http://whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=14212

Coming into this season I thought this was my best team ever. I've played a tough schedule and I'm fine with 4 of the losses I've had, but 2 of the losses are to teams I'm clearly better than. Although I'm fine with losing to 4 of the teams I've lost to I don't understand the margin of victory, all 4 of the games I've lost to teams with top 12 RPIs I have lost by at least 18. I've tinkered with the lineups (I've had 8 different players start) and have messed with distro some and get the same results. I've even been outrebounded in my last 2 games including by a team that has a team rating of 39 and ath of 51 which is far worse than my ratings.

Not much....you are losing to very good teams. Your center has such lousy stamina that your sophomore backups are playing big time minutes, and they are getting owned a little against the schools with the deep front lines.

Why are you so gun shy about playing uptempo? Looks like you've only done it a handful of times.

Good ATH/SPD + Strong REB + Good FT shooters should equal pretty good results with uptempo. Tempo is always the first thing I mess with when one of my teams is underperforming.

I was trying to find a (semi-) common denominator in your losses. One thing I did notice was 3pt shooting. In most of your losses, the other teams shot quite well from 3p land and you didn't shoot well.

It's possible that's because you have an inherent weakness in those areas that average/weaker teams aren't capable of exploiting, but other really good teams are. You start two guards in m2m with def ratings in their 30's (as does their top backup). They've got good sp/ath, so against average teams, that's likely enough to make up for the lower def. But against strong teams that have players who can more-or-less match up with the sp/ath, it may be hurting you.

Same thing with the 3pt shooting ... only one guy (Shadrick) has a really strong pe rating. So you may have enough overall talent/pe to hit 3's against lesser teams, but not the good ones.

The previous two paragraphs are just a theory, I don't feel strongly about it, but I think it's certainly possible.

I also think you're giving too much distro to Winn. His offensive efficiency is below average, yet he's taken 65% more shots than anyone on your team.

Lastly, I think having two starters with questionable stamina may hurt you as well. That's another thing you may be able to easily overcome against average teams, but really good ones might be able to expose it more.

Except for the part about Winn, this is all conjecture on my part. This isn't one of those "Good lord, what the heck are you doing with your team?" sort of things. And FWIW, I would stay with the Tolan-Shadrick-Barreto-Winn-Aleman starting lineup.

Quote: Originally Posted By mniven on 10/29/2009
Why are you so gun shy about playing uptempo? Looks like you've only done it a handful of times.

Good ATH/SPD + Strong REB + Good FT shooters should equal pretty good results with uptempo. Tempo is always the first thing I mess with when one of my teams is underperforming.

I haven't done any scientific study but I just feel uptempo works very poorly with motion, I even made a post on the forum about it about a month ago. Whenever I've tried to go uptempo with this team I've had poor results, dating back the past several seasons. I think I should be able to go uptempo because there are only a handful of D2 teams that can match my ath/sp/reb but my team constantly shoots poorly and turns it over too much when I do go uptempo.

Dalter, the thing with Winn is he always seems to start off strong and fade. The last 2 seasons he shot over 50% through NC play and then tailed off, so the strong start leads me to have his distro high but you're probably right. I've been thinking about lowering his distro but I don't know where to put it because the guy I thought would be the leading scorer on this team (Shadrick) has played so poorly. Even somebody like Tolan I think should be a pretty decent scorer with his 98 speed and solid ath with good BH but whenever I up his distro for a game or 2 he doesn't play well.

I would simply take a look at your players who are scoring more efficiently (Gallo Barreto, Smith, Neal) and add maybe 2 distro to each.

Since your minutes are fairly well distributed between your 10 rotation guys, I'd keep the distribution similar for your starting/reserve SGs and SFs. So if Shadrick is a 12, then Neal would be at 10. When they're on the floor - presumably against the other 2nd string - then Neal and Gallo would be my top 2 options. And if they're on the floor with the rest of the 1st string, then they should still get touches, just not as many since there is some drop off.

Neal probably looks more efficient since he's facing more of the 2nd string compared to Shadrick. One thing that's worked for me with SGs is to move their 3 pt down, e.g. from 0 to -1.

I like Tolan's speed/bh combo. I'd be tempted to give him a few more shots to drive to the hoop per game.

I agree w/ Dalter on Winn - he should not be a top off option at D2. He should be more of a put back guy than primary scoring option.

Quote: Originally Posted By kmasonbx on 10/30/2009
Whenever I've tried to go uptempo with this team I've had poor results, dating back the past several seasons. I think I should be able to go uptempo because there are only a handful of D2 teams that can match my ath/sp/reb but my team constantly shoots poorly and turns it over too much when I do go uptempo.

You mean like when you ran uptempo against Shepherd and won 103-39 and shot 60% from the floor with only 9 turnovers?

