Posted by colonels19 on 8/4/2010 10:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 8/3/2010 10:40:00 PM (view original):
Again though;  the position names on the recruits is purely cosmetic.

This doesn't make it any less ridiculous...why even have position designations if you're just going to cover your *** by having ZERO position penalty, especially regardless of height and weight? With position designations, there should be a reasonable expectation of what ratings a player would/should be good at and what they shouldn't. On top of all this...let's say I want to play this guy at SF, but when I go to search for SF recruits, I don't see this guy because he's ridiculously listed as a PG. With the new generation, you're more likely to miss out on guys that you might not have before.

Just because seble has an excuse, doesn't mean that it's a good format/setup.

Just because you don't want to search by attributes, which you easily have the tools for, rather than by position doesn't mean that it isn't.

I mean, heck, even BEFORE the new engine you saw as many players of other positions playing SF as you saw actual SF's playing SF, so its not like its some shockingly new thing.

And SF's playing PF, and SG playing point guard. . etcetera.

One thing you can definitely say is if you as an individual are enjoying the game or if you are not.  I see a lot of people who are no longer enjoying the game like they used to.  It may be the most realistic game ever made but if it loses it's core fan base, it is in trouble unless it's gaining new fans.

Anyone do the math to see where the trend is heading as far as human teams versus sim teams in each world?

I guess that is true Lizak....is it fun is the biggest question.

And depsite my horrid season so far this year at Florida, I am still having fun.  If I am the only one left at some point, well, then it won't be fun anymore.

Posted by cbriese on 8/3/2010 11:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by daalter on 8/3/2010 11:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 8/3/2010 5:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by reinsel on 8/3/2010 5:26:00 PM (view original):
There are still a lot of "great" players.  Some are the #1 PF that is already a stud, and some are the #50 PF that has a ton of high potential categories.  That #50 PF isn't being recruited by the A prestige schools, but he is drawing interest from the B-/C+ schools.

I agree the D/D+ schools have it harder, but that is how it should be.  I was able to win NT games with players recruited by a team with prestige of D-/D/D+.  That should be almost impossible now, and that is ok.

But when those D-/D/D+ recruits do win a CT and make the NT, the school will become a C-/C/C+ school, and be able to recruit better, and maybe get to the second round... and keep repeating the cycle of improvement. I always said before that it took at least eight seasons to go from a D team to being a force in the tournament. So now maybe it takes 12. But that is pure speculation, because no one can be sure until we see 4 to 8 to 12 seasons with new recruits.

No, no one can be 100% sure of anything at this point. And if that's what you want to hang your hat on, that argument can be used as an attempt to invalidate any argument or observation.

That said, without being able to have 100%, iron-clad certainty, basically everyone I know and respect in this game feels that the new recruits have cut the heart out of low and mid DI teams. I honestly think that anyone who knows the DI game well and has spent a solid amount of time in the new engine would have to come to this conclusion.

That #50 pf that reinsel described above barely exists. I don't want to say he doesn't exist at all because I'm sure there are a few out there. But they are very, very few and far between. The difference between the high-end players and everyone else is simply enormous, and it's greatly exacerbated by the fact that there are now an incredible number of low potential ratings. It's a poisonous mix.

You cut me to the quick with that one, daalter. I think I know the D1 game, particularly the low-to-mid level D1 teams, pretty well. I know what we were able to do in the past. I have absolutely no doubt that the same success can be had with the new recruit mix. It will just be more difficult. Adain, I think people are only scratching the surface of the impact of the recruits.

No one is trying to quantify, for example, the effects of a smaller premier player pool (and subsequent dropoff) on the success of the elite teams. There was at one point a couple of years ago a thread called Moy's Battle Cry, which lamented the fact that no one was willing to battle the ORs or lostmyths of the world, and their A-/A/A+ recruiting efforts very often went unchallenged. I would argue that's not the case anymore. Coaches have the choice to now implement a high-risk, high-reward recruiting strategy, or a lower-risk, but substantially lower reward one. In the past, you'd simply leave the #3 PG to OR, and just move on to the #19 PG, who was likely to be about the same in his junior year. That easy decision no longer exists.

