jeff, I had a hard time following your first paragraph, but I agree with the second... though is it possible that the 2 paragraphs may not be consistent with one another?? 

coachbilly, if the defense is extended out or really up on the offensive players, why wouldn't the 3FG% go down as well as frequency?  The tradeoff -- it seems to me, at least -- is that you open yourself up to better 2FG%.  I envision this as happening from backdoor cuts and such from good passing and quick teams.  But all things being equal, tighter perimeter defense should lead to lower 3FG% on average, imo.

Posted by jdno on 9/25/2010 10:31:00 PM (view original):
jeff, I had a hard time following your first paragraph, but I agree with the second... though is it possible that the 2 paragraphs may not be consistent with one another?? 

coachbilly, if the defense is extended out or really up on the offensive players, why wouldn't the 3FG% go down as well as frequency?  The tradeoff -- it seems to me, at least -- is that you open yourself up to better 2FG%.  I envision this as happening from backdoor cuts and such from good passing and quick teams.  But all things being equal, tighter perimeter defense should lead to lower 3FG% on average, imo.

i sort of agree, sort of disagree. the tradeoff is definitely that you open yourself up to better 2pt fgs (among other things). but with 3 pointers, i look at it like this. the other team is not going to take really ****** 3 pointers just because you are guarding them. they are just going to take good opportunities, like they usually do. there will just be less of them. so all in all, i would expect a very slightly worse  3pt % (which, i think we do see), and a much much more pronounced reduction in 3 pt attempts.

Jdno -- sorry, that first paragraph wasn't worded so great.  Mostly just trying to say a) what billyg just said, and b) that in addition to this, I predict that when a team is thwarted in their original intention -- i.e. to shoot lots of 3s -- that scrambling to find a better shot when the 3 isn't there leads to lower 2-pt. %s as well.  Therefore, I bet a team that "wants" to shoot 20 3s a game will shoot 5% less from 2 against a +3 than a team that "wants" to shoot only 5 3s, because the second team is running their offense as usual and finding less defensive pressure -- an optimal outcome -- whereas the first team is finding defensive pressure in all the places they're trying to shoot, and having to react to find better alternatives.
Jut a theory, though.

I feel like all of the above 2 posts should be highly dependent on IQs as well.

In billy's example, if my team is starting 2 frosh with C IQs at SG/SF, perhaps they do jack a few bad 3s with hands in their faces. Whereas if i have all SRs and A IQs, i'd expect them to "do the right thing" and try to get better looks at 2FGs.

for Jeff, same thing-- if my IQs are stellar, this negative effect should be mitigated, and if they're poor, it should be exacerbated (if it exists, which is questionable but interesting).

Agreed.  But I bet (if I'm right) it's not completely mitigated, i.e. with bad IQs, a team that wants to shoot 3s but can't find looks shoots 9% worse from 2 than if they weren't looking to shoot 3s, whereas a team with good IQs would only shoot 2% worse.

I posted this originally and then left for vacation before being able to respond. 

I've sampled different game plans and changed lineups based on individual match-ups.  The fact that my record vs human coaches is better than SIM coaches is glaring.  I'm not upset about them being more difficult, just them having multiple advantages in recruiting that we cannot. 

What I really directly attribute the human struggles in the Big West to is the fact that 8 SIM teams have 5 or more players in at least 1 of their classes.  There are four super-teams that we have to compete with.  HD can fix the super-class issue but choose not to.  The fact that humans are limited in using this strategy but 4 SIM teams I'm competing against aren't doesn't make sense.   And with the new recruits being generated there are far less JC players than there were before that could be used to level out SIM classes.  This season there are only 45 D1 JC recruits.