Posted by jimmychino on 2/26/2020 5:16:00 PM (view original):
It's very possible to do, but not easy.

I took over Crum in Northwestern at C prestige in a loaded Big 10 and have built them into a power. A+ prestige, 22 straight NT appearances, 2 national titles, and at one point, 5 straight final fours. I had no clue what I was doing at first though. It took me 10 years to make our first NT, but we haven't missed one since.

Scheduling has been mentioned already but is very very key. Just schedule 10 away games against decent SIMAI teams. Look for teams that were around 100-150 in RPI that are only graduating one or two players. You want teams you can definitely beat, but not teams that are terrible and will tank your RPI and SOS. The goal here is to go 10-0 in non conference because you will struggle in conference.

Recruiting is everything. Forget about ever battling a team with higher prestige unless the preferences REALLY favor you. Your goal is to find the best recruits that the elites do not want. Be prepared to be knocked off your top targets, and your backups. Just keep running from battles against higher prestige teams. Take a look at the best D2 teams. They are often better than the 16 seeds in the D1 tournament. So take your time to really scout out lots of players... Everyone emphasizes ATH/DEF for good reason, so make sure if all else fails, the recruit has the potential to get to at least 90/90 in ATH/DEF. Don't be afraid to liberally promise minutes and starting positions either.

Eventually, once you make a couple NT's, your prestige will make it to B- or B. Now you can begin taking shots at better players, but you have to be really careful. Try to take the time to study what other teams are doing. Write down how many open scholarships they have, and how many recruiting battles they are in. You can get a very good sense for how everyone is spending their recruiting money and AP just by going through the top 100 list of recruits and clicking on the considering lists. Also pay attention to JUCO's and international recruits as they are often battled for. If a coach seems to be overextended you can consider making a play for one of their uncontested players.

The main thing to avoid is getting into huge recruiting battles with teams that are in a better position to land the player than you are. I think I was an B+ or A- until I finally battled another team in my conference for a recruit.

Not sure if you need help with your depth chart or gameplan….

And keep asking questions on the forum! Good luck!

It's encouraging to know it's possible! I hadn't put that much thought into scheduling so I'll definitely start working on that. Is there a reason why they should be away games?

Thanks, the 90\90 rule really helps. Yeah I need to shoot higher but be quick to divest and move on if it a high-prestige team comes in.

I'd love help on gameplanning\depth chart. I'm not sure how much it actually affects. I have algorithms that match players and tell me who has an advantage, etc., but any thoughts you have would be super helpful.

Thanks for all your thoughts.

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/26/2020 5:29:00 PM (view original):
the scheduling advice is key. the only reason a BCS rebuild is in some ways harder than a **** conf rebuild is the scheduling - every other item, they either have an advantage (baseline and conf prestige) or are neutral.

at a borderline NT caliber team (by quality), you can REALLY easily make the NT if you have a good schedule for it - it just so happens that losing 10 games in conference is a REALLY bad schedule for it.

as others said - start with better sims from bad conferences. these teams will win most of their conf games and have solid records, and you should win fairly easily. if you aren't fairly easily beating sims, then you have to work on some other stuff, but by the time you have a really great d2 team (which is the starting goal for d1 teams), it should be relatively easy to beat some sims.

from there, you just take a small step up - you might schedule some humans even from bad conferences, or at least the best sims in bad conferences (the theme is find teams you can beat reliably, who play most of their games against truly awful teams, so that they'll still have a good record). a full half of your RPI is your opponent's record - and a quarter is your win/loss. so by playing a team with a solid record, who you can beat, you are pretty well stacking the RPI deck.

Yeah, that's a great note about the RPI. I've been scheduling more or less randomly, so I'll have to be a lot more intentional about scheduling.

It isn't easy. I have coached Auburn, Rutgers and G'town over the years with only middling success. Here are my thoughts:


Scheduling is key, I would recommend going 10-0 until you know you can get to 500ish in the conference. Those wins need to be against someone decent (humans in empty conferences, good sims,etc) but don't go overboard. I actually find this really boring so I don't do it much.

Don't settle. At high D1, the cores need to be in the mid to upper 80's. Defense needs to be in the mid to upper 80's. You just can't win with dudes in the 70's and 60's. If you can't get a guy good enough, don't sign a schlub. I also suck at this.

Moneyball it. Everyone wants the guy who projects out at 90/90 Ath and Def. You can probably get the 70 ATH 100 SPEED 80 DEF 100something else guy much easier. He isn't as good but he is still good!

Save some cash and crush the dreams of the good D2 programs. That 75 ATH 100everything post player with a late signing preference who high D1 teams don't want should always be on your radar.

Learn the value of role players. The 100 speed 100 Per sucks at everything else guy is still valuable to you. Sign him cheap, let him play 10 minutes and jack 10 threes. The post player with a 40 LP and 90+ ATH/REB/DEF/BLK is valuable to you. Heck, that guy with 85's is still valuable.

And get better every year, there will be down years but once you get to a B/B+ you should be able to make the NT every year.

