Game 8, Lamar (Phelan) defeated #7 Colorado (top 25 RPI). In our last 2 games (12&13), we have been blown out on the road by RPI #210 and made a buzzer beater to win at home over #218. What the hell?!
I haven't made any notable modifications to team settings, practice plan, nothing. Don't be fooled by my team rating. We have high marks in Ath and Def. I can't figure out why we've fallen off a cliff after reaching #18 in RPI after the Colorado win.
Guidance appreciated, so long as it isn't condescending.

I didn't delve into too many games here but the game that stood out to me was the Texas San Marcos loss (the blowout you referenced). While it's a mediocre team they have 8 upperclassmen and run press. Your BH and P need lots of work to compete against press teams and if you look at the blowout loss to them, they forced 21 TOs.

Your team is pretty young which will increase volatility. You probably got a little bit lucky against Colorado, and unlucky against Texas State.

As for advice, your Ath/Def is decent for the prestige, but you probably still want to aim higher. Lehn's defense of 47 is a bit of a liability in m2m at D1. He'll consistently get attacked by opposing teams. At C prestige, you can afford to have one or two poor defenders, but when you start getting to 4 who are below 70 defense, you will see inconsistency in games while playing man defense. Part of this is also that your team is young and still improving.

You are staying competitive against good teams so things are looking promising moving forward. I wouldn't get discouraged.

Thanks, guys; I appreciate the supportive guidance. I suspected my youth was having an impact, but didn't know that the sim factored that in. The part about facing press with limited BHP and sub-standard D at my PG are definitely factors as well.

Thanks for taking the time. And it's good to "see" you again, darnoc; hope you're still winning titles!

The way youth is taken into account is Offense and Defense IQ.

Freshman and Sophomore players can have much lower IQs and that impacts both ends of the floor.

Posted by Qhadow123 on 4/8/2022 12:49:00 PM (view original):
Game 8, Lamar (Phelan) defeated #7 Colorado (top 25 RPI). In our last 2 games (12&13), we have been blown out on the road by RPI #210 and made a buzzer beater to win at home over #218. What the hell?!
I haven't made any notable modifications to team settings, practice plan, nothing. Don't be fooled by my team rating. We have high marks in Ath and Def. I can't figure out why we've fallen off a cliff after reaching #18 in RPI after the Colorado win.
Guidance appreciated, so long as it isn't condescending.

Were you using the magic slowdown upset button to win against Colorado? I kid I kid.

I think the unfortunate reality is that your team is more similar to the ones struggling against mediocre sims than the one that can beat top 10 teams. While you have a decent record and RPI, you have a negative point differential. I think you can do a few things to help improve your chances but the biggest issue your team has is pretty glaring - mediocre guards.

You have young guards and very little depth. Starting two Soph guards with a Frosh off the bench is tough. And your back up SG - Spafford - is not a guard, he's a SF only. He lacks the speed, bh, pass or even LP or PER to be effective.

You play M2M and your starting PG has 52ath and 47def while your starting SG has 55ath and 61 def. Your only other real guard is a Frosh with 48ath and 49def. Combined with low IQs due to their 'age' and it's unfortunately just not gonna get it done consistently at D1.

A few ideas:
-play slowdown, you don't have the depth at guard, nor the stamina, to play faster.
- I think you're shooting too many 3s. Set -2 for everyone except Meyer and Lehn. You got guys shooting too many 3s at a horrible rate (shorter at 23% and Wall at 26%)
-Bump up the shot attempts for Johnson. He's shooting 54.6%, he needs more atempts. Zero out the guys shooting poorly (Bishop is shooting 38% on just 2s).
-Try your best to balance out your classes a little more. You want to try to have a somewhat even mixture of positions for upperclassmen. Like I mentioned, you're way too top heavy with the bigs as your only upperclassmen.
-Try to vary the type of player you recruit. Pietsch, Spafford and Bisoph are all basically the same guy. They can only play SF and have no offense. Basically just good defenders and little else.

Name	Yr.	Pos	GP	GS	MIN	FGM	FGA	FG3M	FG3A	FTM	FTA	OFF	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PTS	TS%	Min	eFG%	2pt%	3pt%	3Freq
W. Meyer	So.	SG	14	14	373	80	172	54	133	26	35	6	21	43	30	14	0	28	240	64%	26.6	62%	67%	41%	77%
J. Johnson	Jr.	C	14	14	332	63	117	0	0	32	46	28	106	2	26	6	14	29	158	58%	23.7	54%	54%
J. Shoults	Sr.	PF	14	14	343	51	105	0	1	27	50	25	75	18	23	8	11	30	129	51%	24.5	49%	49%	0%	1%
W. Lehn	So.	PG	14	14	336	44	100	22	60	12	21	5	14	48	15	15	0	43	122	56%	24.0	55%	55%	37%	60%
D. Wimberly	So.	C	14	0	231	31	69	0	1	17	25	25	65	1	16	10	11	14	79	49%	16.5	45%	46%	0%	1%
T. Bishop	So.	SF	14	14	337	26	67	1	7	21	29	22	50	22	18	9	2	21	74	46%	24.1	40%	42%	14%	10%
K. Smith	So.	C	14	0	219	17	44	0	0	14	19	21	57	2	18	5	8	22	48	46%	15.6	39%	39%
R. Wall	Fr.	SG	14	0	211	15	39	4	15	5	10	8	31	8	13	9	3	19	39	45%	15.1	44%	46%	27%	38%
J. Shorter	Fr.	PG	14	0	172	8	22	4	14	4	6	0	4	17	9	8	0	19	24	49%	12.3	45%	50%	29%	64%
A. Spafford	Jr.	SF	13	0	188	5	23	2	10	0	1	12	23	17	11	5	0	11	12	26%	14.5	26%	23%	20%	43%
L. Pietsch	Jr.	SF	10	0	2742	1	8	1	2	13	17	5	12	6	4	3	0	3	16	52%	274.2	19%	0%	50%	25%
J. Johnson	Fr.	PF	2	0	2742	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	#DIV/0!	1371.0	#DIV/0!

I agree with everything Benis has said. Looking at your stats, your team has a TS% of 53% which is pretty poor. I'd definitely bump up Meyer quite a bit, and then give decent increases to Johnson and Lehn. Meyer should be averaging 20+ ppg. I'd estimate that Meyer should be getting about 30% of your distro with Johnson and Lehn each getting 20% or so. Play around with it and let us know how it's going.

You’re smart to ask for feedback from vets (even though it can get frustrating.) You learn much faster that way.