How's it going everyone? I'm going to be starting my first hoops dynasty team next week, and I have read the forums and gone over the logic. I think I've figured picked up some tips and things that will help me out, but I still have a few questions.

So,
When does recruiting start? Does recruiting start when the league starts? How do the recruiting "cycles" work?
How do I tell if a recruit has good potential? Could anyone elaborate on how the colors work on a recruit's potential? For example, figuring out whether a recruit has high potential for athleticism or rebounding,
What do I look for if I'm recruiting at a D3 school?
How do recruiting points work? How do I assign recruiting points?
How does scheduling work?

That's all the questions I have for now if anyone don't mind answering.

Thanks a lot guys.

If you haven't already, I would encourage you to read CubCub's New Player Guide? It'll answer a number of your questions.

Anything involving your schedule, once you've selected a team and go to your team page, there will be a menu with options. One is named Schedule, and when you hover over it, a dropdown menu appears. There click on World Schedule and it outlines every key event, including when each cycle of Recruiting begins and ends.

My advice for D3 is don't be a hero. Meaning, a lot of first time coaches make the mistake of ignoring a team's prestige, taking a low-prestige school that needs a lot of work, thinking they'll enjoy rebuilding the roster. Take a team with high prestige, A- or better would be preferred, and less than 5 open scholarships. It will allow you to understand what the previous coach looked for talent wise.

Also don't make a first time Coach recruiting error, going searching for D1 recruits. First recruiting year Look d3 close to home (300 miles or closer). You might see lots of similar players. Typically D3 recruits get ignored by D3 humans in First Recruit Cycles. Get a year recruiting close to home.
Scout smart as your Money will go fast. Level 2 gives you preferences, level 3 potentials. Look for Goods and very goods at level 2, and if you see lots of bad's and very bad's, do not take them to level 3. Save that recruiting cash.

Lot's of mentors and long time Coaches available to assist. We all want more new blood to stay. Sitemail me if you need to, and I second the previous post. Read that New Players Guide.

Ok, thanks guys!

I don’t want to create confusion, but I slightly disagree with the comment regarding D1 recruits or D3 recruits. But context is important.

i understand the direction of the comment, and the intent behind it. But as a completely new coach, I think it’s natural for a D3 coach to target D3 pool players from the start. It just makes sense as a new coach coming in. BUT, after that first season of “cluelessness” (and that’s just meaning being new and not aware of the dynamics of this game top to bottom), it is a VERY GOOD idea to reach up for D1 recruits. And even better for a new coach, reaching up for D2 Pool players.

Before doing so it’s important to understand how it all works, what it takes to accomplish that, and signing preferences and timing. But to be clear, the point I’m making is that just because you’re in D3 doesn’t mean you’re limited to D3 pool players only. And if you play that way, you’re likely not going to increase your talent enough to stay relevant which in turn will lead to your exit faster if you can’t get to a point of being competitive.

So for season one, sure, it may be a mistake to go straight for recruits from the D1 pool. But beyond season one, it’s actually a great idea to reach up for D2 and D1 pool players. As long as you have read the help guides, and you’re prepared to do so with the knowledge that you need.

good luck to you!!!!!

At D3, most locations, experienced coaches will likely get the best return targeting mostly D1 recruits. But new coaches will not. Newer coaches will do much better sticking to D2 pool, maybe venturing into the very local D1 pool after a number of seasons of experience, or with a dedicated mentor to help them along.

But I do have a hard time believing the D3 pool will ever yield a better return than what you can get in D2, even with pick of the litter, so to speak. I don’t suggest ever bothering with the D3 pool for mass scouting and recruiting.

I did this a while back, some D3 specific stuff on page 3.

I personally completely disagree with that sentiment. I've consistently had MUCH better results targeting primarily the D2 pool in D3. I probably have an average of 1.5 to 2 D1 recruits on my roster, the rest are D2.

I didn’t mean to create this kind of debate by my comment. I really was just pointing out that you don’t have to stick to the D3 pool just because you’re playing D3.

Choosing from the D2 “and/or” D1 pool is how you want to approach the game after you’ve read, learned, and prepare yourself. Whatever you choose as a coach is totally up to you, and finding your comfort zone. But staying in the D3 pool consistently is NOT the answer.

I went D2/D3 my first year. Since then I’ve gone D1/D2 route. My talent has gotten better which in turn has made my team perform better. Still plenty to learn as this is just my fifth season right now. But just this year I finally feel like I am making a breakthrough talent wise where I am competitive with good D3 teams. I could go on and on about what I’ve learned these seasons. But the simple mantra is- talent wins. Go get it. That’s grossly simplistic but basically true.

yes, look at CubCub's New Player Guide (if you haven't already) and get a basic knowledge of what to expect. If you've never played any type of WIS game, you'll have a bevy of information at your finger tips that you won't know what to do with it all. I'll try and hit on your main points:


When does recruiting start?
--Recruiting is broken up in to 2 parts (commonly referred to as RS1 and RS2). RS1 will begin in week 23 of your schedule and will conclude in week 29 (round 1 of the conference tournament). RS2 will begin 4 days after the conclusion of National Tournament, directly after the job change period (when current active coaches can go to new schools).

Does recruiting start when the league starts?
--When the new season starts, you can't recruit right off the bat. Instead, you'll have to scout for players first. You are required to "discover" players first before you can recruit them. There are different ways of discovering talent.

