I understand the logic on why people are doing it or wanting to do it. I’m just not doing it.

I think it was baums that said “titles aren’t coming from your Sophs going from 80 PER to 90 PER, they come from that Soph staying another season’. I disagree a lot. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. But my titles come from everywhere. I’ve played in D1 title games as an 8 seed twice and I think a 10 seed (the positive part here). I had two rosters recently, BOTH i would consider my best teams I ever built in the history of this game (and I’m not a bad coach), one lost in the title game. One just got beat last night in round 2 for like my 100th consecutive 2nd round exit at the school (exaggerating and yes, very ******!!).

point is, there’s sooooooo many factors that go into titles that it’s not worth my time to even THINK about how to hold a player back. What’s the point? When the draft happens and #4, 15, 38 and 39 all stay, it’s just luck. Sure you’re enhancing your percentage and all that. That don’t even really matter. If your player gets called he gets called. I’d feel even worse holding a player back and then he STILL declares, than I would if I pushed him up too high on the board and he goes.

And yes I’ve been on the receiving end of keeping #3 on the board, and I’ve also lost #126 and #119 on the board. It just happens. Nothing I did ‘controlled’ any of that

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/8/2023 12:06:00 PM (view original):
I understand the logic on why people are doing it or wanting to do it. I’m just not doing it.

I think it was baums that said “titles aren’t coming from your Sophs going from 80 PER to 90 PER, they come from that Soph staying another season’. I disagree a lot. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. But my titles come from everywhere. I’ve played in D1 title games as an 8 seed twice and I think a 10 seed (the positive part here). I had two rosters recently, BOTH i would consider my best teams I ever built in the history of this game (and I’m not a bad coach), one lost in the title game. One just got beat last night in round 2 for like my 100th consecutive 2nd round exit at the school (exaggerating and yes, very ******!!).

point is, there’s sooooooo many factors that go into titles that it’s not worth my time to even THINK about how to hold a player back. What’s the point? When the draft happens and #4, 15, 38 and 39 all stay, it’s just luck. Sure you’re enhancing your percentage and all that. That don’t even really matter. If your player gets called he gets called. I’d feel even worse holding a player back and then he STILL declares, than I would if I pushed him up too high on the board and he goes.

And yes I’ve been on the receiving end of keeping #3 on the board, and I’ve also lost #126 and #119 on the board. It just happens. Nothing I did ‘controlled’ any of that

i agree with disagreeing strongly with 'titles not coming from sophs going from 80 per to 90 per', from your perspective.

having great sophs is a cornerstone of success in this game, one of the primary differentiators between the truly elite teams and the merely great. my memory is fuzzy, but there's approximately a 0.00% chance i EVER held back a soph from 80->90 per at kansas or other premier d1 program i was running. madness!

but, part of this is perspective. baums runs fb/fcp at his super-amazing UAB program in tark, in today's game which is 3.0 with the jobs change. he has like 5 titles in only a couple dozen seasons, or something insane. truly a remarkable program, even by my standards (its UAB!). anyway, for him, depth is like, insanely important, and in 3.0 depth is so hard, that his perspective is probably on-point for his circumstance - always prioritize depth. for most situations, i could not even imagine holding back a soph from 80 per to 90 (perhaps like, a 95 lp scorer with lower bh/spd, and definitely a consideration when title seeking is out for that season anyway). as a matter of course, the general expectation for most folks is that you should be growing that 80 per to 90 instead of holding back for EE planning, i personally don't think i have ever even seriously entertained holding back in such fashion, so basically any reader should feel safe doing the same. you find something else, not the most important rating in the most premium ability on 80% of the top tier teams out there.

but also, obviously, everything dogg was saying about like 'i didn't control that EE who stayed at 3 or left at 120' is utter nonsense. its just like saying, the game sim might have me shoot 10% higher or lower on a given night, so i am going to ignore distro.

its kind-of sort-of reasonable as an inner-voice rationalization, but complete jibberish for any external audience.

gill, quick question, when you say "most folks," who are they?

I mean obviously not D2/D3 coaches but I think there are at least two different categories here where it really depends on how many cracks at the apple a coach is likely to see, so to speak. Like, if I am realistically able to land multiple EE-level talent each season, probably worth the 10 points of PE and the EE risk. But if that sort of talent comes once every two seasons or more, getting more years might be more important. Does this differentiation between coaching established elites/upper-tier power 6 schools vs midmajors/rebuilds matter?

well, so, most folks there is just about everyone who is in scope - anyone who can sign that kind of talent. if you have 1 elite soph every 4 years or 1-2 every year, making the most of those players is universally very important. the goal of EE planning in general is to identify the players at risk, figure out how much growth you can afford, and to front load that - then pause till senior year, basically. holding back something critical like per early (only talking about on lead per scorer types, here), its doing it backwards.

the 90 per case is the most extreme because basically the per rating on per scorers is the most valuable rating there is across HD. so you find something else to hold back. but holding back other stuff is definitely in play. one of the common examples for me might be a guard who has lets say, 95ish caps in all cores (ath, spd, def, per, bh, pass). stamina would definitely be a core too but leaving it out for whatever reason. anyway, let's say that guy is starting with 70 green in all 3 of per/bh/pass. you know if you grow them all, the dude has a really high chance of leaving early - in that case, i generally play the player at SG and hold his passing to around 70 till senior year (if he stays), so that he can still be an elite 95 spd/per/bh scorer as a junior, and close to that as a soph. maybe you just so happen to have lots of 90 spd/per/bh caliber players on some team, and so you occasionally slot this guy in at pg, and take the 90bh/pass and hold the per to 70 - its just going to very rarely be the case there, because per scoring is the most at-a-premium ability in HD.

