So after quite a few seasons still wondering what other people look for when they game plan? I look for certain players to double team and things like that but do you always try to exploit match ups?

Just a general question what do you do when you go about setting a game plan?

The first thing I look at is who the better team is (based on Reb, Ath, Spd, LP, Per) and then combine that with whether I'm home or away and that determines the offensive pace I play. I then look at if my opponent is stronger in LP or Per, and if they take a lot of 3's, and that determines my +/- setting. The rest of the "team game plan" page stays the same.

The "depth chart" page usually stays the same.

On the "player game plan" page, I have a pretty set distro for each defense, but adjust it (based on the def/spd ratings of the opponent's starters) if I'm playing against a mtm. I usually only double team players that have low passing ratings or horrible asst/to ratios.

I'm not throwing this out there as advice on what you should do, more in hope that someone with knowledge of the game will look at it and say "what the hell are you doing that for?" or "hey man, you shouldn't do that!"

ya I understand what your saying, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do any of this

I am still wondering after 3 seasons if I am missing something. I rarely seem to be able to pull out upsets, but have lost a few times to lesser teams, so I am wondering if I am on the wrong page.

I usually adjust my distro every game depending on the opponent. If one or more of their players has a low defense rating, I tend to try to get my players that are going to be guarded by them, a little higher distro number, as long as they are decent at shooting.

Does anyone have any other tips they would like to share. This seems to be the area that I may be weak in.

in my opinion, HD is 60% recruiting, 20% IQ and core skills practice, and 20% luck.

with the latter in mind and from my experience. game planning should not take anyone more than 3-5 mins per game.

guess what type game offense your opponent will try. are they a balanced team or like to pound the ball inside. + or - def setting.

don't worry about player match-ups. i rarely double team unless i'm running the press since then its auto.

regarding your own players dist%, put the ball in the hands of your best. the current HD logic has each player only performing a few actions on offense: TO, shoot, or foul. i don't seem to remember if passing is built in there- might be tied to the don't shoot option. anyway, once i setup my %s, i rarely change them.

regarding some of the posts about losing tough games or not winning the upsets, i use to have the same prob. make your FTs, have decent overall team IQs to limit TOs, throw in some good RBers. you'll get begin getting those wins soon enough. i promise :)

I really couldn't disagree more. If I have a key game, you can bet I'm looking at the matchups and making adjustments, either in rotation, distribution, ILS doubling, 3 frequency or positioning. True, many games I'll do a quick glance and a positioning adjustment, but when it comes down to the big games, there is quite a bit you can do to help yourself out.

Regarding distribution, not touching it can easily hurt you. Running your best guy at the same distribution against a stud defender while others have easier matchups can lose you many a game.

if i were trying to get a good answer to the question of how important gameplanning is,,,, id ask oldresorter, gillespie, and lostmyth

there are prolly a couple others that have dominated the game that slip my mind at the moment, but those three would be a good place to start.



and , of course, they prolly wont agree on the answer!



seriously, i think they would agree with jais up to a point. that is, recruiting the best players is most important and developing them correctly is also very important (though not quite as strategic as it used to be) and that luck does play a role in any individual game.

but, if i recall correctly, the guys who have dominated HD at certain points seem to point to proper gameplanning as the key to seperating the very good from the great.

I totally agree about recruiting and development, but since he asked about gameplanning specifically I didn't want him to get the impression it wasn't important in its own right.

"in my opinion".

many quality HDers have stated on the forums that they spend minimum mins game planning. others have stated minimum game planning during the season and some more during the post season.

personally, i mainly only do 2 thing for game planning : guess if i should play a + or - def setting and also rarely tweak my player %s. 1-3 times per season, i also review my 3 pt settings and depth chart to see if changes should be made. everyone is different but i found success.

i assume the bottom line is do not spend too much time game planning since over analysis is paralyze.

Quote: Originally posted by chapelhillne on 2/22/2010I am still wondering after 3 seasons if I am missing something. I rarely seem to be able to pull out upsets, but have lost a few times to lesser teams, so I am wondering if I am on the wrong page.

I would point out that if your team is good there will be many more opportunities for you to be upset than for you to pull out an upset.

If you look at my resume you will see some fairly successful seasons and some horrible ones. Because of my job there are stretches where I have all of the time in the world to game plan, etc., and other times where I have almost no time at all. I do not believe that it is coincidence that when I have additional time to game plan my winning % is higher. I'm sure that everyone is different, but when I have time to look at my opponents def. strategy, look back through the season and see when he double teams and when he doesn't, basically get an overall feel for what he is going to do against me and game plan accordingly, I just win more games. Another thing to consider is how hard it is to game plan against you. If a coach doesn't game plan himself it's much easier to game plan against him. In other words if he does the same thing every game, how hard is he to figure out, and game plan against? Anyway, just my 1/2 cent worth...