I need some help and feedback on one of my teams, and most likely my approach to the game as a whole. I've copied the link to my current Pepperdine team in Knight. We had a below average year at best last year, but did not lose anyone to graduation and added one of the top front court recruits in the country. I feel like this is a solidly deep and talented roster and should be getting better results than we are.

Any and all feedback as to what I'm not doing or doing wrong is much appreciated.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=12985

Just from glancing at the ratings, your big men (other than the freshman you mentioned) are nowhere near where they need to be in ATH. That's far and away the most notable deficiency with your roster. Secondarily, some of your guards are a bit lacking in DE (although I also will take guards with relatively low DE values as long as they can fill it up).

You have been out rebounded in every game.

You are getting killed on the glass. While I agree with davis that your ATH is simply too low with your 2-4 posts (even at D prestige, you really shouldnt take post players that wont be 70 as an upperclassman), I actually dont think that is the main driver. Every game I clicked on had substantial minutes in which your posts played as "Very Tired". Even elite players (like Durr) are essentially useless when they are Tired or Very Tired. Running a 4 man post rotation in a press is basically impossible. When their stamina's are 62, 73, 54 and 75, its a death sentence. In the short term, id move to only slow-down and Id add one of your high ATH guards to the post. These issues are also compounded by having no wings that are average rebounders. In the long term, Id try to always have 5 posts with an average STAM of around 75, even at the expense of skill set.

The above is your main issue, but the secondary issue I see is alot of duplicity from the guard/wing positions. You've got 7 guys that can effectively hit threes. While thats nice to have, I think it's overkill. At D prestige, I dont mind having a couple below-average defensive guards that can hits threes but you have 4 (Holmes, Dowling, Shankle and Page) with three players that are/should be ahead of them in the rotation (Thall, Absner and Sines) that are effective shooters. Players that can hit 3s are generally very expensive from a recruiting cost prospective, so in the future, Id scale that back (by at 3-4 shooters) and round out the roster with a few better defenders, wing rebounds, more posts etc. Because you have so many good shooters, it's also working against you a bit in gameplanning. Your team is shooting 45% of their shots from 3 which is a pretty high number and therefore teams are exploiting you by playing further and further away from the paint.

Posted by Nick_Bennett on 7/27/2022 1:01:00 PM (view original):
You have been out rebounded in every game.

Clearly my front court is the glaring weakness, but it's odd to me that the same front court managed to squeeze by last year. Last year I played Absher at the 4 most games and leaned into being a smaller, quicker team. Was it a mistake not doing that again this year and relying on a traditional but weak front court?

Posted by texashick on 7/27/2022 2:11:00 PM (view original):
You are getting killed on the glass. While I agree with davis that your ATH is simply too low with your 2-4 posts (even at D prestige, you really shouldnt take post players that wont be 70 as an upperclassman), I actually dont think that is the main driver. Every game I clicked on had substantial minutes in which your posts played as "Very Tired". Even elite players (like Durr) are essentially useless when they are Tired or Very Tired. Running a 4 man post rotation in a press is basically impossible. When their stamina's are 62, 73, 54 and 75, its a death sentence. In the short term, id move to only slow-down and Id add one of your high ATH guards to the post. These issues are also compounded by having no wings that are average rebounders. In the long term, Id try to always have 5 posts with an average STAM of around 75, even at the expense of skill set.

The above is your main issue, but the secondary issue I see is alot of duplicity from the guard/wing positions. You've got 7 guys that can effectively hit threes. While thats nice to have, I think it's overkill. At D prestige, I dont mind having a couple below-average defensive guards that can hits threes but you have 4 (Holmes, Dowling, Shankle and Page) with three players that are/should be ahead of them in the rotation (Thall, Absner and Sines) that are effective shooters. Players that can hit 3s are generally very expensive from a recruiting cost prospective, so in the future, Id scale that back (by at 3-4 shooters) and round out the roster with a few better defenders, wing rebounds, more posts etc. Because you have so many good shooters, it's also working against you a bit in gameplanning. Your team is shooting 45% of their shots from 3 which is a pretty high number and therefore teams are exploiting you by playing further and further away from the paint.

All of this is much appreciated advice that all makes complete sense when laid out like this.

Was about to respond but hick's post is perfect and covers everything I thought of.

I agree that 5 bigs with an average stamina of 75 is ideal for the press, but you can't really do anything about that right now. How do you have them set up on the depth chart? If their staminas are 62, 73, 54 and 75, it might help to do something like:

PF: 75, 73, 54
C: 62, 73, 54

That way the 73 subs in early for the 62 at center, and then switches over to PF a few minutes later when the 75 needs a breather. The 54 would be a safety valve and still get 15 mpg but it would be staggered a bit more, hopefully keeping him fresher. It might make a small difference if you're not doing that already.

4 posts in the press can be pretty workable, with solid stamina, even at normal tempo. title seekers really want 4.5-5 but 4 solid bigs is enough to be quality for a straight press for most situations. but its 100% true that those severe fatigues will absolutely kill you, and that with those staminas, its a real problem.

not sure if you have a player with any extra capacity, but even playing a garbage guard at the 4 for 5-10m would be better than those fatigue levels.

its late now being almost end of reg season, but its worth considering - could you have put more into conditioning for those 4 bigs and helped your situation some, if you'd realized how dire the situation was ahead of time? you can also run slowdown now to stop bleeding so bad. note that while i agree with texashick that fatigue is your #1 problem, not the ath of your bigs - that lower ath/def of your bigs means they will foul more. this is important when you are trying to evaluate your 'effective depth' at the frontcourt. # of bodies, stamina, and propensity to foul all contribute to that final picture. 4 bigs could be plenty under the right conditions, but 4 bigs with crap stamina and high foul rates, can be pretty disasterous. just kinda mentioning that to help round out your understanding of the depth/fatigue situation, for your future planning/evaluation. all you can really do now is slowdown and slide a guard or even a walkon in for some minutes. also mlitney's suggestion is good, if you can create a stamina differential on your starters that will help round out your fatigue to some extent. but man, those are some rough stamina numbers!

FYI - I looked at this again. Something is clearly wrong with your depth chart. One of your 4 posts (Trombetta), has played >5 minutes in the last 6 games (and didnt play at all in the last game). Is he set on "mopup" or " rest" accidently? He's not what Id call a good D1 post, but in this setting he should def be playing 15 minutes a game rather than letting the others get to tired and very tired.