I'm trying to track the improvement of my young Abilene Christian team, which has really struggled last season and this - mainly due to the poverty of talent and experience imposed by a Sim AI run for a couple of years.

What I'm looking at is a way to compare my players' ratings with those of more successful D2 programs.  I've always felt that the best way to succeed is to try to emulate others' successes.  Yet when I look at the top rungs of D2 right now, I see a lot of outstanding players with low D1-type ratings (mid 700s+).   Questions of how they landed those players aside (prestige being a huge hole at the moment for me), it gives me something to shoot for.

Since ACU is a lower-level D2 program, most of my recruits have landed between 450 and 490 in total rating.  (I shoot for key ratings, eg, SPD/BH/PAS for PGs, RB/LP for bigs, etc, ignoring things like Blocks and LP for guards).  I'm anxious to figure out if that level of talent will ever rise far enough to compete with typical NT teams.

I offer for your review, 3 of my better sophomores who were part of my first big rebuilding class last season.  These players have 2 1/2 seasons left to improve some more:

Andersen, SF:  Started at 494.  Now rated 606 at mid-season.  Total bump: 112 points.
Harris, PG: Started at 451.  Now rated 565.  Bump so far: 114 points.
Oberle, PF: Started 470.  Now at 574.  Bump so far: 104 points.

Then there's my senior PF, who was a JUCO recruit.  In the middle of his second and final season, he's now gone from 552 to 689, a whopping rise of 137 points.  I hate to lose him :(

My other sophs have gained between 60 and 90 points total, so the examples above are probably exceptions.

But assuming I can recruit more players like the above 3 sophs, I'm hoping I will be able to keep a senior class on hand every year that will start in the high 400s and end up as seniors in the mid-700s range.  I feel as though that's when I will become competitive.

That's quite a leap up in rating.  Was I just lucky or is this the conventional method for raising a low-level program to winning status - recruit for potential and then just wait?  With a D+ prestige, pulling down low D1 recruits isn't something I can rely on every season.  I need more practical methods.


 

I think the lower your prestige, the more aggressively you need to pulldown. If you are just gonna recruit via dropdowns, you won't get much talent left since they drop down to A+ first, then A, A-, etc. all the way down you at D+. By then, there's not gonna be much left. You have to pulldown D1 players and battle D3 schools that take the top D2 players in your area. 

One more thing, you are playing the press. Imo, defense matters for the press alot more than some might think. Your defense rating is way too low. 

I'm not playing the press.  I just moved to M2M.

Posted by ethan66 on 1/6/2011 3:16:00 PM (view original):
I'm not playing the press.  I just moved to M2M.

Sorry, misread the columns, you were playing zone before which made sense with the low defense. I would stay with zone given how low you def is and the the IQ differential is huge between zone and man. I don't think you have the personnel for m2m to transition into it and I don't think the m2m IQ is high enough for you to play it. My advice is to stay with zone until your prestige goes up and you can recruit players with higher def than 50. 

Posted by tianyi7886 on 1/6/2011 3:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ethan66 on 1/6/2011 3:16:00 PM (view original):
I'm not playing the press.  I just moved to M2M.

Sorry, misread the columns, you were playing zone before which made sense with the low defense. I would stay with zone given how low you def is and the the IQ differential is huge between zone and man. I don't think you have the personnel for m2m to transition into it and I don't think the m2m IQ is high enough for you to play it. My advice is to stay with zone until your prestige goes up and you can recruit players with higher def than 50. 

I asked this question a few weeks ago on this board and was told that it didn't matter, and if I intended to go to M2M eventually anyway, better to make the switch now.  It was a pretty lengthy thread and the concensus disagreed with what you're telling me.

As a result, I've spent most of this season practicing M2M but playing zone until my M2M IQ got to C or so.  The commitment has been made and I'm not really willing to change it again.  I'm willing to take some lumps now (given the deplorable state in which I took over the team) and work for the long term.

This doesn't address my question on ratings improvements, of course.  A few of my players have enough potential to be decent defenders by the time they're upperclassmen, and I will be recruiting better players as time goes on.   I was simply curious as to whether the improvement I've seen so far is typical of most players.

In terms of switching from zone to man, if you have decided to do it, fine, but at least wait until your IQ is in the B- or higher to play it. Your zone IQ is in the B to A range, why not play it now, win a few more games while practicing zone, and then switch to man next season when your IQ is higher. C IQ hurts.

And for your growth question, the improvements aren't out of the ordinary. I recruit my fair share of D2 players for my teams (all D3) and I generally have 1 or 2 players per class that grow 70-90 points their freshman and soph seasons, and continue to grow into the mid to high 600s, with a couple about to break 700. 

