Posted by grantduck on 10/27/2011 5:16:00 AM (view original):
I literally found the worst D-1 team I could find when I went to D-1 for the first time.  Portland, D-1 Naismith.  Took a couple seasons, but turned them around if you look through the seasons there.  You can site mail me if you have specific questions.  Unless a player is entirely useless, or a REALLY low rated freshman/sophomore, don't cut him. Overall I would give 2 main pieces of advice. 

1. Even though you have a LOT more money for recruiting all of a sudden, try to stay within 500 miles or go International.  Take guys with flaws that are nearby, and make them work in your system.  I chose for example to take guys with bad defensive ratings, but changed my system to a zone.  That way I could get guys that could shoot and be fast, but that no team higher than a C prestige would bother with because their defense would be rated like 40.  Also, there's a decent amount of low "rated" players in the 520-580 range that will have 5-6 high potential ratings.  I had one guy who was like the 85th rated center end up leaving for the NBA after his Jr year after  RSing him his first season he ended up over 800.  If you end up chasing guys across the country, they'll be easily poached, so stay local, and take guys with an obvious flaw.  IE, a guy who is 200 miles away and is rated 80's across the board with a 30 in defense, is much better than a guy who is 60's across the board and 1500 miles away.

2. Make sure you schedule enough tough OOC games.  After the first 2 seasons or so, you'll have enough of your own recruited players that you'll do well in a low D-1 conference(they don't generally have many humans that stay for 5+ seasons without moving on).  I made the mistake of scheduling too weakly, and it cost me an NCAA tournament berth one season and almost in a 2nd.  Even if you know it's a slaughter, take a game against an ACC team in the road for the RPI boost.

How is going international a good strategy? I thought, since it was more expensive, it would possibly cripple you, but I've never tried. Is it just that much less people will go after those guys?

when i started it was pretty bad.

my advice is go for high potential guys you won't have to battle much for.

use redshirting to your advantage.

also - ineligibles are a great way to build depth, the big guys might ignore them because of the grades, so if you get on them early you might get a great steal.

and lastly, be patient, let guys grow, young teams are hard to win with (see my team this year).

UPDATE - At the end of the regular season in my second season at Mercer we are 20-6 with a 108 RPI. One of the players I recruited is already at 709, and another is at 691.  We only lose one player this year, and 3 players next year (those were the three I kept when I took the team over). Our team is improving much faster than the other teams in the conference, and right now we have the 4th highest rating in the Summit League. I think the strategy that I used is going to work out really well, and I think we have a great shot of winning the conference tournament as we have won 6 straight and 13 of the last 14 games. Our press is starting to become very effective because of the type of player I recruited. We are #1 in the conference in team Athleticism, #2 in Speed, and #2 in defense and tied for #1 in Stamina.  If I had started out by keeping a lot of the sophomores I inherited, we would not be nearly so good right now.

Posted by grantduck on 10/27/2011 5:16:00 AM (view original):
I literally found the worst D-1 team I could find when I went to D-1 for the first time.  Portland, D-1 Naismith.  Took a couple seasons, but turned them around if you look through the seasons there.  You can site mail me if you have specific questions.  Unless a player is entirely useless, or a REALLY low rated freshman/sophomore, don't cut him. Overall I would give 2 main pieces of advice. 

1. Even though you have a LOT more money for recruiting all of a sudden, try to stay within 500 miles or go International.  Take guys with flaws that are nearby, and make them work in your system.  I chose for example to take guys with bad defensive ratings, but changed my system to a zone.  That way I could get guys that could shoot and be fast, but that no team higher than a C prestige would bother with because their defense would be rated like 40.  Also, there's a decent amount of low "rated" players in the 520-580 range that will have 5-6 high potential ratings.  I had one guy who was like the 85th rated center end up leaving for the NBA after his Jr year after  RSing him his first season he ended up over 800.  If you end up chasing guys across the country, they'll be easily poached, so stay local, and take guys with an obvious flaw.  IE, a guy who is 200 miles away and is rated 80's across the board with a 30 in defense, is much better than a guy who is 60's across the board and 1500 miles away.

2. Make sure you schedule enough tough OOC games.  After the first 2 seasons or so, you'll have enough of your own recruited players that you'll do well in a low D-1 conference(they don't generally have many humans that stay for 5+ seasons without moving on).  I made the mistake of scheduling too weakly, and it cost me an NCAA tournament berth one season and almost in a 2nd.  Even if you know it's a slaughter, take a game against an ACC team in the road for the RPI boost.

I remember when you took over Portland. Youve certainly done a phenomenal job there.

Posted by dahsdebater on 10/23/2011 6:18:00 AM (view original):
Playing time doesn't impact IQ at all.

from release notes (this might be old and might have changed back - if so, i haven't seen / found anything confirming the reversion):

02/05/2008

• Beginning with the next recruiting period in Naismith (which is now scheduled to start on Februrary 8th), there will be a few changes regarding recruit IQs.
  
  Like players, recruits will be having varying levels of knowledge of the 4 offenses and 5 possible defenses (man, zone, press, press/man, press/zone). As before, they will be more versed in the offense/defense they ran either in HS or JUCO with the difference being that not all recruits will report to campus with the same starting IQs.
  
  High schools and jucos will also begin running combo defenses so you can possibly see recruits with high starting IQs in both press and man (for example - rare, but possible). This does mean that all of the high schools and JUCOs will potentially be playing different offenses/defenses than what they have in the past.
  
  You will still determine their offense/defense through calling their existing coach and scouting trips. Both may also now reveal more than just what they ran in high school but their level of knowledge as well.
  
