, but the team was awesomely skilled
low 40s/high 30s in both ath and def

Posted by bhansalid00 on 8/24/2012 1:30:00 PM (view original):
I think the fact that, between all of us, we can think of one case where it MAY have happened, proves the point. Yeah, it's probably theoretically possible to seriously compete for a title with just average ATH and DEF, but you would need to (a) be off-the-charts great at probably 2-3 other ratings, and (b) be really lucky in your matchups in the NT. To me, that's not much of a strategy.

The much, much more straightforward path is to build on a foundation of very good (not necessarily elite, but very good) overall team ATH and DEF, and then layer specialized players on top of that (for example, one guy who's a pure point, 1-2 elite rebounders, a couple of big-time scorers, etc.) I think that was billyg's point as well. It's not that ATH and DEF on their own will make you a contender, and there are many different ways to build a winner on top of an overall ATH/DEF foundation. That's where good team planning, the profile of your nearby recruiting pool, and your own personal preferences come in. But it's almost impossible to build a winner without that foundation.

i generally agree with the whole you can't win with average ath and def theory. but that is essentially saying, who can win with just average defensive abilities? well, who can win with just average offensive abilities? further, who can win with just average rebounding abilities? any are possible, but highly unlikely. obviously rebounding, with killer offense and defense, can probably be pulled off more reasonably that the other two - but its still damn difficult.

it really goes back to the whole law of diminishing returns concept. going from average ratings to good ratings in something can make a world of difference. but taking an area you are already great in, and making you even greater, it often just doesn't have much benefit. give a team with 3 offensive studs a 4th - are they really much better?

and the one thing that the law of diminishing returns LEAST applies to is defense. thats why i've always said, defense wins championships, because its the main area you can keep making better and better, and get the best returns on. that, and defense is really important, obviously.

so, i really don't think its a problem to say, you can't win with average ath/def. even with great spd/blk, your defense will never be more than decent. you can't win with average ath/reb (never will get above decent rebounding), and you can't win with average ath/lp in bigs and spd/per in guards. it just won't happen, and there is nothing wrong with that.

i think the real point is, this doesn't mean there aren't many ways to win. you have to have good offense, defense, and rebounding to win - and that follows simple common sense, if you think about real cbb. and you have to be great in some areas, too. which areas those are, and how you build your strengths, and manage your depth, and all that, results in there being many ways to win. it just so happens that sucking in one of the main categories (off, def, reb) is not one of those ways!

SMy main point in creating this thread was to point out that ATH and DEF are the  most important attributes in HD overall and I guess I've accomplished that.

Having said that, it would be nice to see someone win NTs without decent ratings in those categories, but I don't think it will happen. Those are, as so many have pointed out, very important, which makes the case for my original point.

I'm glad this has turned into such a good discussion - I am learning so much from this.

So what I'm getting is also that REB is important for big men and SPD for guards. Do those always correlate to success as well, or is that just a myth perpetuated by the fact that is what works in real life and perhaps not necessarily in the sim for HD?

and really the only reason ath and def are so important is because they are important for everyone. ath and def aren't the 2 most important stats for most players on your team, IMO. its just that they are both top 5 for probably every player on your team, well, except maybe for scoring guards (depends on the situation, and your opinion, but its debatable i suppose). and what other rating is a top 5 rating for every player on the team? not speed, not reb, not blk, not passing, not per, lp, bh... some would say stamina, if you play certain sets, but i don't think anything else could even get nominated.

Posted by jsajsa on 8/24/2012 1:10:00 PM (view original):
How about WIS save ratings for us? lol

You'd have to ask z3sus if he saved his old team's ratings, it was his squad.

Unfortunately, I did not save my ratings.  My overall ath and def tended to reside in the low to mid 30s most seasons.  If I recall correctly, that championship season included 2 guys with 90ish per and another with 80ish.  I generally tried to have a couple guys with 85+ rebounding and at least 2 more with 75+.  Generally speaking, I would force a ton of turnovers, outrebound most opponents and make a ton of threes.  It definitely wasn't the most effective way to build the team, but it was fun and they could beat anyone on any given night.  In retrospect I should have paid more attention to ath.  I think I could have punted defense and been fine, but trotting out a team of 50/50 ath/speed guys would have turned my team from a perennial darkhorse type team into an actual dynasty.

For what its worth, the last time I saved ratings for this team was at the start of season 48, 2 seasons before my championship.  My overall ath/def was 32/32.  My PG had pe/bh/pa of 91/91/80 my SG had 94/63/85.  I had two 700+ overall SF.  My 4 man rotation of bigs had reb ratings of 92, 89, 86, 73; 3 of them had lp ratings over 80.  This team was bounced in the first round.

If anything, my Johnson State teams are the exception that proves the rule type of team.  The team whos ratings I stated above could be considered to have elite shooting, speed, rebounding, and so forth and was still bounced in the first round.  My championship team was likely better than this, as have been several other teams that didn't do much come NT time.   For what its worth, I spent 33 seasons at DIII between Allen and Crum with teams built exactly like this and only won 2 championships. So while its possible to win it all with terrible ath and def, it takes such ridiculous levels of talent in other areas that it becomes prohibitive.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/26/2012 2:02:00 AM (view original):
Everyone knows that ATH and DEF are the most important attributes in HD, and virtually everyone but you understand that this makes perfect sense.  You don't see a lot of teams winning NTs IRL with crap defense.  Not having "decent ratings" would suggest a below-average defensive team.  Which national champion in recent history would you characterize as below average defensively?

