I've asked alot of good coaches about FCP and they said Ath, Sp, Def, IQ were the keys for FCP.  Is this team setup good for FCP?
http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=3292.

Thank you,

no...at D1 your cores should be averaging 80, 

It's hard to do at a mid-major but they should at least be 75ish, your guards are to slow and your pg's def is way to low.

FCP is tough to do right at D1 because it's difficult to build a team with an ATH/DEF advantage.  All the good teams (like the top 16) have 80/90/90 ATH/SPD/BH.   You end up having it be even at best,

Trenton, i know but I have 4 guys with at least 90 def, and over 80 ath. Shouldn't my def be a little better? Maybe i should go slow down since my backups ratings aren't there yet. I don't know, thought this team would be a little better.

Posted by terps21234 on 7/24/2013 1:48:00 PM (view original):
Trenton, i know but I have 4 guys with at least 90 def, and over 80 ath. Shouldn't my def be a little better? Maybe i should go slow down since my backups ratings aren't there yet. I don't know, thought this team would be a little better.

Never been to d1 but all ur 90 + defenders aren't all playing at the same time. Ur point guard and center have really low defense.

i wouldnt say that your defense is performing that poorly. you are causing your opponents to turn it over 19+ times per game and holding them to 44% from the field (which considering the FCP gives up more "easy" baskets than the other defenses, isnt a horrible percentage). perhaps it would also help if you were able to get your average stamina up into the high 70s, to take advantage of the faster pace/more possessions that the FCP leads to

I'd say that you're actually pretty lucky that Terrones hasn't fouled out more.  That 50 def can be killer, especially at the guard position.

Posted by udm_mike on 7/24/2013 10:06:00 PM (view original):
I'd say that you're actually pretty lucky that Terrones hasn't fouled out more.  That 50 def can be killer, especially at the guard position.

I agree with you mike, I had him coming off the bench earlier, but had no scoring.  I needed him in the lineup as my only legit scorer.  I don't go uptempo, but maybe I should go slowdown.  I think my problem is my scoring, I have no scorers except Terrones.  I got thought with 4 90+ def rating guys my team would be better.  A little disappointed.  AND yes I know my LPguys aren't that good.

It's not just the defense rating. Perimeter defense is influenced by ATH, SPD, and DEF.

The four 90 defense guys are ok, but not great. The other two guards are liabilities an the post defenders are below average as well.

Thanks Trenton.  Well I thought I started to understand DI, but I guess not.  I know I wouldn't be able to compete with BIG 6, but thought was better than most mid majors

I think you're close.   I would say you're a low end PT team.   As a midmajor, I think you realistically get 80/80/80 guards.  It may be hard to have 4 or 5 at one time, but all your wing players should have #'s that max out around there or better.

Posted by terps21234 on 7/24/2013 1:48:00 PM (view original):
Trenton, i know but I have 4 guys with at least 90 def, and over 80 ath. Shouldn't my def be a little better? Maybe i should go slow down since my backups ratings aren't there yet. I don't know, thought this team would be a little better.

heres your problems: 

first, note that your defense from the 1-3 is the only thing keeping your team decent. your ath/def ratings at the 4/5 are really, really bad. if you look at the team stat line, you are holding opponents to a respectable fg% and 3pt% - considering the fga gap. i mean look, you took about 1400 fga to your opponents 1200, thats great! your press is doing its job.

where you are falling down on fg% is largely because your bigs suck bad on defense. but there is more than defense - even though its very important. your team is OK on the boards, ath is a big component where you really struggle but your reb figures at the 4/5 are good. outside of the 4/5, your rebounding is ok, not great. if you want this team to be better, you probably need a bit better rebounding too.

i think the biggest place you fall down, however, is offense. you are running a flex offense with crappy per and and slow guards. spd/per are huge in guard scoring, which dominates flex. but no matter what kind of scoring you had, it would help. your bigs cant score because they are unathletic and their low post isnt good. flex can survive without big offense, but you'd want your bigs to be better def/reb bigs than they are - def/reb oriented bigs (meaning the ath, reb, and def ratings) are incredibly valuable for mid majors. they are way too weak there to also not contribute on offense. so without them, you rely on guards, but your guards are just not good on offense either. you only have 1 guard with more than 70 spd/per - for a d2 flex team, i would consider that a major liability. top of the line d3 flex teams should beat that metric. not trying to be harsh but really, thats a really, really weak flex offense.

so, they way i look at this whole thing is, your defense and the press are the only things bailing you out here. your bh/pass is not very good either, reb is ok, offense is poor. the press is saving this team, IMO, not holding you back. i would really focus on the other aspects of the team as the reasons your team is not doing better. that one guard who can score well, bump him to about 25 ppg and you should see your team get a little better, at least.

hope that helps! really hope that wasnt too harsh, just trying to give you good information so you can build upon this team and make a better one the next time around. good luck!

