To some of the commenters here that say "uptempo has no effect on the opponent, and only wears down your own team", why in the world would that make any sense at all. There would be ZERO benefit to running it. I know this game has some silly things in it, but generally it's state of the art. Why would they make an option to use, where the definition basically becomes "Here, use this option. It will ruin your team and have no positive benefit. But it won't apply anything negative to your opponent. This is just for fun"

Of course it effects the opponent! Anything you do as a coach has some kind of effect on the opponent. +5 Def? Your opponent will generally shoot worse from deep. Uptempo? If your team is flying around the court, working harder, moving faster, guess who else is? The defenders.

How could this not be correct?

I do agree with the fact that running uptempo can cause more wacky outcomes at times. Good and bad. I've also backed off of my thoughts that it only made sense to run uptempo exclusively, with a press team paired with any offensive set. I used to believe that, and now i've had success with normal and slowdown as well. But to think the opponent doesn't get fatigued against uptempo, that one doesn't make sense to me at this time.

You would run uptempo if/when your team was significantly better. When you're the better team more possessions should correlate to a better chance of favorable outcomes for your team each possession, and thus a better chance of winning.

Whether or not running uptempo affects the other opponents fatigue levels has been long debated in the forums, but CS and Seble have been very consistent over the years in saying it does not have a DIRECT effect on your opponent. As several coaches have pointed out, there's likely an indirect effect because of the increased number of possessions that occur over the course of a game.

I've always thought that, when recruited for properly, uptempo can be greatly beneficial when running press but often hurts your team more than helps it when running man or zone. Just my two cents.

Posted by topdogggbm on 1/9/2019 9:33:00 PM (view original):
To some of the commenters here that say "uptempo has no effect on the opponent, and only wears down your own team", why in the world would that make any sense at all. There would be ZERO benefit to running it. I know this game has some silly things in it, but generally it's state of the art. Why would they make an option to use, where the definition basically becomes "Here, use this option. It will ruin your team and have no positive benefit. But it won't apply anything negative to your opponent. This is just for fun"

Of course it effects the opponent! Anything you do as a coach has some kind of effect on the opponent. +5 Def? Your opponent will generally shoot worse from deep. Uptempo? If your team is flying around the court, working harder, moving faster, guess who else is? The defenders.

How could this not be correct?

I do agree with the fact that running uptempo can cause more wacky outcomes at times. Good and bad. I've also backed off of my thoughts that it only made sense to run uptempo exclusively, with a press team paired with any offensive set. I used to believe that, and now i've had success with normal and slowdown as well. But to think the opponent doesn't get fatigued against uptempo, that one doesn't make sense to me at this time.

The principle here is that you will almost always feel the effects of running uptempo, in terms of fatiguing players, more than your opponent will feel it. It isn’t that both teams aren’t affected, the question is to what extent, and is it direct or not. The tempo you choose *directly* affects your team’s stamina. There’s no getting around it, you can’t mitigate the effects other than having sufficient depth and/or stamina to bear it. It does not directly affect your opponent’s stamina. Your opponent has gameplay options to mitigate effects, they are not direct. They could play slowdown. They could play zone. They could utilize good depth. All these things mitigate fatigue issues (and come with other issues, there is no magic bullet).

Given certain factors, running uptempo *could* correlate with fatigue effects for your opponent, but not necessarily. It *does* necessarily increase your own team’s fatigue. It doesn’t make it a bad idea, but if you’re doing it to trigger the “fatigue cascade”, you need to have specific advantages to make it work.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/10/2019 1:39:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 1/9/2019 9:33:00 PM (view original):
To some of the commenters here that say "uptempo has no effect on the opponent, and only wears down your own team", why in the world would that make any sense at all. There would be ZERO benefit to running it. I know this game has some silly things in it, but generally it's state of the art. Why would they make an option to use, where the definition basically becomes "Here, use this option. It will ruin your team and have no positive benefit. But it won't apply anything negative to your opponent. This is just for fun"

Of course it effects the opponent! Anything you do as a coach has some kind of effect on the opponent. +5 Def? Your opponent will generally shoot worse from deep. Uptempo? If your team is flying around the court, working harder, moving faster, guess who else is? The defenders.

How could this not be correct?

I do agree with the fact that running uptempo can cause more wacky outcomes at times. Good and bad. I've also backed off of my thoughts that it only made sense to run uptempo exclusively, with a press team paired with any offensive set. I used to believe that, and now i've had success with normal and slowdown as well. But to think the opponent doesn't get fatigued against uptempo, that one doesn't make sense to me at this time.

The principle here is that you will almost always feel the effects of running uptempo, in terms of fatiguing players, more than your opponent will feel it. It isn’t that both teams aren’t affected, the question is to what extent, and is it direct or not. The tempo you choose *directly* affects your team’s stamina. There’s no getting around it, you can’t mitigate the effects other than having sufficient depth and/or stamina to bear it. It does not directly affect your opponent’s stamina. Your opponent has gameplay options to mitigate effects, they are not direct. They could play slowdown. They could play zone. They could utilize good depth. All these things mitigate fatigue issues (and come with other issues, there is no magic bullet).

Given certain factors, running uptempo *could* correlate with fatigue effects for your opponent, but not necessarily. It *does* necessarily increase your own team’s fatigue. It doesn’t make it a bad idea, but if you’re doing it to trigger the “fatigue cascade”, you need to have specific advantages to make it work.

Makes sense for the most part. And an opponent running slowdown can help them from getting fatigued, yes. In a similar manner that if the opponent doesn't shoot any 3s against my +5 DEF setting example. Cause and effect.

