So I ended up being able to sign two moderately decent recruits during RS2 (to my surprise). They'll be my starting front court this season during year 1 of this next rebuild.

I go into this season with: 4 seniors and 2 walk-ons (so I'll have resources for six scholarships), 3 juniors, 1 sophomore (who I can cut if needed for additional recruiting resources), and two freshmen (who will start, as I mentioned).

Back court depth is pretty thin, so both walk-ons will be on the depth chart as PG4 and SG4.

This will be a rough season as I'm changing both my offense and defense, so pretty much all my games will be run with slow-down offense. Even though I'm practicing new O and D, I'll still be running the old O and D in games until IQ's get up. I'll probably switch over to the new schemes late in the season.

There's only one other human in my conference, and he's in the other division. I may be somewhat competitive against the sims, so I may possibly reach double digit wins (or at least high single digits, I haven't looked at my non-con schedule yet). It will be interesting. Rebuilds are always more of a marathon, not a sprint, so patience is a virtue.

Like the journey. Keep it up tecwrg.

Update after season 1 at Penn St Berks:

But before I do, I just want to point out how proud I am of the team I left behind, Connecticut College. I left them in great shape for SIMMY to run this past season. They finished the season 29-2, ran the table in both conference play and the CT for the second straight season, so a 38 game winning streak against conference opponents; made it to the second round of the NT, and ended the season ranked #16 in D3. So yay for the Camels!

Now, for PSB.

We did around what I was expecting. I was hoping to hit double digit wins, and ended up 11-16. I switched over to my new offense and defense with 4 games left in conference play, and won my first three games after doing so. That gave me some false hope, as I went into my final game of the conference schedule with a home game against a beatable SIM team with a first-round CT bye on the table, but ended up losing by 3. Thought I might make a run in the CT, but then suffered another three point loss in the first round, ending my season.

So onto recruiting. I had six open scholarships. I was recruiting from D1, so RS1 was all about positioning, as was the first two days of RS2. I thought I was well positioned to sign five solid guys (and take a walk on), but as can be expected as a D3 team recruiting D1 players, anything can happen before signing time. I was the only scholarship on a pretty decent point guard, but right at the 11pm cycle (signing time), a D1 coach swooped in and grabbed him. That was a disappointment, but that's the risk you have to accept.

I was able to sign three guys (a pretty good PG, and a couple of decent (for D3) forwards. I was also leading on another pretty good front court guy, but another D1 team came in late in the game and dropped a scholarship on him, knocking me down to very low. But that D1 team has no open spots to fill, so he essentially offered a scholarship for a guy he cannot sign, effectively blocking me from being able to sign him.

So unless he withdraws his scholarship at the last minute (unlikely), I'm looking at three signings and three walk-ons for next season. Not ideal, but still positive steps forward for my rebuild. EDIT: he ended up signing with me. At very low. Never seen that happen before.

A .500 overall record, a winning conference record, and challenging for the CT title and an automatic NT berth would be my goals for next season.

Update after season 2 at Penn St Berks:

I fell well short of my goals (a .500 overall record, a winning conference record, and challenging for the CT title). I actually backslid a bit, going from 11-16 (7-9) in my first season to 9-19 (6-10) this past season. Granted, I did have a much tougher non-conference schedule (going 2-8) against old friends from prior conferences, but I had a number of in-conference losses to SIM teams that I should have beaten easily. Something in the chemistry of my roster just wasn't working.

I was fairly happy with how my recruiting went. I strengthened my backcourt with three decent guards, and filled out three other sports will a senior transfer, a JUCO and a freshman forward who will be redshirted this season. Those last three will just be role players at best. On paper, this looks like a more balanced roster than what I ended with last season. So last season's goals (a .500 overall record, a winning conference record, and challenging for the CT title) are back in play. Conference play will be the true litmus test, as I will have another brutal (relative to my young team) non-conference schedule that will put my season in an immediate hole W-L record-wise.

On a separate note, I have to go note that my previous rebuild, Connecticut College, in their second season after I left, and under a new human coach (who bailed after one season), made it to the D3 National Championship game! They lost, but still ended the season 31-4 and ranked #2 in D3 Smith! So in just the past three seasons, they went from 3 previous NT appearances with no wins and no CT titles in their first 126 seasons, to 6 NT appearances, 8 NT games won and three straight CT titles. That's pretty cool to see, and much better than I could have hoped for when I started this personal rebuild challenge.

That Conn College team looks really good. Unfortunately, my wife would have my hide if I picked up another basketball team.

