Other than playing an inferior team or a team with a short rotation, what other situations could possibly call for uptempo play? Right now I'm looking at situations where good players may be playing more minutes than their stamina really can handle. Assuming we know one team is running a normal to uptempo pace - should the other team ramp up the pace as well? It seems most sim teams play their guys on getting tired and run normal tempos - is the fatigue penalty really big enough to consistently cause players to underperfom? How much of a factor does home court advantage play here?

Thanks for any assistance. And apologies in advance if my questions are unclear - I put this together in a hurry.

I've been having the same question

Ok in my opinion, if the other guy's team is thin and a few guys are getting a lot of minutes, even if they're studs, is one of the first things I look at. Since I assume most coaches run fatigue, it's not so much the fatigue penalty I'm looking for, I just want his guys to maybe get tired a little faster so they have to go the bench quicker or more often. 

That uptempo at home question intrigues me because I just had a huge upset against a team running up tempo and it did happen to be a home game. I put up 100 after they held me to 58 earlier in the season. As I'm writing this I'm also thinking up tempo may be good if your offense just needs to shoot the ball. Some teams thrive on less than 50 shots per game, mine seems to like pushing it above 60 to get wins.

Thanks for responding guys - thought this was dead.

Posted by mikvitu on 3/18/2014 3:17:00 AM (view original):

Ok in my opinion, if the other guy's team is thin and a few guys are getting a lot of minutes, even if they're studs, is one of the first things I look at. Since I assume most coaches run fatigue, it's not so much the fatigue penalty I'm looking for, I just want his guys to maybe get tired a little faster so they have to go the bench quicker or more often. 

That uptempo at home question intrigues me because I just had a huge upset against a team running up tempo and it did happen to be a home game. I put up 100 after they held me to 58 earlier in the season. As I'm writing this I'm also thinking up tempo may be good if your offense just needs to shoot the ball. Some teams thrive on less than 50 shots per game, mine seems to like pushing it above 60 to get wins.

I don't think opponent tempo affects fatigue - at least that's what everyone says. I do think this is not the case with press teams and fastbreak teams as I notice when I play these teams all my players get minutes with a 12 man rotation but if I play man or zone teams maybe 10 to 11 of my guys see time on the court. It's not always due to foul trouble either.

I try to convince myself that when I have a deep team and I'm playing against a team with great starters but a weak bench that my running uptempo will force their bench to play more. Don't know if it actually happens, but I've had some good success with that. I also used to always run uptempo against the press whether the team I was playing agianst was better or not. I think this was much more effective in the past than it is now.

Here's how I see things regarding when to run uptempo:

1. Obviously if you're better top to bottom then the other team, then uptempo should be the default.. 

2. As mikvitu said, if the other team is thin or he gives high minutes to a few guys, then I'd lean to uptempo.  Check the pbp of his last few games and see if his guys are getting to the tired stage or beyond.  Check to see what the average minutes played are for his full roster.  Maybe he's R/S a kid, which means he only has 11 guys to work with.  Anything to extend the game will likely work to your advantage, and going uptempo means more possessions in the game, thereby extending the game and likely working in your favor.

3. If the opponent's ATH, SP, and DEF ratings are low and/or you shoot a lot of FTs in your base offense and/or shoot them well, then you should consider going uptempo.  He's prone to getting into foul trouble, which means you'll get to the line a lot.  His foul trouble will cause rotational and stamina issues that could likely snowball, esp. in the 2H.  This is probably very close to #1 above, but here I'm really focusing on these 3 ratings.  If the opponent runs FCP and these conditions are met, then even better, as FCP tends to lead to more fouling.

4. If you're playing a run-of-the-mill SIM team, just go uptempo.  Or said another way maybe, you need to find a reason to not go uptempo imo.  This won't always work of course, but the SIM teams seem to be quite inefficient in their lineups, distribution, depth chart, etc., so exploit this by going uptempo to extend the game through more possessions so that your team will have a better chance of winning.

5. If the other team's stamina is significantly lower than yours (let's say 5 or more points), then you should consider going uptempo.  Again, extend the game and hope your superior stamina gives you the edge.

