Posted by grecianfox on 8/14/2010 7:01:00 PM (view original):
Definitely for. Recruiting is a real problem at DI. Waiting 3-4 seasons to see what happens is a real bad idea. They got way too cutesy with the recruit generation and are being stubborn about it.

that is what I think too, the cutesy thing, this really would not have been that hard to pull off, few less red potentials here and there, a little less high on elites, a little more high on the guys rated 10-50, and 50-150, and everthing would be good to go.

by the way, right now d2 recruiting is a blast (kmason knows this), some smart coach like him is going to recruit a team that would be ranked 20-25 in d1 one of these days.  there just is no gap between players in d1/d2 after you get past the elite players, and I have found a couple unranked guys, who I would take before guys ranked 20-25 .... very time consuming, but a blast, I just am not sure we have 10,000 teams worth of coaches willing to spend that amount of time?

Posted by moy23 on 8/14/2010 7:06:00 PM (view original):

Posted by vandydave on 8/14/2010 7:02:00 PM (view original):
And those same people are saying this could potentially have a more detrimental impact than any of those things.

heard it all before.  they are singing the same tune.  

I have never been wrong on a soapbox issue, both the passing of time as well as changes wis acknowledged and made have shown my big picture thinking to have seen both the present and the future accurately. And the status of the quality of D1 recruits is a soapbox issue.

Posted by aejones on 8/14/2010 4:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dbalog on 8/14/2010 3:17:00 PM (view original):
aejones, you have all non-DI teams. Spend your time and money building up a non-BCS team in DI and then see how you like taking a dick in the *** with this change.

Hey dbalog,

I do have all non-D1 teams, but I also have all A+ prestige teams (or a season away because I haven't been there long enough). It would be easy to have success to non-BCS D1 schools. You just have to adjust.

Instead of going after a class of 3-4 guys, you might have to focus on only 1 guy who is stud and fill in a class of role players behind him. Or, you might not be able to balance your classes, you might have to go after two big classes so that when they are upperclassmen (you'll have the benefit of less EEs) you'll be a top 10 team in the country. Now, once you have this success you might jump to an A prestige, at which time you'll be able to recruit 'em up with the big boys (at least protecting the best local talent). Alternatively, you could move up to a BCS school after some success.

ae, i think any coach who has ever coached at d1 will tell you that recruiting there is a different world than at the lower divisions.

and your latter plans all sound lovely, and most used to be available to people at lower levels. but the stud won't talk to the C=prestige guys (even worse, they might talk to the C BCS-level schools, but not the mid-majors), and the role players are all d2-level.

and jumping to an A prestige is LITERALLY impossible at most non-BCS schools. Check out brianp's N. Arizona dynasty on Wooden, or girt/daalt's Montana team (can't remember world)-- great programs, awesome results at the highest levels, both capped out at A-.

Posted by moy23 on 8/14/2010 6:59:00 PM (view original):
I think the only fact here is:

Those same people who disliked:

-potential
-the -5
-the slowdown
-the magic press
-too many 90+ attribute players
-baseline prestige
-job process
-recruiting pools
-etc

...are still posting in these forums.  

WIS must be doing something right if you all are still here.

i love this post -

I did not like potential, liked it less when so many vets left the game, made the game more reliant on recruiting, less reliant on practice planning, I practice radically differently than I did prior to potential

-5 I loved all the -5 banter, tarek's simulations and posts regarding -5 formed the basis for much of my gameplanning strat then and now, -5 was never real, often, the bad 3pt shooting associated with -5 occurred in the last 1-6 minutes of a game, when last minute settings wre in effect - teams behind were shooting 3's at hi + and the team defense was playing high plus - also, how tarek worded his solutions, gave lots of insight as to just what effect -5, zero, +5 and everything in between had.

Slow down is a legit strategy minimizing the 'n', that got even better when tarek tried to disable the fcp by messing with stamina and fatigue - fast pace was also legit, maximizing the 'n'

after a change to the engine in dec about 4-5 years ago, the press became magic, it was so until the new engine came out.

remember when 93 was max, dropped to 90 in the offseason?  i can't recall why we changed to 100, never worried much about  that one

baseline prestige, the game was much harder b4 floating baseline prestige, I once won a d1 nt, and lost big time on a recruit I spent double on to a team team that hadn't won more than 10 games the past 4 seasons.  The change was great, maybe a bit overboard, many are calling for elimination of all baselines, that would be too bad.

job process - this has to be really hard, but is one of the reasons we all playt, to get that dream job.  the absolute facts shoiuld be  released on this, the formula, that way noone would ever feel cheated again.  By and large, I have found the process to be pretty reasonable over the years.