I know that example is unrelated to stamina, but it seems to me that everything is cause and effect in this game. And i'm not sure why tempo would be ruled out.

But overall, very good discussions here. And no one slinging mud? I think we're evolving guys!

I don’t think we are saying uptempo has no effect on opponents stamina. We, at least me, is saying it’s not that much.

I also disagree with the “wacky results” in uptempo. All the odd results I can see are due to fatigue and foul trouble. Generally speaking I do believe uptempo against teams with similar talent isn’t an optimal strategy .

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/10/2019 7:02:00 AM (view original):
I don’t think we are saying uptempo has no effect on opponents stamina. We, at least me, is saying it’s not that much.

I also disagree with the “wacky results” in uptempo. All the odd results I can see are due to fatigue and foul trouble. Generally speaking I do believe uptempo against teams with similar talent isn’t an optimal strategy .

I wish I could recall the thread where billyg and killbatman talked about uptempo but it was probably 5 years ago. On the whole, the number of “wacky results” is low with uptempo-I’ll definitely agree there. But pay attention when people complain on the forums about games where they feel they “got summed”-the vast majority of the time the team that lost ran uptempo. So maybe a better way to put it is when there is an odd result, the team that lost usually ran uptempo.

Part of the issue is coaches overvalue and think they’re the better team, run uptempo, lose, and the reality is the teams were evenly matched.

I can’t tell you the number of times I was in a game that was a toss-up, opened the pbp, saw the other coach ran uptempo, and immediately became giddy because I knew my chances to win just went from 50-50 to 80-20. When utilized correctly (ie, with press and FB), it’s a great tool. I just don’t see it utilized “correctly” very often.

I don't look at stamina for recruiting. I have a total of 1 player on all of my 6 teams that might not get above 70, he is 64 yellow and an incoming freshman, and an average player that should never start on my team. Good players have good stamina almost all of the time. ATH/DEF/STAMINA are linked, almost every player that is high ATH/DEF is also above 70 in Stamina. High stamina is a result of a good team, not a product.

I have run slowdown for all 6 of my teams every single game for about the past 2 years. I almost never lose to inferior teams. When I do it is usually due to glaring problems on my team, such as me starting 3 freshman due to promises. I used to run uptempo because my team was so much better than other teams and had more depth. I did not win a single title until I started only running slowdown. Running Uptempo usually led to my team that was a final 4 caliber team talent wise losing in the second round or S16.

Posted by MonsterTurtl on 1/12/2019 11:56:00 PM (view original):
I don't look at stamina for recruiting. I have a total of 1 player on all of my 6 teams that might not get above 70, he is 64 yellow and an incoming freshman, and an average player that should never start on my team. Good players have good stamina almost all of the time. ATH/DEF/STAMINA are linked, almost every player that is high ATH/DEF is also above 70 in Stamina. High stamina is a result of a good team, not a product.

I have run slowdown for all 6 of my teams every single game for about the past 2 years. I almost never lose to inferior teams. When I do it is usually due to glaring problems on my team, such as me starting 3 freshman due to promises. I used to run uptempo because my team was so much better than other teams and had more depth. I did not win a single title until I started only running slowdown. Running Uptempo usually led to my team that was a final 4 caliber team talent wise losing in the second round or S16.

You say that players with high ATH/DEF come with stamina above 70.... that's not the "high" I speak of. 70 stamina is small. I'm talking about players in the 90s with elite stamina. I won my title last season running flex press uptempo all season. I'm the likely favorite to repeat with the same team, and I run mainly uptempo. And honestly, my team isn't super dominant when it comes to stamina. So slowdown definitely can win. But uptempo can just as well. I'm not saying one is better than the other. A coach can win with either

I'm pretty sure I brought this point up about a month or two ago and agree with piman, going uptempo, at least with my fastbreak teams had produced some not so good, but wacky results. I'm not saying it doesn't tire your opponent out, but it seems to zap your teams stamina more than the other team and I'm basing this on performance, certainly the biggest factor being lower FG% and lack of FT attempts per possession.However, certain players with very high stamina in a FB/FCP system may be able to overcome this.

One thing that you can't see with the naked eye is, although you see your teams stamina bar every 4 minutes, you don't always see the true effects of stamina, for a player with low stamina that's been in there for a minute and a half or two, without the benefit of a stoppage in play, after he's gone tired and well beyond the threshold from when he was "supposed" to come out. Another thing to watch out for, that coaches don't take notice, is that your team could be subbing 4 or 5 guys, right before that stamina bar shows at the 4 minute mark, but not realize there are any issues with fatigue.

So the stamina bar can be misleading. Don't assume your team doesn't have stamina issues just because most of your guys are in green for most of the game.

from a statistical perspective, one would expect more odd results in games played slow than games played with more possessions - each possession is a chance for team superiority to have its effect

if one team was better 55 v 45% and they played a weird game in which each team got 10 possessions, the weaker team would win a lot of games (everything else being equal)

if they played 100 possessions, there would be few upsets

if they played 1000 possessions, there would be very few upsets

all of this assumes that the strength really is 55 v 45 and no one has the flu or is tired or any other variables

now, the 10 possession game is a bit like football - where there are a good number of upsets

the 100 possession game is a bit like hoops

the 1000 possession game is a bit like tennis - where the better wins an awful lot

what does this mean for tempo - ignoring all other variables - like depth - more possessions favor the better team - and few possessions give more impact to a single odd random result