3 questions - thanks in advance for any answers.

Practice plan: when assigning points for practice plan is there a cap where you get diminishing returns? Example: if 30 points were assigned for man-to-man defense, will part of those points become less effective than just 20 points or would you still gain an additional 50% with the 10 extra points?

Promised start: is keeping a player happy with a promised start dependent on a percentage of games played or is it just a single number like 22 starts throughout the season?

Prestige: is there a breakdown/chart on the RPI required for each prestige level? I have looked at team history but cannot figure it out. Also, is it a rolling average of RPI and if so how many seasons are included in the calculation

Okay, I edited this to add a fourth question. How do you convert green/blue potential in free-throw shooting? What would be the ceiling for a "C" free-throw shooter?

Practice seems to have a point of diminishing returns at 20/21 minutes. Also less then 5/6 minutes will cause your player to lose skill in that given core.

Promised starts I believe is 22 games, could be 23. And do not go two games back to back without a Start unless they are ruled "out" due to injury.

I have been playing for years, and still have no answer to #3.

1) sort of. this is highly situational.

for team iq, you are going to see diminishing returns starting around 10m, perhaps earlier. that said, most folks recommend at least 20m in off/def, working your way up closer to 25/25 as you work towards a+ d1. there is some value from 25m to 30m but its significantly decreased value compared to 20->25m.

for individual iq (runs on different formulas than team iq), there are probably diminishing returns around 20m, but there are no hard boundaries and things are highly dependent on return on investment. in a green per on a guy you need to really push up, you could easily have 30m or even 40m, and not just while they are a jr/sr capped in the rest. for a point of comparison, which is likely more aggressive than you should be right now, the highest category for each player on my team right now is set to this: 24, 24, 26, 56, 21, 30, 18, 28, 58, 26

note the advice about diminishing categories - while true - is often irrelevant. a red category might drop at 0 but the rate of the drop is generally so low that you by far benefit from taking the hit, and using those minutes for a black/blue/green you care about. i have 0s all over my practice plan, all coaches should, its a huge disadvantage not to.

2) stay at or above 80% the whole way. you can lose a guy for dipping under 80% temporarily. the game did not used to work this way, and i'm not convinced its intentional, but it is what it is. as long as you stay at or above 80% the whole way, you will be fine, and that means 21/26 for the reg season, and then you can bail for the post season.

3) prestige isn't that simple. d2/d3 prestige is different than d1, but in both cases, the NT is the primary driver. wins and RPI help you but you really need NT success to get up to the higher levels.

in d2/d3, there is no baseline prestige. your prestige for next season in d2/d3 is the success for the current season, weighted half, and then the current prestige, weighted half. you roughly need a s16 season or a good 2nd round season (good wins/rpi) to hit an A+ rate. you roughly can get to a B with a series of NT1 performances. there is an artificial cap in d2/d3 to stop you from gaining more than 1 whole prestige grade in a single season. maybe for dropping, too?

in d1, there is baseline prestige, which is a significant factor, it is hard to exceed your baseline by more than 2 full grades. also there is conference prestige, which is a significant factor. then, your previous 4 seasons count towards your current prestige. how this shakes out will vary by baseline and conference prestige, of course. for perhaps a B baseline prestige in a typical BCS conf... hmm. this is not super accurate but probably about four s16s for an A+, depending on the rpi/record (four 'bad' s16 seasons wouldn't get it done, four high end ones probably would). for that same team, four average NT1 performances is probably a B+. for a D baseline school, four average NT1 performances is probably a B-.

#2- Promised start
there is no magic percentage - though 80% is usually safe ... but not always.
If you have a rated D1 player on a D3 team need to think more about 23-24 games started.. The D1 player will be harder to keep happy.
Of course a D1 at D3 you are likely to start him every game anyway,

Posted by utthead on 2/12/2022 1:31:00 AM (view original):
#2- Promised start
there is no magic percentage - though 80% is usually safe ... but not always.
If you have a rated D1 player on a D3 team need to think more about 23-24 games started.. The D1 player will be harder to keep happy.
Of course a D1 at D3 you are likely to start him every game anyway,

i would very much like to see an example of this! particularly if anyone ever has one in real time. i don't play d3 so i don't know, but this kind of variation is something i've never heard of or seen. not knowing anything about the specifics, my guess when i hear things like this is that there was some confusion about the minutes and starts portion of promises, which are disconnected in reality, but this is not that clear to everyone.

I'll comment on the FT grade.

I usually expect around 5% increase with blue potential. But like other categories, this appears to vary by player. Maybe only 4%, Maybe 6%.
If he begins at C, he had a starting percentage between 66.0 - 69.0%.
So if 5% gain is accurate for this guy, the ending % would be between 66>71 (C+) to 69>74 (B-).

Summary, blue roughly results in a 1-2 partial grade improvement.

I use 8% estimate of improvement for green. Most likely will improve at least 1 grade (C > C+) , likely 2 grades (C > B-). But while there is a floor of minimal improvement, potentially the growth can be substantially larger. I've had players occasionally improve 5 grades (C > A-)

important to keep in mind that the point at which diminishing returns kick in is not a "cap" - investment over that level will still leave to improvement - there are returns but less per minute. As discussed, that means that sometimes - indeed often - one will invest more than the level at which diminishing returns hit

Posted by gillispie on 2/12/2022 2:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by utthead on 2/12/2022 1:31:00 AM (view original):
#2- Promised start
there is no magic percentage - though 80% is usually safe ... but not always.
If you have a rated D1 player on a D3 team need to think more about 23-24 games started.. The D1 player will be harder to keep happy.
Of course a D1 at D3 you are likely to start him every game anyway,

i would very much like to see an example of this! particularly if anyone ever has one in real time. i don't play d3 so i don't know, but this kind of variation is something i've never heard of or seen. not knowing anything about the specifics, my guess when i hear things like this is that there was some confusion about the minutes and starts portion of promises, which are disconnected in reality, but this is not that clear to everyone.