THANK YOU GILLISPIE1.  That's what I need someone to speak the truth, I can take constructive criticism.  I've asked before how to build or if I recruited well at DI and people just say your team sucks!  Well I can figure that out when I have losing records, duh!!  This has been helpful and not at all harsh.  Also thanks to Trenton, you have been helpful too.  I thought I recruited well last time but just went after Ath, def and leftout Per and Sp.

Posted by terps21234 on 7/25/2013 8:54:00 PM (view original):
THANK YOU GILLISPIE1.  That's what I need someone to speak the truth, I can take constructive criticism.  I've asked before how to build or if I recruited well at DI and people just say your team sucks!  Well I can figure that out when I have losing records, duh!!  This has been helpful and not at all harsh.  Also thanks to Trenton, you have been helpful too.  I thought I recruited well last time but just went after Ath, def and leftout Per and Sp.

no problem, glad i could help. even with no teams i still enjoy spending a little time looking at teams and thinking about this stuff, especially when it benefits someone else :)

as ive said a million other places, the essence of quality team planning (team planning being the way you construct your team) is to find the sweet spot in each of the major categories (offense, defense, rebounding, ball control) where you've gotten the early rewards, which are huge, before diminishing returns really kick in. for example, your first offensive star is invaluable. your second goes really far, too. the third, if the rest of the team sucks, he can still be important, but if you have a bunch of role player 6-9ppg type guys, that 3rd guy is not nearly as good as the 1st or 2nd. by the time you get to a 5th or 6th, you are just wasting talent - better off to use that talent for defense or rebounding or whatever.

the reality, especially for d1 mid majors, is you can't get what you want - you just can only get so much talent. so you have to make do with *just* enough talent to get by in each category. offense is BY FAR the most diminishing returns oriented area - having a few high quality guys vs none gets you so far, those first few offensive players are the biggest impact on your team success, hands-down. defense is a team effort - not exactly, but roughly, the 5 guys contribute equally. on offense, your top guy on the court might do 5x more than the 5th guy. so getting a couple good offensive players is really an absolute necessity. but on the same token, you dont need lots of depth in your offensive talent. having a 4th guy in your starting lineup who can score 12-15ppg is just a waste. so make sure you get just enough offense to be good on offense, and then you really pour it on with defense. defense is the one area where diminishing returns only very softly kick in. so its like, going from 0 good rebounders to 1 is more bang for your buck than 0 good defenders to 1. but going from 3 good defenders (on the court) to 4 is a much, much, MUCH MUCH bigger benefit than going from 3 good scorers (on the court) to 4 - which is almost a complete waste in low d1. same goes for going from 3 good rebounders to 4, or 3 good ball control guys to 4. its not worthless - but the bang for your buck is dramatically better in defense.

so the recipe for success in low d1 is really to get a couple strong scorers, a couple strong rebounders, 1-2 strong ball control guys, and then to focus all other effort on defense. i often say, defense wins championsihps - because at the high end, its the one thing you can keep improving in talent wise while reaping meaningful benefits. at the lower end, defense is really important, too - but remember the opposite almost holds - your first or second star defender get you no where near teh dividends of your first or second star scorer. so you really need to prioritize with that in mind. on pretty much all teams, the reality is the most important guy on the team is your best scorer. but focus on too much scoring, and its worthless - so you really have to keep an eye on the marginal utility for these different abilities (offense, defense, etc - can break it down further than that but its not that important to do so). marginal utility meaning the value of the next guy, like, the 1st good scorer is incredibly valuable, the 2nd is really valuable, the 3rd is decently useful, the 4th is slightly beneficial, the 5th is practically useless (on the court at the same time).