My approach is very similar to Gil, except I go by 6 attributes, rather than 4 - splitting defense and scoring into perimeter and post. Other than that, we mostly agree. I tell folks a recruit you might spend resources on should be able to do 3 of those things well; or two of them really well; or have elite ability at one.

Going along with this, at D1, I consider ~80 to be the “does something well” threshold. So a guard averaging 80 in speed, perimeter and ball handling is about what I would consider “doing perimeter scoring well”. Upper 80s into low 90s is excellent, upper 90s is elite.

The players in question on your roster are basically replacement level. In other words, they are readily and easily replaceable; it shouldn’t cost you any resources, other than the attention to unlock a scholarship. It’s not that you should never consider this kind of player at D1; but be willing to cut them if you can upgrade. You can generally get better options for the same low level of AP investment; if not, it’s likely either that you’re not scouting widely enough, or that you’re waiting until it’s too late to start thinking about backup options to your top targets, and lower level teams are locking those guys in. As a D1 Big 6 rebuild, you can expect to lose a lot of battles while you’re building. The key is keeping your team afloat through that. So developing good plan Bs and Cs can be a good idea.

Posted by shoe3 on 2/27/2020 1:58:00 PM (view original):
My approach is very similar to Gil, except I go by 6 attributes, rather than 4 - splitting defense and scoring into perimeter and post. Other than that, we mostly agree. I tell folks a recruit you might spend resources on should be able to do 3 of those things well; or two of them really well; or have elite ability at one.

Going along with this, at D1, I consider ~80 to be the “does something well” threshold. So a guard averaging 80 in speed, perimeter and ball handling is about what I would consider “doing perimeter scoring well”. Upper 80s into low 90s is excellent, upper 90s is elite.

The players in question on your roster are basically replacement level. In other words, they are readily and easily replaceable; it shouldn’t cost you any resources, other than the attention to unlock a scholarship. It’s not that you should never consider this kind of player at D1; but be willing to cut them if you can upgrade. You can generally get better options for the same low level of AP investment; if not, it’s likely either that you’re not scouting widely enough, or that you’re waiting until it’s too late to start thinking about backup options to your top targets, and lower level teams are locking those guys in. As a D1 Big 6 rebuild, you can expect to lose a lot of battles while you’re building. The key is keeping your team afloat through that. So developing good plan Bs and Cs can be a good idea.

Thanks for the input! Very helpful. :)

Posted by shoe3 on 2/27/2020 1:58:00 PM (view original):
My approach is very similar to Gil, except I go by 6 attributes, rather than 4 - splitting defense and scoring into perimeter and post. Other than that, we mostly agree. I tell folks a recruit you might spend resources on should be able to do 3 of those things well; or two of them really well; or have elite ability at one.

Going along with this, at D1, I consider ~80 to be the “does something well” threshold. So a guard averaging 80 in speed, perimeter and ball handling is about what I would consider “doing perimeter scoring well”. Upper 80s into low 90s is excellent, upper 90s is elite.

The players in question on your roster are basically replacement level. In other words, they are readily and easily replaceable; it shouldn’t cost you any resources, other than the attention to unlock a scholarship. It’s not that you should never consider this kind of player at D1; but be willing to cut them if you can upgrade. You can generally get better options for the same low level of AP investment; if not, it’s likely either that you’re not scouting widely enough, or that you’re waiting until it’s too late to start thinking about backup options to your top targets, and lower level teams are locking those guys in. As a D1 Big 6 rebuild, you can expect to lose a lot of battles while you’re building. The key is keeping your team afloat through that. So developing good plan Bs and Cs can be a good idea.

i agree with you, i don't look at what we are saying as being very different. i go with 4 abilities to try to keep it simple and digestible, but there's a bit more going on behind the scenes. the post defense vs per defense split is almost inherent and invisible in my eyes - outside the SF at least. i think it is natural to evaluate bigs according to their post defense and guards by their per defense, with SFs falling somewhere in the middle. generally, anyone from a good SG to a good PF can make a good SF, so i try not to get overly prescriptive there - although zone teams definitely have a particular interest in this topic. i suppose just because i call it all 'defense', i certainly don't mean to imply its the same 'equation' from the 1 to the 5. and i definitely take no exception to considering per and post defense separately!

the offensive side, i struggle with more - by offense i really mean scoring, which is a subset of overall offense - but certainly balancing 2 and 3 point scoring on a team is a very important part of team building, and one that must be done explicitly. here's why i left it out of the 4 abilities -

i generally espouse the strategy of, get 5 guys with 2 clear ability strengths, and make sure those strengths are spread out to create a balanced system, and you can be very successful.

the first part of the statement is intended to set a bar for recruiting, talent wise, and to give a sense of how to evaluate an individual - outside of the context of a team, or perhaps with moderate context of the team. is this individual worthy of a good team? that is really the main question the 1st part is trying to answer. the second part, balancing those ability strengths, is intended to speak to the importance of team planning, and i include balancing per/post or 3/2pt offense there. once you get to thinking of things on the team-scale, balancing each player's abilities, including offensively, is the challenge.