Teams are going to be forced to put more thought and effort into scheduling, into game planning and maybe even into practice planning in order to squeeze every ounce of success out of their team. This is not a bad thing.

What amuses me is that for years everyone asked for WIS to make recruits more varied, and to make practice planning mean something. Well, they've done it, and the game is changed (yes, I am sure someone will bloviate about an over-correction). And, from what I understand, the press is no longer magic. So there's that.

+1.  Great post.

Review of Crum (2 seasons into new recruits; 3 conference games into season) has 12 teams with C or lower prestige in the top 50 RPI and 22 non-Big 6 conference teams in the top 50 RPI.  seems like a pretty good distribution to me if that holds.

Posted by namshub on 8/4/2010 11:40:00 AM (view original):
Review of Crum (2 seasons into new recruits; 3 conference games into season) has 12 teams with C or lower prestige in the top 50 RPI and 22 non-Big 6 conference teams in the top 50 RPI.  seems like a pretty good distribution to me if that holds.

Shhhh! You're screwing up their narrative with actual facts rather than speculation.

Posted by namshub on 8/4/2010 11:40:00 AM (view original):
Review of Crum (2 seasons into new recruits; 3 conference games into season) has 12 teams with C or lower prestige in the top 50 RPI and 22 non-Big 6 conference teams in the top 50 RPI.  seems like a pretty good distribution to me if that holds.

you know there is only one season of new gen recruits in Crum - right?  So the number you stated probably is more representative of the baseline than the new world order - LOL.

I am on record as to not liking the new system of recruits at all.  But, I do think the new engine is nearing the consistency of the old one, and within a year will be far better.  So IMO all is not lost with the new game.

I also would not mind my odds of putting together an ok team from the right market with a D prestige d1 school, but from some markets it is going to be pretty close to impossible - the same is sort of true with A+ schools, some markets are not nearly as easy as others.  When more top recruits were around, all the markets had a chance.

I think the d2/d3 worlds are better with the new recruits, and also fairer.  I could give a long winded explanation why d2/d3 works and d1 doesn't, but this is long enough already, and it is just an opinion anyhow.

Finally, recruiting in the new world is far more important than anything else, and also recruiting takes 2-4x longer than it used to - since a simple glance no longer yields the best player, it takes much more study and comparing.  This is fine for HD addicts, but many average coaches with other time demands have decided the extra time is not worth it.

Time will tell as this all shakes out - those of you supporting the new engine - don't get too snobby about it - IMO you are missing some of the best points of the new engine in your attempts to keep those trying to get their opinion out by flaming them.  Start being positive about the new game rather than negative about the people who are legitimately concerned about the game and you might even be able to make your case.

Posted by cbriese on 8/4/2010 11:52:00 AM (view original):

Posted by namshub on 8/4/2010 11:40:00 AM (view original):
Review of Crum (2 seasons into new recruits; 3 conference games into season) has 12 teams with C or lower prestige in the top 50 RPI and 22 non-Big 6 conference teams in the top 50 RPI.  seems like a pretty good distribution to me if that holds.

Shhhh! You're screwing up their narrative with actual facts rather than speculation.

As they say there are lies, damn lies and statistics.  That is a pretty cursory examination above - while what he says is true - the if in the last sentence is a pretty giant IF. 