How do the recruiting "cycles" work?
--Once RS1 or RS2 begins, any players you've discovered are available to be recruited. Any type of recruiting efforts you've done on them will be processed at either 5am EST/11am EST/5pm EST/11pm EST. These are what we call the "cycles." Anything you've applied to a recruit after one cycle has processed will be processed at the next cycle (example - 5pm cycle has processed, you've decided to bring a recruit in for a campus visit, this recruiting effort will be processed at 11pm).

How do I tell if a recruit has good potential?
--You'll need to scout a player to level 3 to get an idea on their potentials. Level 3 will show you letter grades plus high potential areas (colored in blue), average potential areas (colored in black), and low potential areas (colored in yellow). If you get a player to level 4, some of the blues will turn to green (called high-high potential) and some of the yellows will turn to red (called low-low potential). Order of greatest potential increases are: green, blue, black, yellow, red. The following list will give you a general idea on how much a player can be expected to increase with specific colors:

Red: 0-3 points
Yellow: 3-7 points
Black: 7-21 points
Blue: 21-28 points
Green: 28+ points

Could anyone elaborate on how the colors work on a recruit's potential? For example, figuring out whether a recruit has high potential for athleticism or rebounding,
--Once you get a player to level 3 you'll see whether the players potential in specific areas is high, average, or low.

What do I look for if I'm recruiting at a D3 school?
--All depends on your team and location in relation to other human coaches. Every coach that is in D3 has different ideas on how to recruit at that level (as evident in the responses here lol). In my period of time currently, I found it easier to find a good core of players in the D2 player pool but would need to dip in to the D1 player pool to find "elite" prospects. But that's a double edged sword looking at D1 players. Being that you can't compete with upper division teams in prestige and money (usually) and the fact you can't sign a D1 level recruit until the last 24 hours of RS2, I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket. In season 1, I'd suggest staying local and getting adjusted to how recruiting works. Don't be afraid to recruit in the D3 player pool as they get overlooked quite a bit, but you have to sift through a lot of trash to find a treasure. However, they're out there. Just be careful with your scouting budget - it can dry up rather quickly.

How do recruiting points work? How do I assign recruiting points?
--Recruiting points are the basis of how to unlock other recruiting efforts on a player. Think of them sort of like sending out a letter to a player in real life. You send out 1 letter it shows your interest. Send out 50 of them and it can warm up the player to looking at your school more closely. Every recruit has a random number of attention points needed to unlock a scholarship, home visit, campus visit, promised start, promised mins, etc. On the main recruiting page and each specific recruits page it will show a drop down where you can assign a specific number of points that you choose.

How does scheduling work?
--There is a main tab on your team office screen that says "Schedule" on it. From there you'll be able to schedule two different types of games - exhibitions and non conference.

You're allowed up to 2 exhibition games every season, before your non conference games begin. Exhibitions don't count against your record or rankings, so you can schedule teams in any division (human or sim coached). If you send out an invite to play to a human coach you must wait until they accept it before it appears on your schedule. Any invite to a sim coach will be automatically accepted and they will appear on schedule after that.

Non conference games are invites to other schools for your non conference schedule for the NEXT season. How your team will be will determine how you want to schedule. There is no perfect science to scheduling since you're guessing on how a team will be the next season. If you think your team will be weaker its probably not in the best interest of your squad to load up on a lot of very good human coached teams. You're trying to make the national or post season invite tournaments, so going 0-27 with a strength of schedule of 1 does you no good. In retrospect, if you're team is going to be good, don't go out and schedule cupcakes that could in turn, hurt your RPI. General rule of thumb with a good team - try to guess which teams will be no higher than 150 in RPI and beat them at their place (road wins are viewed better than home wins). Even better if they're no higher than 100 RPI. You'll also have to factor your own league when deciding on non conference teams. If you're in a very populated human coached conference, expect the conference to be good and wins will be at a premium. Schedule some of easier teams in non conference.

I'm in my fourth season and have used Shoe's method for scouting D3 every year so far. Using that along with CubCub's matchup spreadsheet has helped a lot. I have my first ranked team right now, and I'm hoping to get my first NT win this season. This game really gets fun when your team is filled with players you recruited

Thanks for answering my questions guys! One more...

When switching my substitution method to fatigue, what level should I sub for the player? Getting tired, tired, very tired or something else?

Others can answer better. But your player gets substantially worse at each level. I really like to be deep enough to leave it at fairly fresh. But I have left it at getting tired if there is a much better player at the top than the back up.

Posted by shakespears on 10/6/2022 9:05:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for answering my questions guys! One more...

When switching my substitution method to fatigue, what level should I sub for the player? Getting tired, tired, very tired or something else?

I normally use fairly fresh. If I have a very good player with 90+ stamina, I may bump it to getting tired for that specific player. But as john states, players get worse at each level (as they should). I've known other people to actually put their starters at fairly fresh and backups at getting tired, so once the game flow happens their starters would end up finishing the game rather than some of the backups

Posted by shakespears on 10/6/2022 9:05:00 PM (view original):
Thanks for answering my questions guys! One more...

When switching my substitution method to fatigue, what level should I sub for the player? Getting tired, tired, very tired or something else?

Default: Fairly fresh
Crucial players/rotation consideration: Getting tired
Needing to hit minute promises: the freshest setting that still gets you there (otherwise leave the other settings alone)

Terrible Walkons: Mopup