the event of the season has finally arrived! there is an opening coming up in tark's mighty GLV conference. take a look at northern kentucky, with a solid returning core, it is a nice pickup for any coach.

sure, i could go on and tell you guys about our wonderful season last season like i have every couple months over the past 2 years, but you are probably tired of hearing that by now (we won, of course :). i could tell you how we've won the majority of the championships in modern history (9 of 16), but surely you would expect nothing less. i could tell you how we already hold the top 2 (and 3 of the top 4) spots on the running all time greatest conf rpi ever list, soon to be 4 of the top 5, but that is already public information.

instead, i will touch on what really makes the GLV one of the finest conferences in all of HD. its the coaches. we have a truly fantastic bunch, in all senses of the word. our conf chat is very lively (and has been for years), and we are full to the brim with fun, friendly coaches (although, i suppose we could squeeze in one more :)  and of course, there is the competition. somehow we have managed to amass a whopping seven coaches with multiple championships, don't ask me how, i still can't believe it! but, this is no fluke, no nighttime miracle. a few months back i ran a conf dynasty evaluator, and it ranked the GLV's 20 year stretch as the best in d2 HD history. shortly before that, when we put 3 teams in the final 4, and had both title game teams, i figured, no way it gets better than this! but, apparently, i was very much mistaken. today, the GLV is the strongest I have ever seen it, and shows no signs of slowing down.

well, by now i'm sure nobody is still reading this. you have surely all run to put in your job apps, only to realize, the post season hasn't started yet! sorry about that, i guess i just wanted to make sure nobody missed out on the opportunity =) anyway, i look forward to seeing one of you soon! 

hey billy, tell 'em who's #1 right now though ;)

edit: in all seriousness, the mid-america is full right now but we'll likely have an opening. the glv has the longer track record and is better than us this year (next year will be extremely close imo). nevertheless, the competition among these two conferences, specifically since we are so close in proximity, is great. if you are complaining about HD and you are not in the mid-america or the glv in tark, then you are selling your hd experience short.

Your words intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. This season has convinced me that being a lower baseline prestige school in this new engine with the recruit generation as it works is such a disadvantage that it's not worth my money to even stay in a big 6 conference. I may move down a division at the end of the year.

This post made me look around d2 tark and there's a lot of intriguing conferences and jobs out there.

Posted by aejones on 9/15/2010 3:15:00 AM (view original):
hey billy, tell 'em who's #1 right now though ;)

edit: in all seriousness, the mid-america is full right now but we'll likely have an opening. the glv has the longer track record and is better than us this year (next year will be extremely close imo). nevertheless, the competition among these two conferences, specifically since we are so close in proximity, is great. if you are complaining about HD and you are not in the mid-america or the glv in tark, then you are selling your hd experience short.

while midamerica is still a distant second, the rivalry does serve to spice things up a bit ;)

anyway, i never mentioned the best team. but since you asked... the best team right now (most likely to win the title) has got to be the defending champ, isustud, and his indianapolis squad. his 16-0 run through the GLV is far more difficult than winning the championship. talent wise, its a bit of a toss up, aejones your team is definitely in the mix. but because they are less battle tested, and somewhat mismanaged (wink wink), indianapolis gets the go-ahead.

Posted by sublightd on 9/15/2010 3:33:00 AM (view original):
Your words intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. This season has convinced me that being a lower baseline prestige school in this new engine with the recruit generation as it works is such a disadvantage that it's not worth my money to even stay in a big 6 conference. I may move down a division at the end of the year.

This post made me look around d2 tark and there's a lot of intriguing conferences and jobs out there.

yeah, d1 sucks :)

Posted by coach_billyg on 9/15/2010 11:06:00 AM (view original):

Posted by aejones on 9/15/2010 3:15:00 AM (view original):
hey billy, tell 'em who's #1 right now though ;)

edit: in all seriousness, the mid-america is full right now but we'll likely have an opening. the glv has the longer track record and is better than us this year (next year will be extremely close imo). nevertheless, the competition among these two conferences, specifically since we are so close in proximity, is great. if you are complaining about HD and you are not in the mid-america or the glv in tark, then you are selling your hd experience short.

while midamerica is still a distant second, the rivalry does serve to spice things up a bit ;)

anyway, i never mentioned the best team. but since you asked... the best team right now (most likely to win the title) has got to be the defending champ, isustud, and his indianapolis squad. his 16-0 run through the GLV is far more difficult than winning the championship. talent wise, its a bit of a toss up, aejones your team is definitely in the mix. but because they are less battle tested, and somewhat mismanaged (wink wink), indianapolis gets the go-ahead.

you crazy old has-been, i have been to the last three title games! i'll be in the next two also! mismanage that!

on a more serious note, battle tested means absolutely nothing. i played everyone there was to play in the non conf, i played a bunch of very good teams in my conference schedule. i had one loss on the season (last loss is a game i win 99% of the time or so if i have my starters in and i gameplan-- though i did play a pretty good team, the way it's set up in the new engine there just aren't many upsets). you don't get bonus points for playing a tougher schedule (you get rpi benefit, of course, and maybe you get to see some weaknesses or something), you don't get added increase to a team's morale or extra experience points. at the end of the day it's a sim engine with a short memory.