  In addition, we have also incorporated playing time/starts as another variable which impacts the rate of IQ improvement once players get to college (in addition to work ethic, intellect and practice time).
  
   

Posted by chapelhillne on 11/21/2011 6:42:00 PM (view original):
UPDATE - At the end of the regular season in my second season at Mercer we are 20-6 with a 108 RPI. One of the players I recruited is already at 709, and another is at 691.  We only lose one player this year, and 3 players next year (those were the three I kept when I took the team over). Our team is improving much faster than the other teams in the conference, and right now we have the 4th highest rating in the Summit League. I think the strategy that I used is going to work out really well, and I think we have a great shot of winning the conference tournament as we have won 6 straight and 13 of the last 14 games. Our press is starting to become very effective because of the type of player I recruited. We are #1 in the conference in team Athleticism, #2 in Speed, and #2 in defense and tied for #1 in Stamina.  If I had started out by keeping a lot of the sophomores I inherited, we would not be nearly so good right now.

I've got Mercer in Crum.  Good area for recruiting, but it doesn't hurt to venture out either.  In my first season I signed 7 and in my second season I signed 4, so I had almost completely turned the roster over in 2 seasons.  Of the 11 I've signed, 3 were long distance.  In that first class of 7 I signed 2 JUCOs who would be SOs and both were international guys who went the JUCO route.  They are both studs.  I got one from ND at over 1,300 miles and the other from MS that was within 360 of me.  The one I got from ND is a SF who is a beast for a school like Mercer.  Near the end of his 2nd season with us, his JR season, he is up to 814 from 613 when I signed him.  I also signed an ineligible PF who should top out between 825 and 850 and then I RSed another big man that first season to even the classes out a bit.

We made the PIT in season 1 and made it to round 3.  We are in the final of the CT tonight and going into the game our RPI is 67, so we need to win to get to the NT, but we are making good progress.

Wow - Nice job. I think I will try to venture out more next year. With the amount of cash at D1, it's a lot more possible to do that.

Cutting bad players asap is a very good idea. No reason to have them taking up a roster spot for several seasons, especially when you can recruit a player with alot of high potentials, with starting rating around 500, and growing into the high 700s. I have recruited 10 players in my first 2 seasons in D1. Won 26 games in my 2nd year, won the CT, and went into the NT with a rpi of 35. Among the 6 guys I recruited in my first season, 4 of them are already over 700 and a couple of them looks like they can break 800 by the end of their JR year. 

In our 3rd year now at Mercer with a 21-3 record. The strategy seems to have worked well for me so far. We are also #1 in D1 in steals and #8 in scoring, and #2 in turnovers caused. I have focused on defense quite a bit.

What's your rpi?

Little-known trick -- cut some players immediately after taking over the team.  By recruiting time, similar-prestige teams around you will evaluate your recruiting ability by the # of open spots, assuming you have $15K for each.  You'll get in a lot fewer battles if people think you have $75,000 rather than $30,000.

I totally agree with Jeff's Trick. The first year I cut 4 players and only had one open scholarship, so it did look like I had more money than I did.

Caesari - My RPI ended up being 67, and we ended up at 27-4 and lost in the first round of the NT to LSU.

My second year of recruiting was not as good as my first. I tried to get a player that was tight with Boise State, which had a better prestige than I did, and wasted a lot of money on it, and was then unable to defend the #53 ranked PG I had until 8 PM on signing day, when another school came in and took him. I learned a couple of lessons from that experience.

I just took over St. Louis in the Atlantic 10. It was a terrible team with a 590 Overall rating at the end of the season, before losing a 757 Center and 665  SG. So, the 10 players that were left had an overall rating of  566. There were also 7 freshmen that were becoming sophomores.

I had 2 scholarships available, but wanted to make some wholesale changes. I ended up cutting 6 players and got 6 new freshmen, one sophomore and one junior.

My new team has an overall rating of 588, which is 22 points better than the team I had at the beginning of recruiting. Athleticism went from 53 to 62. Speed went from 46 to 47, but with high potential on many players vs low potential for the players I cut. Defense went from 55 to 61. BH went from 39 to 44.

But most of all, just about every player I recruited has high potential in multiple areas. Plus, it will be more fun for me to develop players that I recruited, as opposed to keeping all of those inherited players for 3 years.

I just realized a very bad side effect of cutting players. Fortunately this has not happened to me and I have cut probably 20 players. But in one of the worlds I am in one of the teams in my conference got a new coach. He cut a junior PG that was not all that good, and he then got an email from his star player with a 752 overall rating saying that he was leaving the school because the coach had cut his "homie". I will definitely think twice before cutting now, because this is going to be a huge blow for his team. After he was cut, he was on the Division 1 list for me. I felt really bad for him.

Posted by chapelhillne on 12/26/2011 4:56:00 PM (view original):
I totally agree with Jeff's Trick. The first year I cut 4 players and only had one open scholarship, so it did look like I had more money than I did.

Caesari - My RPI ended up being 67, and we ended up at 27-4 and lost in the first round of the NT to LSU.

My second year of recruiting was not as good as my first. I tried to get a player that was tight with Boise State, which had a better prestige than I did, and wasted a lot of money on it, and was then unable to defend the #53 ranked PG I had until 8 PM on signing day, when another school came in and took him. I learned a couple of lessons from that experience.

this is why when I see a school that is on a kid I like has a new coach I check his CC to see if anyone mentions cuts and do a search of all the transfers to see if they are from his school before determining battle readiness...