Not quite sure how I'd lose this game: Box Score

My most athletic guy had 7 turnovers... The sim team was tired 3 minutes into the second half. I played a 3/2 defense, focused obviously on guards, but their guards scored the most points. My opponent plays man-to-man and I put my best scorer (a SG) at PG with the highest distribution against one of their worst defenders and he shot 30%. The sim team also played a -2 in the second half and my second highest scorer was a center coming off the bench. I also set my depth to evenly distribute minutes as to eliminate any worry that my team would get tired.

Would love to hear from the group if I'm missing some component of the sim calculation in setting up game plans, etc

I'm very new to this game but your team running the press could be it. Your SF fouled out quickly, and the backup sf was in foul trouble too. I think the press has higher variance in every play and will create more random results.

Better anwsers will come from better coaches, but the first thing that jumps out of that box score is 30 FT vs. 16.  Combine that with starters sitting with foul trouble, and that can be a disaster.  The other thing that jumps to me is your defense ratings while running a halfcourt press- defense is huge along with IQ determining how often you foul.

I think you made a mistake not running uptempo the whole game. Your opponent, like a lot of Sim teams, has a few crappy walk-ons and uses a really short bench - only 7-8 guys in this case. I always try to punish those teams by going uptempo - it can give you a huge fatigue advantage in the 2nd half. In fact, that's exactly what happened to Northland in their game vs Cali Tech - a 13-pt second-half lead turned into a 7-pt loss.

First off, realize that there isn't as big a gap between the ability level of these two teams as it might first appear -- ignoring the sim's four walk-ons, the average team ratings for the players that will actually play against you average out to 36 Ath, 44 Spd, 32 Reb, 41 Def (with a 37 pass avg.) -- That's pretty on-par with your team numbers and indicates that this should be a close game.

The big difference I see here comes in IQ's -- you're running a zone/press hybrid and your team IQ average in both zone and press falls between C+ and B-. Your opponents' offensive IQ was a full letter grade higher and probably explains why you didn't generate a lot of turnovers. Combined with the above-average (for D-III) pass rating, that's going to get some open looks for the opposing shooters vs. the zone. I don't know how much practice time you're devoting on defense, but it looks to me like it could use a bump. (I play this same combo and have 20 min. in each)

You also let the Sim off the hook by not going uptempo. You distributed your minutes to avoid your players getting tired, but you didn't speed the tempo along to maximize the advantages a 12 vs. 8 game gives you. This is your biggest advantage, I think, but I'm not convinced you utilized it to its best in this game. Yes, he had two tiring players early in the second half, but as you go down, there's not much difference between the five he has on the floor vs. the five you have on the floor at any point in the second half. You never push him into the pretty orange and red colors vs. your blue and yellow that give you an advantage (in part because his top eight average to an 86 stamina...they can run for a while and not reach tired!)

The 7 TO's by your PG is a bit of a head scratcher, but overall I really don't think a 10-pt. loss here (inflated due to the intentional fouling late) is outside the realm of plausibility. The numbers make it look like a toss-up game and that's what it was until you went cold from the floor over the final 3:45.

Posted by rednu on 8/19/2010 1:56:00 PM (view original):
First off, realize that there isn't as big a gap between the ability level of these two teams as it might first appear -- ignoring the sim's four walk-ons, the average team ratings for the players that will actually play against you average out to 36 Ath, 44 Spd, 32 Reb, 41 Def (with a 37 pass avg.) -- That's pretty on-par with your team numbers and indicates that this should be a close game.

The big difference I see here comes in IQ's -- you're running a zone/press hybrid and your team IQ average in both zone and press falls between C+ and B-. Your opponents' offensive IQ was a full letter grade higher and probably explains why you didn't generate a lot of turnovers. Combined with the above-average (for D-III) pass rating, that's going to get some open looks for the opposing shooters vs. the zone. I don't know how much practice time you're devoting on defense, but it looks to me like it could use a bump. (I play this same combo and have 20 min. in each)

You also let the Sim off the hook by not going uptempo. You distributed your minutes to avoid your players getting tired, but you didn't speed the tempo along to maximize the advantages a 12 vs. 8 game gives you. This is your biggest advantage, I think, but I'm not convinced you utilized it to its best in this game. Yes, he had two tiring players early in the second half, but as you go down, there's not much difference between the five he has on the floor vs. the five you have on the floor at any point in the second half. You never push him into the pretty orange and red colors vs. your blue and yellow that give you an advantage (in part because his top eight average to an 86 stamina...they can run for a while and not reach tired!)