Can't find it. May have been in a conference chat.

Recollection is that a promised start D3 player transferred despite getting 22 starts. We decided that likely because he was a highly ranked D1 recruit (double digit at his position) that his starting expectations must have been higher being at a D3 school.

I believe there's some truth to what utthead is saying as well. But I don't know bow to put it into words in the forums that aren't deceiving to new coaches that come along and read this.

But it's along the same lines as why it's much easier to redshirt a 485 D1 pool player on a big 6 elite team, than it is to redshirt a 5* (excluding promises likely made). Where is the cutoff? What does the engine go by? I have no clue. But it is a thing.

I once had a player at D3 transfer even though he ended the season with 22 starts. I found out through contacting support that the 80% needs to be maintained for the entire season, not just the end. Keep in mind that not all players would respond this way...link to previous post below.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=502483&page=1

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/16/2022 5:19:00 AM (view original):
I believe there's some truth to what utthead is saying as well. But I don't know bow to put it into words in the forums that aren't deceiving to new coaches that come along and read this.

But it's along the same lines as why it's much easier to redshirt a 485 D1 pool player on a big 6 elite team, than it is to redshirt a 5* (excluding promises likely made). Where is the cutoff? What does the engine go by? I have no clue. But it is a thing.

almost positive there is no tie between the player's level relative to the school concept, and promises. there never has been as far as i know. same with redshirt. redshirt is about the players on the team. the recruit's level relative to the school is a recruiting-only concept, it does not carry into the regular season, AFAIK

i think this is actually very simple - you have to stay above 80% the whole way. but that didn't used to be the case, so folks were following the old standard, 80%, without keeping above 80% along the way - and those experiences spawned a lot of speculation about why folks were leaving. this stay 80% or higher has been put out there a number of times now, and nobody has come forward with a single exception, it only takes one... so until someone can come forward with a single counter example, i think we are on the money?

Posted by gillispie on 2/16/2022 12:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/16/2022 5:19:00 AM (view original):
I believe there's some truth to what utthead is saying as well. But I don't know bow to put it into words in the forums that aren't deceiving to new coaches that come along and read this.

But it's along the same lines as why it's much easier to redshirt a 485 D1 pool player on a big 6 elite team, than it is to redshirt a 5* (excluding promises likely made). Where is the cutoff? What does the engine go by? I have no clue. But it is a thing.

almost positive there is no tie between the player's level relative to the school concept, and promises. there never has been as far as i know. same with redshirt. redshirt is about the players on the team. the recruit's level relative to the school is a recruiting-only concept, it does not carry into the regular season, AFAIK

i think this is actually very simple - you have to stay above 80% the whole way. but that didn't used to be the case, so folks were following the old standard, 80%, without keeping above 80% along the way - and those experiences spawned a lot of speculation about why folks were leaving. this stay 80% or higher has been put out there a number of times now, and nobody has come forward with a single exception, it only takes one... so until someone can come forward with a single counter example, i think we are on the money?

Personally I am not debating anything regarding promises or 80% or whatever. I was just chiming in about what utthead said. And despite what you're telling me, I just don't believe it because of experience. I also don't think it can be proven unless CS has actually told us in writing. When I was in D2, and I recruit a 607 ovr player that was top 300 and then I sign a player that 487 ovr in the same class, guess who is and isn't accepting a redshirt out of the two? "Something" exists, that makes that happen. Whether the engine makes its own choice that player A is better than player B, which then makes player B more accepting of a redshirt than player A. Or some other form of something, that creates the same outcome. Isn't it pretty clear to most that mainly the worst (at that moment) players will accept the redshirt? I can't be alone in seeing that

no you aren't alone in seeing it... redshirting is based on the player's team around them, of course the much lower guy is going to be worse relative to the team and then far more likely to take the redshirt. in agreement there.

what i'm saying is, there isn't such an effect for the starts. the player's goodness relative to the school, the team, none of that matters. i agree with you that "something exists" along these lines, for a bunch of different things in HD. just not for starts.

a major place where "something" occurs is, in recruiting the recruit's level more or less and your school prestige, those things are compared and then that comparison is used to drive things like unlocking effort required and the way a recruit reacts to things like informing of redshirt or pulling a scholarship offer. however, this recruiting factor that drives redshirt informing is unrelated to starts, and is different than in-season redshirting (which primarily compares a freshman to his team mates, as opposed to comparing a recruit to the prestige of the school).

not disagreeing with your observations, but i AM trying to de-mystify. of course i may not have this all straightened out right, but that's the point of planting these flags, to find where there is reason to believe otherwise and to move the model forward... hopefully to get to a place better than 'something exists'!

i don't really understand... my original reply to your redshirt comment, why i said it that way. its very confusing to me, reading it now. i think its because utthead was talking about recruiting levels, for the recruit, and those impacting in-season things like starts, which they don't. but then you are talking about in-season redshirting, and i don't know... just looking at my reply to you, i think its sort of nonsensical, so that definitely sent things astray. hopefully i am making my position here clearer the second go around?

Yes I get it. Or I'm just so lost that I give up? I'm kidding.

It was two different topics. Sorry if I helped steer things off track.