This confuses me and from what I've heard, other coaches as well. My two star players each had the same distribution against inferior opponents, yet one took 14 shots the other 4.

Information - Phelan - D1 Long Island University
Opponent - Wagner SIM - man-to-man defense at 0 no double teams.

Distribution - Steele 16, Prado 16 Kowalsky 12, Eckley 10, Adams 6, Fitzgerald 6, Shaw 4, nobody else above 2.

Steele's numbers - 100 ath, 85 spd, 86 lp, 64 pe, 54 bh, 60 pa, 88 stam
Steele's opposite number - 69 ath, 45 spd, 79 de, 80 stam

Prado's numbers - 72 ath, 93 spd, 90 pe, 81 bh, 64 pa, 89 stam
Prado's opposite number - 60 ath, 56 spd, 71 de, 77 stam

There were no injuries to either player and neither was in any foul trouble.

Can someone smarter than me explain why Steele took 14 shots and Prado 4 because I'm trying to understand this new engine and this doesn't make sense to me.

Without looking (in other words, me being lazy), tip-ins, offensive rebound putbacks, lay-ups off of steals, one having more free throw attempts than the other.........this may explain some of the difference.  I don't know, like I said, just throwing some ideas out there........

Okay, just looked real quickly and it doesn't look like the examples I used are gonna explain that large of a discrepancy.  Anyone else give the man some help?

Hey, the good thing is, it least it didn't result in a loss!!

to answer dcy0827 thoughts -

steals were 3 each
off rebounds Steele 1, Prado 0
free throws Steele 3-5, Prado 2-4

doesn't seem to be a 10-shot swing there

true, I didn't lose, just trying to figure this game out a little better.

Box Score

My initial possible explanation didn't hold up under closer scrutiny, so I'm still looking at it.

Seems like John Maxfield got quite a bit of time at SF for your opponent. (56 Ath, 33 Spd, 46 Def). With Steele playing SF, he'd have a larger advantage when Maxfield was on him than Prado would have against his counterpart. That alone doesn't account for 10 shots, but when you add everything in, it can explain it.

Rebounding
Steele's one offensive rebound was a missed tip at 4:34 of the first half, so that's a shot (1).

Luck?
Steele's layup at 00:00 of the first half seemed to be a case of cherry picking, as Shaw stole the ball at 00:01 (after 26 seconds had come off the shotclock, so not in the back court) and made a "great pass" to allow Steele to "bank[] in the layup." That's a shot (2).

Steals
Steele's dunk at 8:49 of the second half came directly off one of his three steals (at 8:54, from the aforementioned John Maxfield). That's another shot (3). None of Prado's three steals led directly to a breakaway shot for him.

Those 3 shots plus the advantage he had over Maxfield makes the shots from Steele seem reasonable to me.

I find it more odd than Prado took *only* 4 shots, particularly because he was often sharing the floor with a group of players with lower comparable distro than those Steele shared the floor with. It seems especially odd that his shots did not increase in the second half when Wagner shifted to a (-2) defense, which I would have anticipated really opening things up for Prado (who is primarily a 3-point shooter).

random number theory - look at any major college player in the country - if he averages 10 shot attempts per game, he will range from 2 or 3 or 4 all the way to 16 or 17 or 18 - that isn't a gameplan thing, just sort of happens some games, in HD and in real life - it is possibly the best part of this simulation.  I am always amazed for all the randomness, by game 30 or 35 (wishful thinking) usually my players and distro are near spot on each and every season.  But mixed in there are some odd games, just like real life.

I think the problem is most of us aren't playing in game 35.... I believe if any of my teams make game 35 I'm pretty dang happy with the outcome of that season and believe everything is working as it's suppose to, as a matter of fact I'm sure the best team and the best coach made it to where they belong.. 

I've always just felt that some players shoot less than others, that it's just the kind of player they are. I know coaching in RL there are times I can call 10 plays for a kid I really feel good about putting the ball in the whole and I'm lucky if he'll get 3 or 4 shots off, while other kids will find a way to get there shot whether I call plays for them or not.
I've also had players in HD that it didn't matter how many plays I called for them they just wouldn't shoot the ball as much as I wanted them to. These seem to me like un-selfish, team oriented players that pass the ball well and take good shots when they do shoot. Anyway, just my take...

bd - I think there still may be a math reason why some guys do not get shots up, if 5 guys all are set to 10 distro, but the 6th thru 10th men are set to 6,4,2,2,2 - more than likely by seasons end 2 or 3 of the 10's will shoot near double the other 2 or 3, and the 6th man set to 6% may shoot more than anyone, and all of it couold be perfectly logical - the 2 or 3 starters at 10% with the highest sorry stamina will spend time on the court with the 6-4-2-2-2 type guys, at those times they will get a remarkably high number of touches.  More obviously, the 6% guy will get alot of touches on the court with the 4-2-2-2 guys - it all is about who is on the court with you on average throughout the course of the season.  Figuring out distro is simply a math game, actually HD is more or less a math game. 

Mizzou, I have plenty of non game 35 seasons under my belt, maybe more than anyone, LOL - thanks for catching that little joke.

Completely anecdotal, but I tend to find that given even distros, SFs will shoot more than any other position.

I thought the teen wolf email when recruiting was an indication that a guy was selfish and would be the type to overshoot his distro.

I realize math plays a huge part, but there isn't anything to the idea that certain players just take more shots? I had a player at Colgate that could play 3 positions. I thought that would make it easy to match him up with lessor defenders, which it of course did, but I just couldn't get the guy to shoot the ball near as much as I wanted him too. He was a good athlete (high 80's), had decent speed (70's?) and a great per. game (99). He actually shot 40.4% from behind the arch and shot quite a few of them, going 312 for 772 over 4 years. When I could get him to shoot the ball enough he had 30+ pts. and shot a high %, but like I said I just flat couldn't get him to shoot as much as I wanted to, even when I would set his distro at  15-18 and have the next closest at 5-7. Was I still not giving him enough distro...or giving others too much? I understand it works on a % basis so I thought 2-3 times as much as the next player would get him 15+ shots a game but there were times he would put the ball up between 5-10 times with these settings. What was I doing wrong? 

Interesting thing about this -- before recent updates we knew that distribution was determined as independent events for each possession.  That is, who took the previous shots had no bearing on who would take the next one.  Now, they have introduced a change so that things like FG% are no longer independent, that is, a player's future FG% is now affected by his previous FG%.  I always felt that distribution should work that way: if Boeheim wants Carmello to take 20 shots a game and he has 2 FGA at halftime, he is going to get on his team to get Anthony the ball more.  But it is not clear if distribution was included in that update.