One of the things I would like to see addressed by WIS is the way that a team can take on 3 or 4 walk ons and be successful at a high level.  This is nothing against the coaches that use this strategy. I just think that if a real life coach was taking on 4 walk ons, the team would not be very good at all, and they would probably be fired. In Phelan, I had a very strong and deep pressing team in Colorado. We lost to Kentucky, which had 3 walk ons, in the final 4. Someone mentioned that Michigan State won it all with 4 walk-ons. I also lost a game today with my pressing Kentucky team to a team that has 4 walk ons, even though I played at a fast pace.

It seems like it has gotten more prevalent recently. I am going to switch over a couple of my pressing teams to man to man, because it's hard for me to compete in recruiting when I start with 2-3 less recruits than the teams in my area because they always have so many walk-ons.

These teams are also more likely to have a lot of money right before signings which they can use to go after a player at the last second, since they only need to recruit up to 8-9 players. If there was a walk on limit, these teams might recruit through the whole recruiting period, in order to fill their rosters.

Mainly though, I would like to see HD be as realistic as possible, and this is one of those areas that does not seem "right".

The solution - maybe make stamina more crucial, or increase injuries. Something to make teams need at least 11 - 12 players to have a top team. Maybe if you recruit less than 11, your assistant signs the best available player to a 4 year scholarship.

I agree with you that most teams play mostly with 8 or 9. I guess part of my main gripe is that they don't have more recruiting money than teams that have more depth. Although, obviously the scholarship money probably does not mirror real life in any way.  It does definitely put teams that press at a big disadvantage in recruiting, which is why I am changing a couple of the teams that are in more difficult recruiting areas to Man to Man.

Since it's realism that everyone wants, tell me how many colleges run a FCP in the real world? Now tell me how many run it in HD......

There are pros and cons to each defense. This is one of the cons to running a FCP. Gonna have to accept that or, as you said, simply switch defenses. If you ask me, I think the FCP is still too strong.

What if that 3 walk-on team had an average stamina (of those 9 players) of 82 and played slowdown? Don't you think they would be able to keep up?

This seems like an issue exclusive to D1.  I don't see the same thing happening as much at D2/D3.  Perhaps the players are just so much worse at D2/D3 that it doesn't work as well to live with a short bench.

I think that's probably what happened Stine. I was still surprised though at the outcome because we had such a strong team. It's definitely made me consider the switch, especially at Colorado with the lack of talent this year in the region to pick from. That alone would probably have forced me to change my thinking. I can't seem to get past the final 4 with pressing teams, although maybe that's just my coaching ability.

Posted by emy1013 on 1/16/2015 3:50:00 PM (view original):
Since it's realism that everyone wants, tell me how many colleges run a FCP in the real world? Now tell me how many run it in HD......

There are pros and cons to each defense. This is one of the cons to running a FCP. Gonna have to accept that or, as you said, simply switch defenses. If you ask me, I think the FCP is still too strong.

We could also talk about minutes, majority of teams their best players easily play 28-32 minutes if the player is good.

Currently 65 D1 players avg. over 35 mpg.  Heck American has 3 players over 39 mpg.

of the top 250 players for mpg according to ncaa the lowest avg is 32 mpg.

looking at more reputable teams.  you usually see 2-4 players over 30 minutes and then the rotation anywhere from 15-25 minutes.

Good point. In HD, it is hard to get a player that many minutes without them getting tired. Mainly, I'd like to not see so many walk ons. It would make for a much more intense recruiting period, and many more battles.

In real life, if a coach consistently did not use all his scholarships, the AD would probably at some point budget to take away that scholarship money and apply it to a different sport or another need.   

running zone def with 8 high level players (and 4 walk-ons) seems legit to me - the team I co-coach with billy_g went to the Elite 8 last season that way. Zone and decent stamina allowed no one to ever get fatigued in the slow-down, and that makes perfect sense to me as a life-long Syracuse fan used to 6 and 7 man Jim Boeheim rotations...

The way recruiting works, the only real way to recruit a stud player to a B range prestige school is to use 2 spots per good recruit.

One of the only ways to move up to the A prestige level is to get 6 or 7 of those really good stud players on your team and the only way to beat an A prestige school for that recruit when you are a B is top spend more money on that recruit.  The only way to do that is to take walk ons.

And everyone is correct that it is really only division-1 where this is really done.  That is because there are a very limited number of difference maker stud recruits at Div-1.  If you want to get them and you are not an A prestige school, you have to take walkons

Posted by chapelhillne on 1/16/2015 5:03:00 PM (view original):
I think that's probably what happened Stine. I was still surprised though at the outcome because we had such a strong team. It's definitely made me consider the switch, especially at Colorado with the lack of talent this year in the region to pick from. That alone would probably have forced me to change my thinking. I can't seem to get past the final 4 with pressing teams, although maybe that's just my coaching ability.

Your coaching ability? Says the guy who won 69 straight games at one point. That alone tells me that your coaching ability is at the very minimum "adequate", ha ha. Your coaching ability is certainly not the problem Chap, your coaching ability is damn near as good as it gets.


My opinion is that it's a little harder to run the FCP at high level (i.e., BCS) D1 because a lot more teams have the stud athletes, great ball handlers and passers, etc. than you tend to run into in D2/D3. Really kind of evens the power of the press out quite a bit, making it more likely that you'll have a bad game with it, especially since the FCP is almost universally viewed as the most volatile of the three defenses. I think that's probably the issue you're having in regards to getting stuck in a certain round of the tourney.

I'm far from the expert at these probability numbers, but most seasons (In HD I am talking now) aren't all of the Final4 teams generally pretty close in odds to win it all?