After a brief hiatus from WIS, after just making it to D1, I've returned to a lesser team in a lesser conference (which stinks). I was able to grab a team with 7 scholarships to fill, so that I could get players I generally wanted and convert to the style I generally wanted to play. Next season the 5 players that pre-existed on the team will graduate, so after next season my team is going to composed of a junior, 6 sophomore and 5 freshman.

Question 1: Am I better off just starting 5 freshman now? two of the players I inherited are actually pretty decent players - but I figure it doesn't benefit me in the long to have them taking minutes away that could be used to improve my new recruits. Especially considering I'll *have* to start them next season, anyway.

Question 2: If I totally bomb my first season (or two) in D1 am I going to hear it from my alumni?

Thanks, Everyone, you're always super helpful.

You should go with all frosh. Even if you play with your best possible players, your prestige most likely won't go up and if your prestige is going to remain stagnant, you might as well build for the future and two seasons from now, you'll have a pretty good team with better prestige.

The answer to question #2 is no, you are not going to hear anything until at least 3-4 seasons in.....I would agree that your best option is probably just to play your freshmen so you are in the best shape a few seasons from now.

I've never started all freshmen but i'm pretty sure i will at the div 2 school i just took over in smith. Unless the players that are already there are great you are better off playing the freshmen for the long term gain at least that's my opinion

that's what I figured - thanks, folks

those players are really bad, so i would go with all freshman. i usually am for the 3-4 freshman with your 1-2 best players deal, but with those players, that might still be 5 freshman ;)

Do it. I started 4 my first year and it was painful, but we made the NT with some lucky breaks in year 2\.

I just finished my first season of D1 and I started all freshman. I only got 6 wins, but that was a mixed result of poor recruiting(my first D1 recruiting went horrible), 2 players going ineligible, and my lack of D1 knowledge. Hoping to have a better time this upcoming season.

I started 5 freshman at Grand Canyon with a very low prestige rating to nrhin with. We made it to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in their jr and sr seasons.

You'll see the biggest improvements from the first to second season. Don't be surprised if they totally tank during their freshman campaign and follow it up with a 20 win PIT season the following year.

First year 11-17 143
Second year 20-10 53 NT(1st Round)
Junior year 22-10 10 Sweet 16
Senior year 21-12 20 Elite 8

Just an update here.   Clearly I'm doing something wrong:

Started all freshman.

year 1:  17-12
year 2: 15-13
year 3: 14-14

The "good" news is that I'm likely going to get to do this again next season.   

are you over scheduling?

you've developed a pretty good team there at Wagner with those seniors.  you should be able to challenge for your conference title with those upperclassmen. 

Don't know what the rest of the conference looks like, but you should a really nice year ahead of you. The JR class should be ok too if you can pick up a transfer or JC to help at the guard spot.

i generally would have said, do it, i have done that a bunch of times myself. but in low d1, trying to move up, those small differences in prestige matter. and having a much better offensive player or two on the floor can make a tremendous difference in the quality of your team. so i would try to salvage things, get a decent # of wins, while starting 2-3 freshman, if at all possible. that way you have a couple good players on both lines and that is generally the best way to succeed with a team like you described anyway, and you will still be getting a lot of PT to your young guns. especially if you start the guys with a lot of room for improvement.