When setting your postseason lineup and trying to determine who should start or who should get more minutes, at what point are you going with the Freshman with better ratings vs. the Senior with A/A+ IQ?

IQ is overrated IMO.

I have no data to back this up, but I've felt when their IQ reaches B+, players perform how I would expect them to perform. Anything above B+ is icing on the cake.

I'm not sure I completely agree with Benis' stance that it's overrated-it matters, but how much is certainly up for debate. Years ago there was a user (robotdevil) that started a thread where he took a D3 team and put 0 minutes into practicing offensive and defensive sets. His teams, ratings-wise, were leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else when the NT tournament rolled around, yet he couldn't ever make it out of the 2nd round of the tournament. By ratings alone, these were teams that should have won the title pending a massive upset (if their IQs were similar to those of their opponents).

I disagree with Benis on this one. But it varies. At D2 i made a living off focusing on high IQ teams. It was the reason I was big in class structure. Obviously I’d have talent to help out. But I’ve always felt like IQ will make the difference in the crucial late NT games. When I was in the E8 and beyond, game planning and IQ seemed to help separate the men from the boys

At D1 I don’t think it’s near as important Due to the talent that elite freshman have and also the fact that players are leaving early often

i'm probably in the middle, in the general opinions of iq. talent trumps iq, when you are talking about significant quantities of it, but like others said, iq is a key differentiator among the top teams. its pretty easy to have a top 25 young team, but its way harder to have a top 5 or #1 team that is young. i also agree you've gotten most of the value by b+/a-, IQ is probably linear from F to A+.

i don't think iq works particularly differently across the 3 divisions, but i agree that high d1 is a bit unique in that you can get really talented freshman, and overall that players max their ratings significantly earlier. it makes it so that you can compensate better for lower iq (with talent), but i don't think this exactly makes iq less important. its true you can get away with less, but i think diminishing returns wise, iq stays really valuable.

IMO it is true for elite players in all divisions, that you get to a point where the player is so good at something, that you suffer diminishing returns on all the ratings that contribute to it - except stamina. i would include IQ in this, i value that A- to A+ boost most on players with less-than-perfect ratings than i do on the A- sophs who already have 90s in all relevant cores. there are perhaps more of these elite players in d1, as well. but i still think iq is a prime differentiator of the top tier of teams, and stays really useful all the way up. really talented teams with great iq are monsters, most of my best d1 teams had really nice iq.

I look at it this way - the more talent, the less IQ is needed to thrive. At D1, 90 core freshmen can hold their own for the most part, especially by mid season when they hit C or so, and I pretty much eyeball it like 5 points per class from there. So 85 core sophs, 80 core juniors, 75 core seniors. By thrive, I mean, get plenty of minutes and hold their own on a competitive team - I don’t mean carry a team to a championship on their backs or anything like that.

I've used a numeric formula for each position determining a players value. Like the Player Roles, but a few levels beyond.

I did a little trial with IQ a few years ago.

After which I doubled the value of the upper IQ grades within those formulas. And I don't value/view the IQ grades as being lineal. ie.. I feel there is a bigger difference between an A and a B, than there is between a B and a C.
Very rough guideline is the difference between a C/C and an A/A, is worth somewhere in the vicinity of 60-80 combined core ratings points.

Posted by oldwarrior on 10/9/2022 9:29:00 PM (view original):
I've used a numeric formula for each position determining a players value. Like the Player Roles, but a few levels beyond.

I did a little trial with IQ a few years ago.

After which I doubled the value of the upper IQ grades within those formulas. And I don't value/view the IQ grades as being lineal. ie.. I feel there is a bigger difference between an A and a B, than there is between a B and a C.
Very rough guideline is the difference between a C/C and an A/A, is worth somewhere in the vicinity of 60-80 combined core ratings points.

Thanks as always oldwarrior. Quick question, so are you saying that the higher the grade, the more important IQ becomes? Somewhat unsure of the word lineal here... because if the difference is bigger between an A an B compared to a B and a C.... was the difference bigger between an A+ and an A compared to an A and an A-? And if possible, if it was 60-80 core points from a C to an A, how many points did you figure the difference was between C to B and B to A? Thanks for any help!

In my experience, a player with an A IQ still struggles with performance on a team with a bunch of C IQs. For young teams, I value additional practice minutes in sets to boost IQ asap. I’d rather sacrifice a few skill points to reach acceptable IQ earlier in a player’s career.

I’m not on team Benis on this one.

I know I'm alone on this one. And I said that it's overrated, not meaningless.

But I've tested out my theory and stand by it.

I ran a low IQ team in Smith with Dominican back in seasons 104-112 where I only put 5ish pts into IQ. I'm pretty sure that was the team.. Had a stacked conference with Top and others.

My last 3 seasons I went S16, E8, E8 without any players with A IQ. They all were C or B if I recall. Is there some way to go back and see a players IQ when they graduated?

Would my team have gone further when better IQs and lower ratings? Maybe

Would my team not have made it as far as it did if I spent fewer minutes on ratings and more on IQ. Maybe.

There is no way to know for sure. But I do know that making back to back E8 is pretty good. Were those elite teams? Well the Elite 8 does have the word Elite in it, doesn't it???