This doesn't really provide any information unless you dig in some more.  The non-major/C or worse prestige schools in the Top 25 are:

Buffalo, #2 RPI, more than 75% of minutes, 80% of points,  and 85% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors (read - old recruits)
UTEP, #5 RPI, more than 80% of minutes, 80% of points, and 80% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors
Drake, #7 RPI, more than 50% of minutes, 70% of points, and 50% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors
Lipscomb, #16 RPI, more than 75% of minutes, 80% of points, and 85% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors
Texas Southern, #23 RPI, more than 55% of minutes, 75% of points, and 40% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors
Rice, #24 RPI, more than 70% of minutes, 70% of points, and 75% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors
Austin Peay, #25 RPI, more than 50% of minutes, 60% of points, and 55% of rebounds are contributed by Juniors/Seniors.

All those teams are getting sizable contributions from recruits generated under the old engine.  We have absolutely no idea if they will be able to sustain their success.  We have no idea if the elite recuits will all start being early entries, and the top schools will start being comprised of primarily underclassmen going forward.  We have no idea if an IQ difference will allow smaller schools to overcome the 10-15% skill advantage that major schools will have.  We have no idea if big schools will begin dipping into the 75-125 at their position pool to snag the players with good or better potential.

I agree with daalter and others who think WIS overcorrected and that the situation for low/mid DI schools is looking much bleaker post-new engine than pre-new engine.  I would argue that this process really started with the advent of potential and this is simply a continuation of beating up on those schools.  However, I can't say for certain this is the case.  Neither can anybody else say definitively that this isn't the death knell of low/mid DI schools.  I do know that several coaches I respect and whose opinions I value are bailing on low/mid DI teams, and I know that if I had schools in that situation, I would be doing the same thing.

I'll be honest I only read 50% of the posts so far but....

I am hoping the recruit change was to reflect a mid major with a upperclass heavy team will have similar or better ratings/IQ to that of a A+ Big 6 school that loses underclassman continually to the draft. 

If this logic is true, then in a couple seasons we should see those mid-majors who recruited well compete with some of the bigger schools with alot of turnover.

So yes a dynasty at a mid-major is unlikely but good recruiting can have that school compete regularly and rise up for title contention every couple years.

I think time will tell, acn.  I would always expect that low/mid teams that are having national level success to be getting 90% of their points/rebounds from juniors and seniors.  That is the only way they can compete with the Dukes and UCLAs, is by having experience, because obviously their freshmen will be worse.  But the low/mid players stay 4 years and improve and with 10 good players maybe you can surprise a Duke team with 3 upperclassmen and a ton of super freshmen/sophs. 

I also think that the extreme value of the top 1-10 player is going to lead to more high D1 battles which may give the top schools some bad years if things don't go well.  Time will tell.

jp, truer words have never been spoken.............

All good points, acn. My comment was made more for levity than validation.

I think that HD worlds, like any other community in WIS, are in a continual state of evolution. Conditions (game engine, recruit mix, recruit distribution) change over time, and coaches change their philosophies and adjust their actions to succeed. Those who aren't able or willing to adjust experience a drop in success rate, and may end up leaving the community entirely. They are replaced by others who are looking for or have found ways to succeed.

I've seen superclass teams, all-speed teams, all-SF teams, super-rebounding teams, and high ATH teams that rely exclusively on the press through the years, as coaches have tried to find their own best road to success. WIS has thrown in ineligible players, Internationals, dilemmas (remember those?), ratings caps, redshirt changes, reductions in carryover money, multiple implementations of early entries, changes in recruiting prices, changes in HCA, self-scheduling, IQ changes, dropdowns, floating prestige, max scholarship reductions, changes in SIM AI recruiting, a couple of implementations of potential, and now a new game engine and new recruits. Each of these changes required some evolution in coaching philosophy to remain successful.

Virtually every one of these changes was met with a great hue and cry that low level D1 schools would somehow end up on the short end of the stick. And yet, through forty-odd seasons, you can still see low-level D1 successes. I think this is simply another example of another change that the HD community will naturally adjust to. Look at all the changes above. As coaches we have all adjusted our strategy to accommodate them,

I am confident that, like previous changes, the new recruit mix  will simply drive innovation. It's going to be fun to watch how it plays out.