Update after season 3 at Penn St Berks:

My modest goals for season 3 (a .500 overall record, a winning conference record, and challenging for the CT title) were not only met, but were far exceeded. I finished 24-9 overall, went 15-1 in conference, and even though I lost the CT championship game (to the only team that beat me in the regular season, a tough matchup), I still felt like the season was a major success. Didn't make the NT because my RPI and SOS held me back, but I did make the PI and made it to the Final Four there.

Recruiting was a non event, as I only had one senior, so limited resources. I went all-in on a decent SF recruit, but a D1 team swooped in late in RS2 and snatched him away from me. So I had to settle for a walk-on along with my 11 returning players.

This should be my season to not only make the NT, but also win a couple of games there (mission accomplished) and then move on to my next rebuild. We rolled over into the current season with a pre-season ranking of #4 in D3 Smith. On paper (FWIW), I should roll through non-con, conference, and the CT with relative ease (I do have a challenging non-con schedule, as always, but I like our chances). It's not out of the realm of possibility to get to the NT with only 1-3 losses under our belt, and then get to the S16 or E8. Or further, with some luck, but I tend to be conservative with my predictions with a team that has not yet had a sustained track record.

Should be a fun and interesting season.

Update after season 4 at Penn St Berks:

My predictions for this season played out pretty much as I expected. I did indeed roll though my non-conference schedule (8-2, with my two losses against ranked teams . . . I also defeated the team that turned out to be the D3 NT runner-up). I went 16-0 in conference. My only blemish was losing the CT championship game to a challenging Dickinson team. Made the NT with a 26-3 record as the 4 seed, and made it to the S16 before losing to the #1 seed in my region.

Two final things . . . I ended the season ranked #10 in D3 (the highest ranking PSB ever finished a season with). And I thought this was kind of fun (though maybe not as surprising in a conference with only two human coaches) . . . I ended up with two first-team All-Conference, two second team All-Conference, and seven honorable mention All-Conference. The only player not awarded was a walk-on who never got into a game. So all 11 of my active players received post-season conference award honors. Never saw that before, will likely never see it again.

So "Mission Accomplished", and it's on to my next team. I already have them picked out, job applications start tomorrow morning with acceptances on Wednesday morning. More to come . . .

New school: Hamilton, D3 Upstate Conference (Smith)

Hamilton is my newest challenge. In 131 seasons, they've made the NT four times and have never won an NT game. The goal is: that will soon change.

As of the moment, I'm the only human in Upstate. Not that much fun, but it will make it that much easier to win the CT and get the automatic bid to the NT if no other humans join. But I'll need to schedule a tough non-conference schedule to get my RPI and SOS up high enough to get a decent seeding in the NT to position this school for that first NT win. But that's not going to happen this season.

Hamilton had two seniors departing when I took over last week during the job change period right before RS2. SIMAI had already signed one recruit (he stinks), but I was able to rescind a pending scholarship offer to a second SIMAI recruit (he also stunk), and went to work. I ended up cutting four guys (all had just completed either their freshman or sophomore seasons), and was able to sign: a D3 guard (who was surprisingly decent with no schools on him), and four D2 guys who are adequate. I only had one guy that I inherited who was any good (a rising sophomore guard), and five rising seniors. None of the seniors are noteworthy, but I wanted to keep them all for recruiting resources for this coming season. I also plan to cut the freshman that SIMAI recruited, so I'll start with resources for five guys, but expect to sign six in RS2.

My thoughts right now are: my starting lineup is going to be my returning sophomore, my freshman D3 guy, and three of the D2 freshman I brought in. The fourth D2 guy will be my first guy off the bench in the front court. All the seniors will be playing off the bench, even though they are currently better than the starters will be. The reason why I'm starting all the underclassmen is because they have a lot of green and blue ratings, and I want to give them as much playing time as possible for development. I'm also changing my offense and defense while doing this, so it's going to be a very ugly first season. But that's part of the plan . . . take as many lumps now in season one so that I don't have to take as many next season or the season after.

I'm hoping that I can bring in some decent D1 pull downs in my first full recruiting season, so I'll have a decent core of players in seasons 3 and/or 4 of this rebuild. I'm anticipating that this next crop will be the primary starters down the road, while the guys I brought in last season during RS2 will be decent bench depth. Winning an NT game is season 3 or season 4 is the goal.

I've also made some changes to my recruiting spreadsheet which may give me better visibility into potential recruits that I didn't have before. This team, this season's recruiting, will be the litmus test for that.

This should be a fun one.

I enjoy reading your summaries tecwrg. Keep up the good work!