As a coach, I pride myself in consistently playing a difficult schedule as an elite D1 program. I try to play 10 humans in non-conference (typically all B/A prestige Big 6 schools) and almost always have a top 5 SOS year in year out.

However, what I'm observing now is that doing so, hurts my teams grade on the play style preference of "Strong Defense" as my opponents are very good. The defense play style is only rated by points allowed per possession and does not take into account quality of each opponent. It would be better for recruiting if I switched to a cupcake schedule (this would also make it a lot easier to obtain the "Fast tempo" or easily select one of "Perimeter" or "Paint" offenses as well).

Already pointed that out in BETA and it was ignored

I think another problem/complaint that will arise is that, I've seen after scouting thoroughly in Wooden with Rutgers, teams will be at the mercy of whatever random "preferences" these kids are generated with. Before the problem was that teams in remote areas didn't generally have a lot of decent recruits put around them. Now with that theoretically mattering less, that problem may be mitigated but it may well lead rise to this one. I've got no more than a handful of players that I'd even "consider" recruiting at a D1 school whose preferences match mine well enough to give me any kind of chance. I don't need to "wait and see" what happens, I've played long enough to know what a decent recruit looks like and one thing is for sure, there will definitely be more battles. But maybe not for the reasons that people think. More battles because the recruits that I've scouted suck. Straight ****. I wouldn't recruit 85% of them on a D2 team. So guess who is going to get battled over? Those handful of decent recruits while the losing teams get stuck with trash.

I'll give recruiting at Rutgers a go and I'll try it with a couple of my D2 teams, but color me not impressed by any means. I think my name is going to be one of the next on the "Don't let the door hit you on the *** on the way out" lists.

Thus far, it looks like a whole lot of work and a whole lot of change for, well, the sake of change. I definitely do NOT think that anything has been improved and actually think that the new lay out as a whole is a lot more clunky and difficult to navigate than the 2.0 version.

Change for the sake of change is rarely a positive thing long term.

I've had more than one team EVERY day since 2005, often times having double digit amounts of teams. I will NOT make it to 2017 with teams under this or any other ID.

It's definitely going to be interesting my - there will be some teams that might normally battle you, that will not because of the preferences. If you can focus on the kids you want, you may also need to try to line up a kid or two that is not a star now, but that has a ton of potential. I am in Illinois, but several of the players there that I would normally go after don't match me well either. It's going to be pretty interesting, I think. You'll see a lot of battles that you may not have seen before.

Posted by chapelhillne on 9/14/2016 11:00:00 PM (view original):
It's definitely going to be interesting my - there will be some teams that might normally battle you, that will not because of the preferences. If you can focus on the kids you want, you may also need to try to line up a kid or two that is not a star now, but that has a ton of potential. I am in Illinois, but several of the players there that I would normally go after don't match me well either. It's going to be pretty interesting, I think. You'll see a lot of battles that you may not have seen before.

How am I supposed to line up back-ups with a ton of potential when their high potentials start off in the D/D-/F+ ranges. I can tell you that I scouted a LOT of players because I don't need to know what the actual number rating is to know if a recruit is worthwhile as long as I have the letter and corresponding color. That's enough for me to tell if a recruit is even worth pursuing. Few and far between. Probably very good that the worlds are basically empty, otherwise you'd have D1 teams battling over players that shouldn't even see a D2 court. These recruits, well, you can polish a turd all day but at the end of the day, it's still a turd.

One preference for sure is working against coaches who have just moved: coaching longevity. I've seen nothing in that preference but Neutral and Very Bad because this is my first year at Rutgers. I'm guessing that there aren't any recruits who consider a brand new coach a Very Good thing and if there are, I haven't found even one yet.

Have I just been unlucky, or is there no Very Good for a new coach?

Posted by chapelhillne on 9/14/2016 11:00:00 PM (view original):
It's definitely going to be interesting my - there will be some teams that might normally battle you, that will not because of the preferences. If you can focus on the kids you want, you may also need to try to line up a kid or two that is not a star now, but that has a ton of potential. I am in Illinois, but several of the players there that I would normally go after don't match me well either. It's going to be pretty interesting, I think. You'll see a lot of battles that you may not have seen before.

Also, without getting too much into the "realism" thing, do you find it realistic that a coach in Illinois would decline to recruit the best talent in the state just because of a bad match with the offense and defense? Or that a coach would decline to recruit the best talent in the state because an 18 year old kid thinks he wants to play far away from home? Do we really think that it's accurate that the #1 overall recruit in the country wants to play at D+ prestige BumFU because 5 of his preferences happen to match up?

No, No, and No.

If the point of this update was to attempt to level the playing field by forcing more teams to battle, there were certainly better ways to do it than by blowing up the whole thing and putting a brand new system in place. I know that it's been said in posts before but this really looks like it's undermining successful programs and trying to artificially elevate the bad ones. There are winning teams and there are losing teams. That's why someone keeps score.