Don't know what recruiting pools refers to????  I probably would have an opinion if I understood it?

thx moy, brings back memories.

the slowdown

Posted by girt25 on 8/14/2010 7:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/14/2010 4:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 8/14/2010 2:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/14/2010 1:38:00 PM (view original):
OMG, people just need to adjust. People are too caught up in comparing new recruits to the old recruits, you guys need to realize old recruits do not matter anymore. A good recruit in the old engine is not the same as a good recruit now. Lower your standards, 80 passing point guards in D1 are now not terrible, and you aren't at a disadvantage by having them because everybody else will have them also. Change your standards, I know people hate change but it's for the better. I remember when everybody complained that every top team had guys with 99 in every important category and now that that will no longer be the case people want to complain that the recruits aren't good enough. I guess instead of 99s people wanted the recruits to be 95s across the board. The fact is guys with 95+ ratings should be elite players not dime a dozen players and now we have that. People wanted the chance to have elite guys well now you do, if you're lucky enough to get a guy who ends up being 95+ in a few categories he will stand out rather then just be 1 of the guys on your team with great ratings.

blazor, this post is why the title of the thread and your initial post badly need to be cleaned up and corrected.

kmason, his point is not that recruits have lower starting values across the board. I have seen very few people upset about that fact, and many people, myself included, who think it's good (for the reason you mentioned).

The problem isn't the lower starting ratings. The problem is the fact that there is now an incredibly large gulf between the really good recruits and everyone else. The drop is extremely precipitous. And when you couple that with the fact that there are now more than 2x as many low potential categories as before, which prevents the inferior recruits from catching up, it is leading to a major problem in DI.

(This is very clearly manifesting itself already in Allen. Over the last three seasons, an average of 11.5 non-BCS teams were in the top 25 in rpi. This season there are just six. Bad, bad news.)

I don't think the gap the you and others have spoken of exists. I think the problem is people don't look hard enough. You don't need to sign a top 200 player, you can get a guy who is ranked 120th at his position and he can turn out to be very good. The lower ranked guys have a ton of potential, they may take a couple of years to become quality D1 players but they will still become that.

Because the D1 schools seem not to look that low at recruits D2 schools like the one I have in Phelan are getting the chance to grab some serious studs. On that Bryant team I have 2 freshman and a sophomore who will all likely end up with or close to 90+ speed and 90+ per with solid ratings in other areas. Those are D1 quality players but because D1 coaches have grown accustomed to only looking at the top 50 or so players at each position I got these guys without any opposition.

These are the 3 players I'm referring to:
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1597797

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1622292

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1597796

These guys are out there you just have to be a bit more poractive in your search.

kmason, those are some nice DII players. But are you seriously offering up the guys above as your examples as to players that mid-majors could grab that would allow them to compete with BCS teams?

That's insane.

Mid majors should not be able to consistently compete with BCS schools. But the fact is the guys I point to should not be in D2, they will all end up with 90+ speed and 90+ per with solid ratings elsewhere. You're telling me those guys aren't good enough to be starters on a good mid major team in their junior and senior years?

the 'n' was the # of possessions, this works in real basketball too, the higher the 'n'. the higher the odds of the theoretical better team overcoming randomness, we used to have a statistics guy named davis who used to calculate some of this stuff, a great coach, he used to even help tarek sometimes, anyone know, is he still in HD?

Posted by oldresorter on 8/14/2010 7:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grecianfox on 8/14/2010 7:01:00 PM (view original):
Definitely for. Recruiting is a real problem at DI. Waiting 3-4 seasons to see what happens is a real bad idea. They got way too cutesy with the recruit generation and are being stubborn about it.

that is what I think too, the cutesy thing, this really would not have been that hard to pull off, few less red potentials here and there, a little less high on elites, a little more high on the guys rated 10-50, and 50-150, and everthing would be good to go.

by the way, right now d2 recruiting is a blast (kmason knows this), some smart coach like him is going to recruit a team that would be ranked 20-25 in d1 one of these days.  there just is no gap between players in d1/d2 after you get past the elite players, and I have found a couple unranked guys, who I would take before guys ranked 20-25 .... very time consuming, but a blast, I just am not sure we have 10,000 teams worth of coaches willing to spend that amount of time?