Or last night when you won 80-36?

kmason - first off, sorry i ignored your site mail, ive been very very busy the last few months. if anyone else reading this has also sent me a sitemail i ignored, i am sorry!

anyway, the one thing that sticks out to me is, your 3 point shooting is poor. you have a top 10 team right now - its possible to have a top 10 team with a weakness in one of the huge categories (reb, 3 point shooting, defense), but its tough to do much better than that (esp when you are looking for top 1).

so, your goal should be to compensate for this glaring weakness. i realize you are going into the CT - use this time wisely, think hard on your new setup, and continue to reconsider it over the next couple days; you need to be ready come tourney time. you can continue to experiment early in the NT if you must but you have to at least be close by the start (on one occasion i experimented hard all the way to the final 4, believe it or not, i was deciding on both guard positions starting lineup and to play all 0s or use my distro pattern, AND whether to play normal or uptempo. i had even been diligent all season, but all 0s was new to me. it ended up working out but its not a good place to be!). before you read on, spend at least 5 minutes trying to figure out how you could make up for your 3 point deficiency.

my suggestion is, change your starting lineup to tolan, neal, shadrick. i am not sure exactly how i'd handle the backups, keller is so slow, id prolly play him at backup sg but consider the possibility of playing your other pg at backup both and going for a mostly 3 man rotation. usually, the opponents backup sf is not a big scorer, so i'd keep your scoring sf in at backup unless you get one of those weird cases where the backup sf just happens to have 93 spd and 100 per :P and even then maybe. similarly, the opponents backup sf is not usually a great defender, which is why you are getting so much out of your backup sf.

you might be thinking, but this will hurt my rebounding! it will, a little, but not much. your sf rebounding will actually improve, and your sg rebounding will take a hit, but they get less rebounds. and the advantages are enormous. instead of 1 three point threat on your starting lineup, you have 2 - that makes your team much harder to defend against. also, your best 3 point shooter moves to sf, which will often result in him having a weaker, in particular, slower defender, which will give him MUCH better open looks, especially for the 3 balls. he should start tearing it up - readjust your player game plan accordingly! this will also take barreto, who is getting 7 points a game on really crappy production, out of the equation - a big plus on the offensive side.

finally, i would strongly consider upping the relative distro of your backup sf. with your backup sg moving to starting sg (if you give my suggestion a try), your backup lineup is in much greater need of outside threat. and, he is putting up GREAT percentages. milk him for all hes worth. you are playing motion, so you do have a limit, but need to find that limit and sit right on it. at 49% and 47% 3s you almost definitely would be better off having him take more shots!

ok, i said finally, but one more. a bunch of people have said play uptempo, but don't listen to them! uptempo may be your best option against significantly inferior opponents (i disagree), but as you correctly assessed, it is not going to help you against the top tier. you are going for a championship, and you don't have your best strategy yet (IMO at least) - so you have to play to find your optimal championship strategy. there is no time to waste running uptempo against weaker teams and losing valuable information! spend at least 20 minutes a game the rest of the way, when you have a meaningful opponent, and make sure you have given your best effort to predicting their tempo and +/-. from there, compare position by position, figure out your strengths and weaknesses, and how you are going to take advantage of them, as well as how you will best utilize your opponent's choice of tempo and +/- (a lot of people don't take the time to do that - do, it is a HUGE advantage).

a final word of caution: don't over think things, don't (over) game plan your way out of a game. you can do 5 times more damage game planning than you can do good. its fine to spend 30 minutes and not change anything. you just want to be damn sure you have the right strategy. figure out their strategy, and make the small change to counter act. if you are making huge changes you are probably shooting yourself in the foot.

good luck!

winn is not that good, nor is his production. but before, you had less threats on your starting lineup. make sure you carefully think through the threats you have on each lineup, and who your primary threats are/can be. you already have 26 games of data on the production of your players, some are changing roles, but some are not. that is valuable information, don't neglect it! some of your players who are not so great on paper are doing well for a good reason, and can take a bigger load. some are not producing very well and need a smaller load. consider the whole package, and try to get each player to a point where increasing or decreasing his production by 1 would not make your team any better or worse.

on a final (for real this time) note, i spend most of the time i spend on this game analyzing. i find it the most enjoyable, but its also extremely valuable. you want to rationalize what is happening, in detail - why is each player performing the way they are performing. why is a group performing the way they are? only by carefully analyzing a large number of situations, can you really understand the engine well enough to predict the result before it happens. its worthwhile to spend 20 minutes a game trying to predict the outcome - not just score, but how you will fare in the rebound war, 3 pointers, turnovers, etc. i did this for a few seasons on a couple teams early in my career, it was invaluable, i can tell you my team's chance of winning extremely accurately, within 5% for the good ones. a couple people who have come to me for help, later told me the prediction exercise was a huge help to them. one went on to win a title a few seasons later, and pointed to the exercise as one of the biggest things that helped them "get over the hump".

i love, before recruiting, imagining all the synergies of my current lineup, and what players would fit in like a glove to maximize the efficiency of each player in 2, 3, 4 seasons down the line. no thought spent is wasted - you get dividends now, and continue to for the rest of your career. for example, for the start of recruiting team planning, it gives me a huge boost in that recruiting season. but then, for the upcoming season, i already have a very good idea of what strategy will bring me the most success, and what alternatives i have. you even have a huge jump start on the next season, and the next recruiting class. often, after a recruiting class, i can tell you if my team will be top 1, top 5, 10, 25, or 50 with great accuracy not only the upcoming season, but the one after, and the one after that (assuming 7 players on the current team will be there (sophs and frosh), definitely with 8, sometimes with 6 if they are the right 6).

in summary, there is always more to learn. the best advice i can give is this: measure success not by wins nor post season success, but by knowledge gained. throw away a final 4 run for a second round to learn something every chance you get. experiment wildly but with focus, and eventually material success will follow. i have no idea what the ceiling is on understanding of the engine, but i can tell you with certainty that i am not even close.