I am new to HD. I took over Northland in D3 in Allen. I was wondering like if there were guidelines out there for what a good player's ratings would be. Also, what should i do with my game planning. I currently have no idea what works. If someone could help me, that would be great. 

Where to start... First, I am by no means an accomplished coach so take my advice with a grain of salt.

My first question would be what offense and defense you plan on running? You will need to recruit differently depending on your O and D.

I would advice you to definitely use FSS and pay close attention to potentials. Always target recruits with high potential in key areas.

You'll need to pull down players from DII and use drop downs.

Get as much athleticism as possible without terribly ignoring the other core areas. Guards obviously need speed, bh, passing, defense, bigs obviously need reb, def, shot blocking, low post, 3's obviously are more well rounded. Take no player under 25 work ethic. 

To start off, you want to go to the "Help" dropdown tab at the top of the Home page and read the Players Guide, the Hoops 101, and the FAQ.

As far as recruiting, for overall Player Ratings, shoot for players between 400 and 480 for D111, play it safe and keep it between 420/430 and 450/460. For each of the positions, the "Core" ratings change. For guards you'll want speed, ball handling, and passing primarily and athleticism and defense secondly. For bigmen (PF/C) you;ll want Athleticism, Rebounding, and Low Post primarily, and Defense secondly.

Also remember to be patient and don't try and over do to early and spend all your money in the first or second day. You'll have 4 and a half days to recruit. The first day is the half day, and signings start on day 3. When signings start, some D11 players will drop down to D111 and you'll want money left to go after them.

A lot of it is trial and error, so you'll just have to do and figure out what works and what doesn't. Good Luck and any other questions feel free to sitemail me.

I want to second what wsut mentioned about WE - I sometimes go as low as 20, but try to never ever take a player under 20 WE if possible at all.

I would take a look at the perenially successful DIII teams in your world, and see what type/level of players they're recruiting, what categories they seem to target for each position, etc. I'd also sitemail a few of those successful coaches to pick their brains.

In general, you should focus on the ratings and potential in the key categories for each position, and not pay too much attention to a player's overall rating.

I see you only have 4 players returning - keep in mind you will only be able to sign 6 freshmen(players with 4 years of eligibility). You can either take walk ons for the other 2 spots or get guys from JUCO/transfer.

my advice is be patient. it takes time to get used to recruiting and the small tweaks in gameplanning. don't get upset if you lose a bunch your first or second season. It happens to practically everyone. When your second recruting class becomes seniors you should be in full swing (or on to DII like i did).

As for strategy, FB and press are the hardest to do from what i've read. I use motion and zone because you don't need stars, high stamina, and you can hide bad defensive players. But run whatever you want, just know every system has benefits are downsides.

In recruiting, have backups plans, be patient for dropdowns, save your money when possible, look at potential and WE instead of overall ratings, and remember the position listed ins't what he has to play.

Posted by wsut on 1/23/2011 11:30:00 PM (view original):
Get as much athleticism as possible without terribly ignoring the other core areas. Guards obviously need speed, bh, passing, defense, bigs obviously need reb, def, shot blocking, low post, 3's obviously are more well rounded. Take no player under 25 work ethic. 

This ^^^

Also, read up on pull-downs.  If you settle for what the system shows you as available D3 recruits, you won't see the players who might be slightly out of reach.  Those players are recruitable if you know what to do.

Welcome to the game!  I'll focus on recruiting, since that is your first big task:

1. Don't spend much (or any) of your money early in recruiting.  The longer you wait, the more borderline D2 players will become willing to play D3 ball because they're not getting any interest from D2 programs.  For me, it was very difficult as a beginning D3 coach to avoid jumping on players right away and spending a ton of cash in the first few cycles - but this is NOT the way to succeed.  If you have the patience, you can even wait until the morning of the last day of recruiting to begin.  You will get better players that way!

2. Ditto for FSS.  Wait until after the first signings to spend any of your FSS budget, because lots of players will have already signed with other teams by that point.  That will cut down on the number of available recruits in each state, which will lower the cost on the states you want to scout.  With a D3 budget, it is dumb to scout states when they are still fully populated.

3. AVOID BATTLES.  Can't stress this enough.  In D3, there is almost no reason to EVER battle another human coach for a recruit.  All it does is bleed money from your (paltry) budget.  There are enough players out there that you'll be able to find someone similar without having to battle for him.

4. Spend as little as possible per recruit.  On the last day of recruiting, players will often sign for, say, one eval and a promise of ten minutes of playing time.  No reason to go crazy spending on a guy, especially in your situation where you only have four returning players.  Sign 'em as cheaply as you can so that if there is a guy halfway across the country that you want, you'll have the cash to woo him.

5. I don't normally like to give heavy promises to a recruit, but you know you need two starting guards - so again, in the interest of spending as little as possible, wait until late in recruiting.  At that point, you can sometimes sign guys for $110 - the cost of a promise to start, plus the $100 cost to offer a schollie.  So keep your two starting guard spots in mind as you are checking out the recruits; whoever looks the most ready for prime time may be landable for just a promise.  (One of the best players I ever had in D3 was a $110 signing like this.)

Good luck, and ask questions in the forum whenever you need help - you'll find most people around here are helpful, and some threads even make it all the way to the second page before anyone calls someone else a moron or a Nazi, LOL.

above advice is good

one other thought - go into the recruit database and sort by different variables - take a look at what a middle of the recruiting population with 100 or 300 miles of you looks like.  An idea of the range and shape of the distribution of the core characteristics (see the guides mentioned above for what are core) will help you. 

In your first year, you wont get guys who are in the top quarter of DIII cores.  But you dont want guys who are in the bottom quarter....

Really wish I would have waited to scout and not spend so money. Patience is key!!

okay i will be patient. thanks for all the help guys, i really appreciate it. so i shouldn't go after any recruits at all today or tomorrow?

Posted by isack24 on 1/24/2011 5:21:00 PM (view original):

I don't want to be the lone dissenter, but with a ton (relative for D3) of cash and a B prestige, I don't think it's the worst idea to recruit locally on the first couple of days with that many open schollies. 

But because you are new, and don't have the feel for it down, I would do exactly what davis said.  I think once you're a season or two in, you can make that decision for yourself.  He's exactly right, though, that the worst thing you can do is get into a battle in D3 and blow all of that cash when you need a bunch of guys.

yep, 8 scholarships and B prestige, should be pulling down at least 3 players within 200miles, and maybe straight up recruit a D2 players within 70miles. 

If you wait like others say, might get a little thin on talent to fill those 8 spots.