Everyone doesn't need a damn blue participation ribbon..........or any other color one either (to head off the smartass comment).

Let me start by saying that I stated more than once that preferences are a terrible concept. However, I think you are overstating the problem.

Illinois, is not going to fail to recruit an in-state 5-star due to bad preferences matches. Even as things stand, if Illinois has a reasonable prestige and moves aggressively, then it can be in the RNG to win the recruit. I am actually far more concerned about the CV limit of 5 per recruit/1 per school being the major bottleneck.

My preference, at this point, would be for preferences to stay, but be nerfed. They could be cleaned up to add color to the game, but if I'm wrong and preferences are a gatekeeper in the way you assume they will be, then, sure, that's gonna suck.

Posted by emy1013 on 9/14/2016 11:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by chapelhillne on 9/14/2016 11:00:00 PM (view original):
It's definitely going to be interesting my - there will be some teams that might normally battle you, that will not because of the preferences. If you can focus on the kids you want, you may also need to try to line up a kid or two that is not a star now, but that has a ton of potential. I am in Illinois, but several of the players there that I would normally go after don't match me well either. It's going to be pretty interesting, I think. You'll see a lot of battles that you may not have seen before.

How am I supposed to line up back-ups with a ton of potential when their high potentials start off in the D/D-/F+ ranges. I can tell you that I scouted a LOT of players because I don't need to know what the actual number rating is to know if a recruit is worthwhile as long as I have the letter and corresponding color. That's enough for me to tell if a recruit is even worth pursuing. Few and far between. Probably very good that the worlds are basically empty, otherwise you'd have D1 teams battling over players that shouldn't even see a D2 court. These recruits, well, you can polish a turd all day but at the end of the day, it's still a turd.

BTW, the decision to shotgun scout only to level 2 or 3 strikes me as a very poor choice. If I were telling someone how to play the game, that hadn't played before, I would tell them that's a mistake.

Nice thread Bud! Definetly a flaw.

Most of the preferences are fine, and add a much-needed level of nuance to recruiting. But I agree, the play style preference is wonky, and in my opinion is the weakest link of the new game. I'd love to see it replaced with an academic/pro-ball preference. High team GPA is attractive to players who prefer academics, may be a slight detriment to players who just want to play pro ball at any level (NBA to New Zealand).

In in any case, the only preferences that should strongly influence a recruit's decision should be playing time, distance, and success. The others are just slight modifiers, and to that end, I think rogelio is right, I wouldn't let those other preferences determine who I target.

Posted by emy1013 on 9/14/2016 11:08:00 PM (view original):
One preference for sure is working against coaches who have just moved: coaching longevity. I've seen nothing in that preference but Neutral and Very Bad because this is my first year at Rutgers. I'm guessing that there aren't any recruits who consider a brand new coach a Very Good thing and if there are, I haven't found even one yet.

Have I just been unlucky, or is there no Very Good for a new coach?

Correct, there is no preference for 'wants new coach'.

Many have said this before as well, but I'd like the coach itself to carry some of these preferences instead of the school.

For example, Jamie Dixon just moved from Pitt to TCU (for some insane reason). Pitt has been a pretty good team under Dixon while TCU has been a horrible program for a long time. So when a recruit is looking at where to play, yes, he will consider the prestige of TCU but he will also acknowledge the prior success of the coach.

I think there are many 'lateral' moves like this within HD where a very good coach is penalized for being 'new'. Instead, you should be able to point back to your resume as what coach longevity or success means. I think that'd really add a level of depth to the game and incentivize not only growing a great program but also being a really good coach and having a lot of prior success, even at multiple programs.

Posted by Benis on 9/15/2016 8:54:00 AM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 9/14/2016 11:08:00 PM (view original):
One preference for sure is working against coaches who have just moved: coaching longevity. I've seen nothing in that preference but Neutral and Very Bad because this is my first year at Rutgers. I'm guessing that there aren't any recruits who consider a brand new coach a Very Good thing and if there are, I haven't found even one yet.

Have I just been unlucky, or is there no Very Good for a new coach?

Correct, there is no preference for 'wants new coach'.

Many have said this before as well, but I'd like the coach itself to carry some of these preferences instead of the school.

For example, Jamie Dixon just moved from Pitt to TCU (for some insane reason). Pitt has been a pretty good team under Dixon while TCU has been a horrible program for a long time. So when a recruit is looking at where to play, yes, he will consider the prestige of TCU but he will also acknowledge the prior success of the coach.

I think there are many 'lateral' moves like this within HD where a very good coach is penalized for being 'new'. Instead, you should be able to point back to your resume as what coach longevity or success means. I think that'd really add a level of depth to the game and incentivize not only growing a great program but also being a really good coach and having a lot of prior success, even at multiple programs.

Coach prestige untangled from team prestige. I like it.