Posted by mamxet on 7/21/2021 8:51:00 AM (view original):
why does EE manipulation need to be fixed? how does it hurt the game?

is it manipulation to intentionally target a recruit who will be less likely to leave - lets say for example a big who will develop into killer ATH, DEF, BLK and other ratings but whose LP will never get better than meh.

That bad LP makes him more likely to stay for four years and be a monster in many ways - manipulation to target him?

I’m presently pretty agnostic on EE “manipulation”. I don’t think it hurts the game that exists, as it stands now. Things will change a bit if they go through with firings as described, people will be playing high D1 a bit differently, and it will raise the stakes considerably for holding on to high impact players for an extra season or two.

What I like about the current system, and why I wouldn’t advise changing anything right now, is that when you are recruiting a player, you are projecting out not only his future production, but also weighing that against his future risk of leaving. You’re making those determinations when deciding how to develop the player as well. Develop fast or slow? Up to you. It’s risk and reward together. That’s the complexity that makes it a real strategy game. Far from “random,” it’s precisely what makes this more than a simple linear numbers game. That’s a big reason why I’m so opposed to extreme firing as a disruptor.

A little bit of data I collected over 34 seasons. It was before the big board expanded to 150 so unfortunately I don't have those numbers but I had 20 EEs who weren't on the final big board from those 34 seasons so that should show how often they happen.

	EE%
Top5	95%
Top10	93%
Top 30	78%
31 to 60	46%
61 to 80	22%
81 to 100	20%

When I look at this my initial reaction is that it's silly that 61-80 and 81-100 are basically the same. And going from 35ish to 90ish only cuts your chance of leaving in about half.

78% leaving from top 30 is way too low. Not from a realism standpoint or from a gameplay standpoint.

I think we should make the top 30 leave 100% of the time (or hell, I'd take 95% at this point) and then 31-60 which are projected 2nd rounders should be about 80%. Past 80 on big board should have virtually no shot at leaving early.

I've known about the lack of a difference between 65ish and 95ish on the big board for a long time now. And I always chuckle if someone says they're "manipulating" the big board to get a guy to drop a few spots when they're in that range. Or mock me for not trying to manipulate it myself. It basically does very, very little.

The curve of probability is rather flat, then declines somewhat steeply and then gets flat (if big board rank is the X axis and probability of going is the Y axis)

that doesnt mean that dropping from 60 to 90 doesnt matter - if it happens.....

I always manipulate my EE's from 60 to 90. 2% of the time it works every time.

The place where it (sometimes) makes sense to “manipulate” is for players near the cusps, mostly sophs and juniors who might advance to likely going or on the fence with development in certain places. If I think I can keep or get a junior to 40 or back, (or past 90 or so when many drafts simply end), then I’ll do it. Same for sophs at 25 and 40. I mentally leave that cushion for the “cusp”, as there are players who will stay which could move others up the board, so I don’t just go by the hard cutoff numbers when I’m thinking about it.

John Peyton at UK (Smith) started the season projected in the first round, around #20 IIRC, which made my decision for me. If he had been closer to 30, I would have thought seriously about trying to drop him down the Big Board (maybe could have gotten down 10 places or so without regressing in LP/per), by holding his scoring attributes steady. As it is, I went for it, he grew 29 points in LP (still blue at 78) and 15 points in per (black at 91). He’s up to #2, so of course he’s as good as gone - but UK improved a lot with him, won the conference tourney, and play in the Elite Eight tonight as a 9 seed when it was a question whether we’d even make the tournament 10 games ago. Would love to get him back to fully develop his senior season of course, but a player like that rarely makes it 4 years fully developed.

So you know, risk/reward.

I just agree that EE manipulation is overblown a bit too. Before I played D1, all I heard about was coaches intentionally sabotaging ratings so their players wouldn't develop as fast, and move up the big board as a result. That is the most ridiculous way to play a game that I can think of. Now that I'm here, I don't see it done near as much as I expected. I only know of one elite coach that makes a living off of it from what I've seen. So it doesn't seem to be as big of a deal as it was cracked up to be.

But I still hate D1 :) carry on

Posted by mlitney on 7/21/2021 11:31:00 PM (view original):
I always manipulate my EE's from 60 to 90. 2% of the time it works every time.

Haha nice

"That is the most ridiculous way to play a game that I can think of."

Agreed, it's silly. If I get upset in the tourney, I'm usually not that upset because I can look at what I could have done better with gameplanning or roster construction. But if I lose an EE around 100 of the big board, I need to consider what I could have done WORSE. Guess I shouldn't have increased his Per by 7 points. Guess I shouldn't have recruited this guy at all because of the 20% chance he would leave early. It's stupid.

Posted by topdogggbm on 7/22/2021 3:59:00 AM (view original):
I just agree that EE manipulation is overblown a bit too. Before I played D1, all I heard about was coaches intentionally sabotaging ratings so their players wouldn't develop as fast, and move up the big board as a result. That is the most ridiculous way to play a game that I can think of. Now that I'm here, I don't see it done near as much as I expected. I only know of one elite coach that makes a living off of it from what I've seen. So it doesn't seem to be as big of a deal as it was cracked up to be.