6. All things being equal, if you're playing at home, uptempo makes more sense than going uptempo on the road.  Home teams -- on average -- shoot better and foul less.  At D3 the HCA isn't as significant as it is in D1, but it's still there imo.  So this factor shouldn't be overlooked.


A few caveats --> All of the above assumes you have 11 or 12 players who can actually play.  If you're running short-handed (2+ walkons) or have an injury or lost a kid to grades, then certainly you need to re-evaluate.  This also assumes you have a team of your guys and you're a competent coach.  If you're just in your first season with a team and you have all these SIM-recruited kids still playing for you, then certainly re-evaluate things.  Also, if you have 3 or 4 studs who start and a bunch of scrubs or freshmen backing them up, then really you probably should be going slowdown, forget about uptempo (this kind of falls under the competent coach part to me)

Lastly, there's been a lot of confusion based on some DevChats where people asked if tempo affects the other team's stamina and stuff and admin/seble gave a vague response that's been confusing for people, including myself, to really understand.  IMO it comes down to this:  Going uptempo means both teams have more possessions and go up and down the court more times than a slowdown game will yield.  This will lead to both teams relying on their stamina and bench vs. a slowdown game.  That's it, imo.  If I go uptempo and you go uptempo, there's going to be a lot of possessions and a lot of winded players which necessitates more minutes by the backups.  We both go slowdown, and all of our starters will play more minutes.  Simple as that to me.

This is only based on what I've seen, but it seems like when I do uptempo vs a short handed team (8 or 9 guys) there's not a noticeable difference in outcome. All logic says it should be beneficial, but more often we end up with the same foul situation and my team will shoot around 40%. I don't think there's a big enough penalty for being short handed.

Posted by stinenavy on 3/18/2014 5:52:00 PM (view original):
This is only based on what I've seen, but it seems like when I do uptempo vs a short handed team (8 or 9 guys) there's not a noticeable difference in outcome. All logic says it should be beneficial, but more often we end up with the same foul situation and my team will shoot around 40%. I don't think there's a big enough penalty for being short handed.

I would argue there is too much of a penalty for being shorthanded. Not many teams actually go beyond 8 or 9 deep in college basketball. Whereas in WIS you almost need to be going 10 deep. 

I am pretty sure I've read that the tempo you play does not effect the opponents fatigue level, but I'm not sure how accurate this is.  It does effect your fatigue level. One of the times to use uptempo is if you have reason to believe you can put the opponent into foul trouble.  More possessions = more fouls.  For example, if an opponent has a good scorer who can't defend, play uptempo and attack that player on the defensive end to try and get them off the floor.  

I personally use uptempo differently than most.  If I have starters that are much better than my subs, I play almost exclusively slowdown to keep my starters on the floor, regardless of who I'm playing and if I'm better than my opponent or not.  I use uptempo when my bench is as good or better than my starters.  For example, if I have to promise a start to a freshmen and it puts a better player on my bench, I'll tend to play more uptempo.  Similarly, if I have some players with lower work ethics, I'll try to start them to get their work ethic up and play uptempo so my better players coming off the bench get more time.  I do this with freshmen who have lower work ethics but decent potentials.  They get the credit for starting so their work ethics go up but they don't play a ton of minutes.  This especially works well if the freshman with lower work ethic also has lower stamina.  

Posted by kmasonbx1 on 3/18/2014 6:43:00 PM (view original):

Posted by stinenavy on 3/18/2014 5:52:00 PM (view original):
This is only based on what I've seen, but it seems like when I do uptempo vs a short handed team (8 or 9 guys) there's not a noticeable difference in outcome. All logic says it should be beneficial, but more often we end up with the same foul situation and my team will shoot around 40%. I don't think there's a big enough penalty for being short handed.

I would argue there is too much of a penalty for being shorthanded. Not many teams actually go beyond 8 or 9 deep in college basketball. Whereas in WIS you almost need to be going 10 deep. 

I read this reply and wonder if we're even playing the same game.

What penalties are you referring to kmason? I'm sure foul trouble may play more of a factor for short benches and maybe even with the fatigue penalty you'd end up with less of other stats like Rbs, steals, blocks - etc, but you also get a benefit from playing starters vs. backups which keeps mediocre teams in the game and allows great short handed teams a good opportunity to win.