I was going to type a more verbose explanation of my views, but OR did it better than I ever could have.

by the way, 2 more things b4 I clear out - this is an old time forum discussion - at least as I recall them,

first is engine related, not recruit related, but since so many vets and eager newer coaches are chiming in on this discussion, I will give up a little secret about the new engine, I have found several of my old strategies to be effective again, not sure if that is because the code is different, or the code is following some flow chart that tarek did early in the engine developement, or that I have not used the stuff in a while and it is new to opponents, or it is just luck, but it seems to be working, anyone else notice that?

also, does anyone want to guess what rating I am predicting the new recruit system and the engine are heading on a collision course when no 'old school' recruits are left, in other words, I have a prediction, which oddity of the recruiting system is going to have the most effect on all of us, probably causing an engine change, since recruits take 5-6 months to clear out.

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/14/2010 7:35:00 PM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 8/14/2010 7:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/14/2010 4:49:00 PM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 8/14/2010 2:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kmasonbx on 8/14/2010 1:38:00 PM (view original):
OMG, people just need to adjust. People are too caught up in comparing new recruits to the old recruits, you guys need to realize old recruits do not matter anymore. A good recruit in the old engine is not the same as a good recruit now. Lower your standards, 80 passing point guards in D1 are now not terrible, and you aren't at a disadvantage by having them because everybody else will have them also. Change your standards, I know people hate change but it's for the better. I remember when everybody complained that every top team had guys with 99 in every important category and now that that will no longer be the case people want to complain that the recruits aren't good enough. I guess instead of 99s people wanted the recruits to be 95s across the board. The fact is guys with 95+ ratings should be elite players not dime a dozen players and now we have that. People wanted the chance to have elite guys well now you do, if you're lucky enough to get a guy who ends up being 95+ in a few categories he will stand out rather then just be 1 of the guys on your team with great ratings.

blazor, this post is why the title of the thread and your initial post badly need to be cleaned up and corrected.

kmason, his point is not that recruits have lower starting values across the board. I have seen very few people upset about that fact, and many people, myself included, who think it's good (for the reason you mentioned).

The problem isn't the lower starting ratings. The problem is the fact that there is now an incredibly large gulf between the really good recruits and everyone else. The drop is extremely precipitous. And when you couple that with the fact that there are now more than 2x as many low potential categories as before, which prevents the inferior recruits from catching up, it is leading to a major problem in DI.

(This is very clearly manifesting itself already in Allen. Over the last three seasons, an average of 11.5 non-BCS teams were in the top 25 in rpi. This season there are just six. Bad, bad news.)

I don't think the gap the you and others have spoken of exists. I think the problem is people don't look hard enough. You don't need to sign a top 200 player, you can get a guy who is ranked 120th at his position and he can turn out to be very good. The lower ranked guys have a ton of potential, they may take a couple of years to become quality D1 players but they will still become that.

Because the D1 schools seem not to look that low at recruits D2 schools like the one I have in Phelan are getting the chance to grab some serious studs. On that Bryant team I have 2 freshman and a sophomore who will all likely end up with or close to 90+ speed and 90+ per with solid ratings in other areas. Those are D1 quality players but because D1 coaches have grown accustomed to only looking at the top 50 or so players at each position I got these guys without any opposition.

These are the 3 players I'm referring to:
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1597797

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1622292

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1597796

These guys are out there you just have to be a bit more poractive in your search.

kmason, those are some nice DII players. But are you seriously offering up the guys above as your examples as to players that mid-majors could grab that would allow them to compete with BCS teams?

That's insane.

Mid majors should not be able to consistently compete with BCS schools. But the fact is the guys I point to should not be in D2, they will all end up with 90+ speed and 90+ per with solid ratings elsewhere. You're telling me those guys aren't good enough to be starters on a good mid major team in their junior and senior years?

Well, first of all, if your premise is that "mid majors should not be able to consistently compete with BCS schools" then we can end this conversation right here, because I think that's patently absurd for HD, not to mention extremely harmful to the well-being of HD.

But to answer your question, no, the guys you posted would not be good starters for mid-major teams who had any aspirations of doing anything significant. (For instance, Fluker is a guard with 20-something ath and 20-something def; you're just choosing to point out good sp and pe ... he's not a guy I would've even put on my watch list at Montana.) 

OR finally comes out and names the press for the magic it was after being basically silent for so long.

Jerk!

Posted by wronoj on 8/14/2010 7:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by aejones on 8/14/2010 4:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dbalog on 8/14/2010 3:17:00 PM (view original):
aejones, you have all non-DI teams. Spend your time and money building up a non-BCS team in DI and then see how you like taking a dick in the *** with this change.