I think your statement should be amended to say "everyone who has coached in the modern version of HD for a long period of time knows ATH and DEF are the most important attributes in HD".

Clearly new coaches, or those who haven't coached for a few years since several aspects in the sim have changed (such as myself) aren't instantly aware of how the sim works or what attributes are the best to look for in players or recruits.

I don't know that "this makes perfect sense" either. The defensive rating is not meant to stand alone as a measure of defense. Even combined with athleticism, that doesn't create a realistic picture of what good defense looks like in real life, so it doesn't "make perfect sense".

There are plenty of teams which are able to do well in the NT and perhaps compete for a championship without amazing defense.

A team that can explode in scoring on any given night can string together a number of games and defeat superior opponents (even ones with good defense), without having to have great defense.

I think what I"m discovering is that the sim is flawed in assigning too much weight to defense (and that specific rating) and perhaps with too much importantce on athleticism as well.

I can handle that and adjust what I do to compensate for it, but I just wanted to see if I was right about that, and it appears I was.

From a pure game-play perspective, I think de-linking ATH and DEF would go a long way towards making the game more interesting.

There are clearly players who are good at one and not the other in real life (Example: Ron Artest is a good defender who is no longer a good athlete, Anthony Randolph is an amazing athlete who is a terrible defender).

So why are they so directly correlated in HD?

Give me one example bistiza of a team that had below-average defense that won a title.  You don't need elite ATH/DEF to win in this game, but it needs to be good.

And what, exactly, are these other ratings that "create a realistic picture of what good defense looks like in real life?"  ATH and DEF would be the two most important ones in my book, with BLK behind those for posts and SPD behind them for guards.  That's about how it works in the sim.  I will actually say that I think BLK plays much too big a role in guard defense, there are just so few guards with decent BLK that nobody notices it.

Posted by stevejones16 on 8/27/2012 7:33:00 PM (view original):
From a pure game-play perspective, I think de-linking ATH and DEF would go a long way towards making the game more interesting.

There are clearly players who are good at one and not the other in real life (Example: Ron Artest is a good defender who is no longer a good athlete, Anthony Randolph is an amazing athlete who is a terrible defender).

So why are they so directly correlated in HD?

i definitely agree with this, breaking apart the ath/def correlation would probably be good for the game in general, and it would definitely spice things up. the only down side of changing recruit generation to make stat generation independent, is it VASTLY increases the effectiveness simple stat attacks (ok, regressions) have. a handful of smart coaches have posted a number of conclusions from regressions on players, with incorrect conclusions (IMO, but im highly confident), due to the dependence in recruit generation. i have thought a lot about making my own sim engine, ive even got half of one written, and still mess with it from time to time... and i really think making sure simple regressions don't "break" the game is important. you can never stop someone from getting the data (well, you can stop some people, or at least i could, but its not the kind of thing you want to spend your time on, and if someone wants it bad enough, they could always gather the data at a human pace, over a period of time, and its damn near impossible to differentiate that from a human, like you can with the rapid fire scraping tools a number of us have written. i haven't scraped game data because i question the legitimacy of such tactics, im not sure where i stand morally on that approach, but i do grab team data for dynasty rankings, and its not hard).

so anyway, i just worry that if you straight randomized all the stats, and belched out the resulting recruits, people would glean too much from simple stat hacks. and i don't know how else to deal with it.

Add in some sort of 'hidden' factor;  call it clutch, whatever you want to call it, but a number that influences everything else to at least some degree that people don't get to straight out know - wouldn't the presence of a factor you don't get to have a number for complicate regression at least somewhat?

 

There would be an underlying number that I'm thinking eventually we could get pretty close to.

?Give me one example bistiza of a team that had below-average defense that won a title.  You don't need elite ATH/DEF to win in this game, but it needs to be good.

I have no idea what teams have won titles or haven't in real life college basketball. But I do know there are many teams which get into the NT and make deep runs without having top notch defense or athleticism. That's usually what they call an upset, and they abound every year, especially early.

And what, exactly, are these other ratings that "create a realistic picture of what good defense looks like in real life?" 

?There is a lot more that goes into good defense than athleticism, and a desire to play defense.  You could take a great athlete and give him desire and he'd be a good but not great defender.

Knowledge is important, especially in positioning and technique.  The fundamentals are the biggest thing no one ever mentions. Yes, the sim has the IQ feature, but I don't think that accurately encompasses things either.

As you mentioned, speed is important, because you can't guard someone you can't keep up with. Strength is also important, although in this sim they roll that into athleticism I guess.

There's also an element I don't think this sim introduces, which is heart or determination to be a defensive "scrapper" by doing things like being the first to dive after loose balls or give the extra effort.

Perhaps work ethic should play a role in defense - the harder worker is a better defender because he is more of a "scrapper".