I knew my unseasoned team would struggle this season but geez!! Have been showing signs of improvement recently, as we have been neck-and-neck with some quality teams going into the locker room at halftime.

In watching the play-by-play, the first 5 minutes of the second half look NOTHING like the first half. 17-2 run over 7 minutes, more turnovers than shots, other team in the bonus with 14 minutes left to go, all sorts of BS.

Is there a "screw you" factor in there for when a lower-ranked team unexpectedly plays well against a favored opponent? It isn't due to fatigue, because that's the first thing I looked for.

I love the "playability" of this game but am getting really frustrated with lack of progress. I don't know what other buttons to push; feel like i have tried everything. All non-condescending responses will be appreciated.

Jeff

If you have questions, feel free to site mail me. I'll help anyway I can.

Your team isn’t that good. Sometimes lesser teams are able to keep it close in the first half, but the engine will “regress to the mean” in the second half and the superior team will pull away. Low team ATH and DEF will lead to a lot of fouls. Low team stamina will wear out your team as the game drags on. It is simply not possible to out-gameplan a bad team. No one starts playing and is a recruiting wizard. I recommend finding a mentor to talk with on site mail or joining the discord so you can get real-time help with player evaluation.

You could be the best gameplanner on the website by a mile, but if you can’t recruit - good luck.

As for what Wales_ is talking about, I feel the sort of consensus starting point is the 7 paragraphs on Player Evaluation in the first entry by aejones on the pinned forum thread called “How to win at D2 and D3.” I’d review that carefully. There are plenty of opportunities to get creative and try different things but these are the fundamentals. (Side note: most of the following recruiting information is out-of-date and thus significantly less useful)

Additionally, average to mediocre press teams typically get weaker as the game goes on.

However, you are on to something about keeping things closer in the earlier possessions and that is why slowdown tempo is considered a useful tool to give yourself a chance against superior teams. It’s like trying to take that first half and make it the whole game. Hope this helps.

agree with the comments about the core ratings and needing to focus on those more, as mentioned that aejones guide has a good summary on the core ratings and recruiting priorities that newer coaches should generally adhere to pretty closely.

there's isn't a screw you factor but as was also mentioned there is a feedback mechanism in the game, if a player gets a hot hand and makes their first 8 shots for example (via good dice rolls in the engine), the engine will start correcting them down, to remove outliers like players going 0-13 or 13-13. there is definitely healthy debate about whether this is good or not, but it was added directly to counter act the randomness in the game (which was seemingly a bit higher than real life, perhaps due to the lack of human emotions which in general help round things out a bit in real life). since then complaints about unrealistic sim engine outcomes have come down. but complaints about late in the second half swings of substantial magnitude have increased.

if you are seeing this in the start of the 1st half its probably mostly luck though, or small sample size, usually the feedback doesn't have a chance to kick that hard that early.

also, if you are playing a bunch of good press teams - a good chance for lower divisions (this holds even though you are press too) - press teams tend to do better in the 2nd half, because on the whole, they tend to have more trouble with foul substitution patterns in the 1st half just because of how the engine is, and how easy it is to get a player 2 quick fouls. you may be over performing not because of anything with your team really, but the other team having even a tad of foul trouble in the 1st half can really throw them off their game. then in the 2nd half all their guys are back on the court and the expected beat down may commence?