I'd add that I believe the biggest gains for performance come from raising from F to C. I don't think it's a linear progression across the board and the gain going from B+ to A+ is meaningful but not incredible.

You gotta balance the points and there are tradeoffs for investing more in IQ than in ratings. Of course you would rather have all A+ IQs with all other things being equal. But it's not a vacuum. You need to decide if you'd rather have A+ IQ than a 90 PER or whatever.

So it's not a one size fits all strategy. Tradeoffs always exist.

Posted by Benis on 10/12/2022 2:59:00 PM (view original):
I know I'm alone on this one. And I said that it's overrated, not meaningless.

But I've tested out my theory and stand by it.

I ran a low IQ team in Smith with Dominican back in seasons 104-112 where I only put 5ish pts into IQ. I'm pretty sure that was the team.. Had a stacked conference with Top and others.

My last 3 seasons I went S16, E8, E8 without any players with A IQ. They all were C or B if I recall. Is there some way to go back and see a players IQ when they graduated?

Would my team have gone further when better IQs and lower ratings? Maybe

Would my team not have made it as far as it did if I spent fewer minutes on ratings and more on IQ. Maybe.

There is no way to know for sure. But I do know that making back to back E8 is pretty good. Were those elite teams? Well the Elite 8 does have the word Elite in it, doesn't it???

i dont know, is this d1 with 160 coaches or d2/d3 with 60? re: the elite 8 thing. elite 8 teams can be really good in any division but definitely aren't necessarily so (in any division). the vast majority of elite 8 teams are not elite or even close.

there are generally major problems with most teams, outperforming the unwashed masses with low iq, i think that demonstrates pretty little. IQ is roughly one more core rating, similar to ath (because ath impacts most things). having a couple players missing a key core feels like a big deal where d1 titles are concerned, but is not remotely a concern when it comes to trying to be a 10-20 team (out of 100+). i think IQ is similar.

my personal experience in d1 is that i feel like elite sophs can be elite and keep up with elite seniors. they need at least b+ and preferably a- for guards, and 90 in their cores, and then they are still suitable to lead championship caliber teams. i think people under estimate how productive elite freshman with b- iq can be, but they are incapable of leading teams in the way that sophs can. my 2nd season of 3.0 after coming out of retirement, we had a team i felt was a solid favorite, lead by 2 sophs at the 1 and 3 who were elite by ratings with b+/a- iq, and we had a few solid upperclassmen, none of which were elite. that is roughly the minimum level of experience i have found required for title favorite status in d1. i've had other teams like in 2.0 after 5 EEs who also won and were favorites with soph lead teams. i have never had a freshman lead offense that was remotely title favorite status.

IMO the IQ is most important in your starters, and its most important to get them up to elite scoring level - but then is somewhat superfluous after that. i've never minded having a b- freshman starting on a title favorite team, but they can't be your lead scorer. i think bigs can score well about 1 partial grade under guards, and i think foul trouble is also an area iq can be particularly important. normally, foul trouble is most dangerous in the back court and/or for your lead scorers, so that sort of doubles up the importance of a bit higher iq for guards and especially scoring ones.

its also an extension of my philosophy which is generally true for everyone whether they coach like me or not... where slanted players expertly filling certain roles trump well rounded ones, and where adding more talent in areas you are already elite pays diminishing returns... that IQ can make up for more if your team is less good. like a 25th by talent (d1) team running press, they can get huge milage out of having 10 upperclassmen compared to 4. a clear #1 by talent d1 press team, they get substantially less benefit from having 10 upperclassmen compared to 4, they are already going to be great at everything even with 4 upperclassmen.

its therefore going to follow that folks like benis operating with really good talent and well crafted teams, will see less value in iq than the average coach. but what is funny about it is, that is really on an absolute basis. as you get closer to perfection, closer to the title contention, because there are less glaring holes in your opponents, having better IQ than them is one key way to differentiate yourself. so it kind of cuts both ways, albeit slightly differently. iq matters less in absolute terms at the elite levels, but because there is less room to achieve a talent gap at those levels, iq is still a key differentiator there. iq is a big differentiator everywhere really, its just that there are so many ways to differentiate yourself from the 50th best team that it doesn't stand out, and that you have more latitude to make up for lesser iq with more talent.

Posted by Benis on 10/12/2022 2:59:00 PM (view original):
I know I'm alone on this one. And I said that it's overrated, not meaningless.

But I've tested out my theory and stand by it.

I ran a low IQ team in Smith with Dominican back in seasons 104-112 where I only put 5ish pts into IQ. I'm pretty sure that was the team.. Had a stacked conference with Top and others.

My last 3 seasons I went S16, E8, E8 without any players with A IQ. They all were C or B if I recall. Is there some way to go back and see a players IQ when they graduated?

Would my team have gone further when better IQs and lower ratings? Maybe

Would my team not have made it as far as it did if I spent fewer minutes on ratings and more on IQ. Maybe.

There is no way to know for sure. But I do know that making back to back E8 is pretty good. Were those elite teams? Well the Elite 8 does have the word Elite in it, doesn't it???

I do remember this. I’ll give you that.

To this day, that may have been my favorite conference ever