But I still hate D1 :) carry on

“Sabotaging” was always the wrong way to look at it. Coaches who do this well just manage their players development in ways that reduce the probability (when it makes sense). It’s not like any successful coach is out there tanking rebounding on their 5* PF with green rebounding. But holding back the scoring attributes until they’re upperclassmen, when you need them to score (because if you’re focused on developing mature teams, which this method is all about anyway, you should always have some upperclassmen to carry the scoring load), that’s more the idea.

In D1, you have to manage the volatility and uncertainty of elite recruits, if you choose to pursue them. That’s part of the game, that’s the design. If you don’t like that design, well that’s why D2 and D3 exist.

i think EE manipulation is fairly valuable, but i do think concerns about it are overblown at times. the larger category, the category 1 level up, of overall ee planning and management, now that is the level i would call 'huge'. but i do call a lot of things huge, and EE management is one of the things that you can do pretty little on and still be very successful. when you are trying to put together runs of championships and that sort of things, its one of the key areas where excellence is more or less required. but that's a pretty small crowd who aspires to those sorts of things, so certainly perspective is relevant.

the overall suite of EE management to me is really the combination of 1) understanding the mechanics of early entries; how likely are various players to leave and such, 2) directly incorporating such understanding into player evaluation (weighting not only the quality of players but how long they'll stay), 3) incorporating this into team planning as a whole (incorporating the understanding of which players will leave, and when, into team planning strategy), and 4) EE manipulation, or if you will, incorporating EE understanding into the player development strategy

i suspect most high end d1 coaches are at least doing *something* on those first 3, even if they eschew the EE manipulation part, and those are really the most important things. anything that feeds into player evaluation and team planning in a substantial way is going to be pretty darn important, and i think that is at least on this end, that is the most important thing. for a long time there was an 'EEs just happen, and man, it sucks!' attitude about EEs on the forum, and my main point is, you should be factoring that stuff in from the point you consider a recruit onward, and if you do, you can really manage the situation fairly well. i think this point is relevant to the OP here too!

Yeah I see your point Gil and I think that's a useful tactic. However, I really don't think that many people are that forward thinking when they're recruiting. I'm sure you, Chapel and a few other elite D1 coaches do think that way but I'd guess 95% of coaches are more concerned about setting themselves up to sign the best players they can. I doubt a lot of people are saying "well I could sign this 5 star but I'll take this 4 star because they'll only be 120 on the big board as a Junior". Especially nowadays with pretty heavily populated D1 and dice rolls, they try to get the best players they can realistically or easily get.

But my gripe is about how it does reward some coaches and punishes others regardless if you were trying to be strategic.

UNC kept #25, 74, 92, 137 and 144 after a FF run. Hawaii kept #62, 65, 85, 110, 146 after a title game appearance. Neither had any EEs.

Meanwhile Kuba loses his only guy on the big board #90 at tiny Lamar after a 1st round exit.

So what did oldman and cimmy do to keep their 5 top players while Kuba lost his best player? Absolutely nothing. You could even make the argument that Kuba made the strategic choice to target a player that *should* have stuck around for 4 seasons but the random number generator had other ideas.

Again, I don't like Bingo and that's what EEs feel like to me right now.

I agree with Benis in general. But I would be okay with EEs if something were done to level out the 2nd cycle recruiting hole that you are left with when EEs occur. Maybe a lump sum of 200 one use attention points for every EE to give a coach abit of a fighting chance at landing a decent replacement in the 2nd cycle.

yeah, i generally agree with that benis. i'm not a huge fan of the way it works today, i think making the top 20 or so leave near-automatically to stop those random gifts from god if you will, is good, but does little to help the guy who loses a low-big board guy.

the problem is, in the ideal world, i'd be all for tying NT success and really the size of the school (prestige probably) to EEs to some extent - i think it makes sense and also is realistic (two equally good players who are mid 2nd round, its more likely the big school player gets more eyes and more interest). but in today's game there is already little separation between the A and B schools and i just don't know it really makes sense to tilt that further.

i think it is a little unrealistic that a junior who is high 2nd round only leaves like 40% of the time - perhaps bumping those numbers - really bumping the odds of leaving for those top 60 or so players - would be a help? alternatively, a not-realistic but perhaps decent hack for this, would be to have mid 2nd round and down underclassmen stay - nobody cares if more seniors get drafted. either way there'd be less of a 'lets roll dice for these 40 guys to see who takes the last 10 spots'.

IMO the EE randomness always kinda sucked, but its really the 2 sessions of recruiting, and the nature of the 2nd session, that makes EEs so unpleasant. that's been beaten to death, from the 1 session vs 2 session argument. but the thing i've been thinking for the past year or so, is that the game might really benefit from a 'real' session 2. create some new players, and put 5 cycles of non-signings in front or something, either adding a day (which sucks) or just shortening the # of signing cycles.

recruiting is one of the best parts of the game and i think especially if those session 2 new players were of the moderate to good variety, not great or elite, it would help solve a bunch of problems.