Hey dbalog,

I do have all non-D1 teams, but I also have all A+ prestige teams (or a season away because I haven't been there long enough). It would be easy to have success to non-BCS D1 schools. You just have to adjust.

Instead of going after a class of 3-4 guys, you might have to focus on only 1 guy who is stud and fill in a class of role players behind him. Or, you might not be able to balance your classes, you might have to go after two big classes so that when they are upperclassmen (you'll have the benefit of less EEs) you'll be a top 10 team in the country. Now, once you have this success you might jump to an A prestige, at which time you'll be able to recruit 'em up with the big boys (at least protecting the best local talent). Alternatively, you could move up to a BCS school after some success.

ae, i think any coach who has ever coached at d1 will tell you that recruiting there is a different world than at the lower divisions.

and your latter plans all sound lovely, and most used to be available to people at lower levels. but the stud won't talk to the C=prestige guys (even worse, they might talk to the C BCS-level schools, but not the mid-majors), and the role players are all d2-level.

and jumping to an A prestige is LITERALLY impossible at most non-BCS schools. Check out brianp's N. Arizona dynasty on Wooden, or girt/daalt's Montana team (can't remember world)-- great programs, awesome results at the highest levels, both capped out at A-.

that seems absurd, but i guess that is what people talk about with baseline prestige?

that is the primary reason i have no real ambition to get to d1. seems like the variance at d2 is a lot more fun.

Posted by cbriese on 8/14/2010 7:06:00 PM (view original):
Well, I don't think anything is perfect, and the recruit geographical distro has been an issue for years, since Rails was leading the charge.

I think OR makes a whole bunch of valid points, and there may be some adjustment in order. But until WIS can see how the current changes play out, and if they have resulted in desired or undesired effects, they have to remain patient.

Note that I am in no way defending the extreme cases of the guys with the ATH of 1. I am instead talking about the 560 overall guys that are being snatched up by Big 6 schools, and the effect that has on down the line. The 1 ATH guy is annoying, but no one is recruiting him, so he has little effect on competition. If you want to argue that the 1 ATH guy reduces the pool of truly available recruits, well, maybe. But it only means there are recruits that used to be dropdowns in D2 now being recruited in D1. My D2 dropdowns used to regularly top 700 by their senior years, so it is not as if they cannot compete at the D1 level.

cbriese, I agree with your points earlier in the thread about datasets and whatnot. (I don't know statistics, but I'm pretty sure that stuff is important.) But whether this poster or that poster has made some graphs or whatever shouldn't be the point. The middle paragraph of this post is the real problem IMO--WIS shouldn't have to wait "until the current changes play out". Shouldn't they already know?

Open a playtest world. Sim 10 seasons. Then slot in playtesters and let them recruit. Sim a season. Rinse and repeat for a few "years". In about 2 real-time weeks we'd have some answers.

Instead, we have the permanent pay-to-beta-test approach. Whether "for" or "against", is there any serious doubt that they are going to make some changes to player creation? I only have one team at this point and it's in Rupp so I only have one recruiting cycle's worth of experience to go on here, but I would be flabbergasted if there's not a tweak soon to deal with all the post players who can't rebound and/or score. Which will be great except for the teams that got stuck with the "bad" players in the season(s) where they had to fill a lot of spots and thus are later at a disadvantage. But it's the same old story--just pay for four more seasons and it will all cycle through.

I appreciate the poll they did. I appreciate when they've screwed the pooch in the past, they've given us $5 credits or whatever. But I've never been convinced that WIS has given a rip about playtesting. If they did, maybe we wouldn't have to debate whether we're going to love or hate this...we'd already know. Until then, since it hasn't been seriously done, we'll just continue to pay and see what happens.

Or not.

Posted by oldresorter on 8/14/2010 7:46:00 PM (view original):
by the way, 2 more things b4 I clear out - this is an old time forum discussion - at least as I recall them,

first is engine related, not recruit related, but since so many vets and eager newer coaches are chiming in on this discussion, I will give up a little secret about the new engine, I have found several of my old strategies to be effective again, not sure if that is because the code is different, or the code is following some flow chart that tarek did early in the engine developement, or that I have not used the stuff in a while and it is new to opponents, or it is just luck, but it seems to be working, anyone else notice that?

also, does anyone want to guess what rating I am predicting the new recruit system and the engine are heading on a collision course when no 'old school' recruits are left, in other words, I have a prediction, which oddity of the recruiting system is going to have the most effect on all of us, probably causing an engine change, since recruits take 5-6 months to clear out.

OR, I would guess STA will play a major role in the future. The forthcoming tweaks should be interesting to watch,