anyway, i think probably part of this is the 'just 10 points of per' mentality. if you run a fb, per is less essential to good per scoring on an absolute basis, than in any scheme. and if you run press, you have more overall things you need to do, and a higher overall ceiling, which diminishes the relative importance of literally everything. so maybe in baums case, i like 25% buy the holding of the per. but in general, 'just 10 points of per' when you are talking 80 vs 90 is all the difference in the world. when i would run 12 deep press teams, i essentially valued that 80 per guy offensively, zero. meanwhile the 90 per guy was elite, on par with basically any player in the game. offense is just weird like that, its all about efficiency, so a guy who is 'pretty good' by some semi-mediocre standards, is essentially 100% worthless if you have enough better players to give the scoring to. scoring is the most lopsided part of this game, the top 3-4 scorers on a team are just so insanely valuable at really high end competition, and its kind of like, you are either good enough to be a strong contributor as a top 3-4 scorer, or you aren't. if you aren't, there's probably plenty of other guys (on good teams where good ath/spd is common) who can fill the gap almost as well as you - so the sort of like, marginal value in a 'pretty good' scorer ends up being really close to nothing, they are taking scoring away from a guy marginally worse. its only the guys who can really separate themselves from the pack, who bring huge value to the offense.

so back to the question - the reason most folks is nearly everybody - is because almost nobody has enough elite talent to wave away an 80 per caliber scorer versus a 90 per caliber scorer. that first 90 per/spd/bh elite per scorer, hes the most valuable. going from 1 to 2 is still insanely value. 2 to 3 is still huge, but it drops off pretty heavily each step. 3 is enough to be a massive favorite come NT time. anyway, almost nobody has so many elite per scorers that they couldn't use really use another. for those truly elite programs with 90 in everything players all over, you end up having so many EEs that sophmores like, they are a huge part of your experience. freshman cannot be elite scorers at the top tier of play, you have to at least be a soph, but sophs can be scoring leaders on championship teams. the teams with EEs out the wazoo need those sophs to be ready to run the show, perhaps even more than anyone else?

Posted by gillispie on 3/8/2023 12:23:00 PM (view original):
but also, obviously, everything dogg was saying about like 'i didn't control that EE who stayed at 3 or left at 120' is utter nonsense. its just like saying, the game sim might have me shoot 10% higher or lower on a given night, so i am going to ignore distro.

its kind-of sort-of reasonable as an inner-voice rationalization, but complete jibberish for any external audience.

I get that comparison. Every thing we do here has a consequence or effect or what have you. So I get it. But I don’t particularly care personally if my player is 12 on the board, or 34. I don’t feel any different about it

i also stated there is no right or wrong way to do things.

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/8/2023 9:28:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 3/8/2023 12:23:00 PM (view original):
but also, obviously, everything dogg was saying about like 'i didn't control that EE who stayed at 3 or left at 120' is utter nonsense. its just like saying, the game sim might have me shoot 10% higher or lower on a given night, so i am going to ignore distro.

its kind-of sort-of reasonable as an inner-voice rationalization, but complete jibberish for any external audience.

I get that comparison. Every thing we do here has a consequence or effect or what have you. So I get it. But I don’t particularly care personally if my player is 12 on the board, or 34. I don’t feel any different about it

i also stated there is no right or wrong way to do things.

just trying to keep things interesting for next weekend ;)

Someone put together a thread once showing the Draft Board rankings and the frequency of going EE.

i think the 50% mark was when ranked at *40* on the Draft Board. That was the sweetspot.

I forgot the other percentages and i can't locate the thread.

https://youtu.be/Mtj_wx6etjY?t=307

here npb

I never even knew about holding back players until about 2-3 years ago. It has helped, but I am noticing that the strategy does not seem to be as effective now. I suspect it is because so many coaches are doing it. Think of it this way. Let's say every coach was holding their players back. Then, your good players are still not going to go, or they will not develop. For example, we are at game 12 with my Arizona team.

I have a Junior that started the year at 18. We are in game 12 now. He has gained 1 speed and 2 stamina, and he is only at 20 now, so he has only dropped two. I wanted to save him for next year, but at this point it looks like he is going to go anyway, and I could really use his PE in the post season. He is at 91 black PE

I have another one that has only gone from 17 to 21 after only gaining 1 Blk 3 stamina and 2DU, but losing 1 PE and 1 BH. The second guy is green 60 PE and green 65 BH.

So at this rate both of these guys still end up in the 20s and probably leave. If I develop them now, they both could be in the top 10 draft picks, potentially, which also helps my recruiting.

And I really have always felt like this strategy was not "realistic", and that always bothered me. But it has helped me be more successful . However, at least in this situation, I think it is a bad strategy.

I don't remember ever trying to hold back a junior starting the season in the teens. I think the only way I'd consider it is if there was a lot of potential in unimportant spots, and the team was rebuilding and I was not even trying to think about making any kind of postseason appearance. If I hold the jr, I want them to get down to 40 (a soph down to ~27 or so). The idea is to get some distance between them and the cusp where likely going becomes on the fence. I don't want to drop them just barely to on the fence, because after a coupe guys inevitable stay, they'll just be likely going again, so what was the point? So if they're starting around 25 or so, that's about the highest I will consider it, and even then, the conditions have to be right.