The 7 TO's by your PG is a bit of a head scratcher, but overall I really don't think a 10-pt. loss here (inflated due to the intentional fouling late) is outside the realm of plausibility. The numbers make it look like a toss-up game and that's what it was until you went cold from the floor over the final 3:45.

+1

You put way too much distro into Levenstein. He had 7 TOs because he had the ball almost all of the time. He shot 6-19 from the field because he has a 12 LP and 20 PE. You have other offensive options on the team, spread it around more.

It sounds the majority of you think that running uptempo was my big mistake? Do you really think running at them and wasting more of my stamina would have helped me at 10+ points here?

hbmerlin - in a real-life game, which I assume a sim should mimic, 20% distro isn't a lot or even close to guys like Kobe gets. Athletic players naturally also get better shots, case in point Trevor Ariza is a terrible pure shooter, but avg. 14 ppg in the NBA. for 1 game I changed distro higher for Levenstein because my opponent played a man-to-man and the Sim team had strong PF, SG, and SF defenders.

Posted by ckermott on 8/19/2010 11:40:00 PM (view original):
It sounds the majority of you think that running uptempo was my big mistake? Do you really think running at them and wasting more of my stamina would have helped me at 10+ points here?

hbmerlin - in a real-life game, which I assume a sim should mimic, 20% distro isn't a lot or even close to guys like Kobe gets. Athletic players naturally also get better shots, case in point Trevor Ariza is a terrible pure shooter, but avg. 14 ppg in the NBA. for 1 game I changed distro higher for Levenstein because my opponent played a man-to-man and the Sim team had strong PF, SG, and SF defenders.

Trevor Ariza would be a guy who scores a lot from hustle points.  Levenstein is not a good offensive player.  I'd say Akins is probably your best offensive option and May is probably second.  

It seemed from my first couple games, this Sim gave true value to athleticism, which it should. Just having someone with high or low perimeter shouldn't necessarily be a good offensive player. But Levenstein is very athletic, has good speed, and good passing/ball handling - seems to be a better catch then just a guy that has high perimeter... However, if the sim doesn't consider that correct, as it should be in real life, then I should know to adjust accordingly

The most athletic guys are not the best options just like in real life.  Although I think Levenstein is still a decent scoring option given his 49% shooting percentage, having him take almost 40% of your team's shots is not a good plan of action.

well, im going to go ahead and point to why you actually lost. when  your pg turns the ball over alot, that means he was not being successful at getting your sgs shots. ur pg had to force alot of shots it seems as well, chances are he might have been doubled quiet a bit.

i would shorten your lineup someone, you are trying to make your team too deep imo

feel free to site mail me and il give you a better analysis

Posted by ckermott on 8/19/2010 11:40:00 PM (view original):
It sounds the majority of you think that running uptempo was my big mistake? Do you really think running at them and wasting more of my stamina would have helped me at 10+ points here?

hbmerlin - in a real-life game, which I assume a sim should mimic, 20% distro isn't a lot or even close to guys like Kobe gets. Athletic players naturally also get better shots, case in point Trevor Ariza is a terrible pure shooter, but avg. 14 ppg in the NBA. for 1 game I changed distro higher for Levenstein because my opponent played a man-to-man and the Sim team had strong PF, SG, and SF defenders.

19 shots out of of your teams 53 is 36% not 20%. Add in his 7 TOs and 4 FTA, and he was likely at around 40% of your team's distro. And if you compare him to the rest of the starters, he probably had about 60% of the distro while he was on the court, much of the other shots came from your bench.

Plus athleticism alone is not the be all and end all, he needs to also be able to shoot the ball.

I must have a distro problem then as I set Lev. to 21%, but as it looks he got alot more. Why would that be the case?

Posted by ckermott on 8/20/2010 10:15:00 AM (view original):
I must have a distro problem then as I set Lev. to 21%, but as it looks he got alot more. Why would that be the case?

The number that you set is relative only to other players on the court. Setting him at 20 does not mean that he will get 20% of the distro.

For example, if he is at 20, and the other 4 players that happen to be on the court with him at that time are each set to 5. Then the total on the court at the time is 40. So he will be getting 20/40 = 50% of the distro during that time.

Your numbers do not have to add up to 100, and in fact, there is no reason to make them add up to 100.