Posted by aejones on 9/16/2010 2:10:00 AM (view original):

Posted by coach_billyg on 9/15/2010 11:06:00 AM (view original):

Posted by aejones on 9/15/2010 3:15:00 AM (view original):
hey billy, tell 'em who's #1 right now though ;)

edit: in all seriousness, the mid-america is full right now but we'll likely have an opening. the glv has the longer track record and is better than us this year (next year will be extremely close imo). nevertheless, the competition among these two conferences, specifically since we are so close in proximity, is great. if you are complaining about HD and you are not in the mid-america or the glv in tark, then you are selling your hd experience short.

while midamerica is still a distant second, the rivalry does serve to spice things up a bit ;)

anyway, i never mentioned the best team. but since you asked... the best team right now (most likely to win the title) has got to be the defending champ, isustud, and his indianapolis squad. his 16-0 run through the GLV is far more difficult than winning the championship. talent wise, its a bit of a toss up, aejones your team is definitely in the mix. but because they are less battle tested, and somewhat mismanaged (wink wink), indianapolis gets the go-ahead.

you crazy old has-been, i have been to the last three title games! i'll be in the next two also! mismanage that!

for just a moment (don't expect it to happened again!), ill concede that you guys have done a great job in mid america, yourself in particular. its not easy to build a strong conference right next to ours like that :) it definitely makes it more fun, and i think everyone enjoys the banter/trash talk. its a good mix of coaches we have between us, everyone stays fairly respectful and that keeps it fun. and 3 straight title games is awesome, im glad you are out there to give the top GLV teams someone to worry about.

we will see what happens in this NT though, i honestly think its very close between the top few teams.

Posted by aejones on 9/16/2010 2:24:00 AM (view original):
on a more serious note, battle tested means absolutely nothing. i played everyone there was to play in the non conf, i played a bunch of very good teams in my conference schedule. i had one loss on the season (last loss is a game i win 99% of the time or so if i have my starters in and i gameplan-- though i did play a pretty good team, the way it's set up in the new engine there just aren't many upsets). you don't get bonus points for playing a tougher schedule (you get rpi benefit, of course, and maybe you get to see some weaknesses or something), you don't get added increase to a team's morale or extra experience points. at the end of the day it's a sim engine with a short memory.

i disagree on this one. i know there are no bonus points for being battle tested, but no question in my mind it drastically effects your chance to win the NT. the simply reality is over 99% of the coaches in this game can't set their team up perfectly on day 1, myself very much included. secondly, the optimal game plan for beating elite teams and mediocre teams is often very different. if you are playing a mediocre team and beat them by 20 instead of 30, how do you know something is wrong? its very tough to measure performance with a talent gap like that.

there are countless times in the NT ive see people with very solid (top 10) teams, who never played anybody else in the top 10, or maybe 1, or 2, and they are totally unprepared for it. there are tons of guys, for a while in d2 tark it was well over half, who were well set up to beat the teams by a lot who they should have beaten regularly, because thats who they were used to playing. but they couldn't make the changes required to fight the good fight against other top 5-10 teams. the best example is tempo, probably half of the top 20 teams i played for a long time would be uptempo shops, which is fine for their normal opponents. but very rarely would an uptempo team switch to normal or slowdown for our game. if they had played several top 10 teams, and saw their team struggled more and more as they got into the elite range of opponents, then i would think more people would have known they were doing more to help my cause than i ever could by running uptempo into my team. some people's answer is, well, i was afraid to change things and break them. that is either because they didn't get enough opportunities in the regular season, or because they didn't take them - but in the first case, being battle tested make all the difference in the world.

i guess i usually just make my team as balanced as possible, try to have no holes so i don't have to hide them from gameplanning, and then cram my talent down the other team's throat. shrug, works pretty well. 

edit: but of course, yes, some people are just not v smart and don't understand the 'best' basketball strategy, don't understand the optimal strategy to this game, and wonder why they lose. i'd just always shy away from over-adjustments that cost you a W.

I will add to the battle-tested and helps your RPI comment, that scheduling as tough as possible is more fun to me as well. I have a lot better time game-planning against the best human teams, then setting my gimmick strategies to take down Simmy. Also, it is much more rewarding to take down a giant than it is to conquer a mouse imo.

thanks for the bid of confidence coach...hopefully i can live up to your expectations. Would love to bring home 2 in a row to the GLV. Either way, the GLV has a great chance of bringing home yet another NT title. We have 4 of the 8 teams in the Elite 8 today. Being a part of the GLV in Tark is definitely something special. Hope we can bring in another great coach to join all the others.

One opening if you think you can handle the heat then join up.  And yes we have the nt champ in house again Mlats not AEJONES!

season results:
national champion - our very own st joes / mldynasty / mlatsko - congrats!!  (3rd GLV team to win in the last 5 years! 10 total championships in last 17 seasons)
2 teams to the final 4 (who had to play each other, sadly)
4 teams in the elite 8
biggest choker - SIUE / me, with a 2nd round loss.
bonus monies - not sure exactly, it was more than 10K / school though, the highest i've ever seen (in d2 of course).

it really says a lot about a conf when the CT champ and highest seeded team, which was me in this case, blows it in the second round, and we still get half of the elite 8 and the national champ!


second topic -
best division finish ever?
champ
elite 8
elite 8
second round/CT champ/1 seed
PIT (final 4)
PIT (final 8) /  PIT #1 overall seed due to losing record and NTworthy rpi

im sure there are some incredible division finishes out there, would love to see some that compare to this one though!!

the CAC South in Naismith just had: 

champ
final 4
2nd round
2nd round
PI first rd
No postseason, but a SIM who went 10-0 noncon, 0-17 the rest of the way.

I guess it's not quite as good, but it's close. and the other division had an Elite 8 team and 1st and 2nd round losers and a PI team.  The conference as a whole also just crushed the all-time d3 RPI mark (breaking our own record).