A couple of examples:

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1726202 started at 460ish, now 580 at the beginning of his So year.
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1667231 He gained 71 points his FR year, 80 something his So year, about to start his JR year rated at 655. 
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1713106 Started as a 440 FR, now 539 at the start of So. year. Gained almost 90 his FR season with some more through rollover. 

Posted by tianyi7886 on 1/6/2011 4:14:00 PM (view original):
In terms of switching from zone to man, if you have decided to do it, fine, but at least wait until your IQ is in the B- or higher to play it. Your zone IQ is in the B to A range, why not play it now, win a few more games while practicing zone, and then switch to man next season when your IQ is higher. C IQ hurts.

And for your growth question, the improvements aren't out of the ordinary. I recruit my fair share of D2 players for my teams (all D3) and I generally have 1 or 2 players per class that grow 70-90 points their freshman and soph seasons, and continue to grow into the mid to high 600s, with a couple about to break 700. 

A couple of examples:

http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1726202 started at 460ish, now 580 at the beginning of his So year.
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1667231 He gained 71 points his FR year, 80 something his So year, about to start his JR year rated at 655. 
http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1713106 Started as a 440 FR, now 539 at the start of So. year. Gained almost 90 his FR season with some more through rollover. 

Thank you, that answers my question.  And switching back to playing zone right now is no problem - I just delete the emails from my assistant asking me why we're playing a defense we don't practice :)

If the guy has a decent WE and high upside in his core skills, you can see dramatic improvement.  Have a senior PG (DII level) who started at 494 and is now at 714, three games into his senior year.  Led the Peach Belt in scoring as a jr.  His PE has gone from 29 to 83; his BH from 57 to 92; and his passing from 49 to 89; shoots fouls at A+;  AT and SP in the 70's.   In short, he has the skills of a pretty decent DI PG.  That's an extreme case.  Have found that you can take two guys that are really pretty even in attributes, potential, WE, etc; get the same general amount of PT over their career, and one guy will far surpass the other.  Have been studying a group of 40 freshmen in Naismith, all from Georgia high schools for three seasons now, to try to draw some conclusions about development.  WE and potential (duh!!) are the main factors.   Same conclusion--guys that look similar develop differently.  No magic formula--something built into the computer.   Good WE also means the guy will work harder during the summer; my PG reported back to fall practice after gaining 6 points in PE and 3 in BH over the summer; 15 ratings points, in all. 

Posted by flageezer on 1/6/2011 11:36:00 PM (view original):
If the guy has a decent WE and high upside in his core skills, you can see dramatic improvement.  Have a senior PG (DII level) who started at 494 and is now at 714, three games into his senior year.  Led the Peach Belt in scoring as a jr.  His PE has gone from 29 to 83; his BH from 57 to 92; and his passing from 49 to 89; shoots fouls at A+;  AT and SP in the 70's.   In short, he has the skills of a pretty decent DI PG.  That's an extreme case.  Have found that you can take two guys that are really pretty even in attributes, potential, WE, etc; get the same general amount of PT over their career, and one guy will far surpass the other.  Have been studying a group of 40 freshmen in Naismith, all from Georgia high schools for three seasons now, to try to draw some conclusions about development.  WE and potential (duh!!) are the main factors.   Same conclusion--guys that look similar develop differently.  No magic formula--something built into the computer.   Good WE also means the guy will work harder during the summer; my PG reported back to fall practice after gaining 6 points in PE and 3 in BH over the summer; 15 ratings points, in all. 

You need to scout the players you recruit. High potential can be just high (20ish growth) or high - high (25 to maxing out the category at 100). High - high are the guys that you want. 

i have a couple of guys on my shepard team that have made huge improvements...

hatch started around 500 - he's well above 650 now going into his senior years

cespedes and grier are perfect examples of high potential guys - in 2 years (grier had a RS) both are well into the 600s after starting below 500. I expect both to be over 700 before the end of the year (and grier will only be a junior)

my currenty soph class is pretty bad - i just sucked - but i try to RS a player every year (look at poulin/grier) to make up for not having the prestigue to pull down better players to start with.

i will tend to ignore players with better cores in recruiting unless they have high or at least average potential and 50+ work ethic.

With the current recruits it's not unusual to see 250-300 point improvement over a players career.
A couple years ago I'd say a 200 point improvement was very good. 

Posted by trobone on 1/7/2011 4:31:00 AM (view original):
i have a couple of guys on my shepard team that have made huge improvements...

hatch started around 500 - he's well above 650 now going into his senior years

cespedes and grier are perfect examples of high potential guys - in 2 years (grier had a RS) both are well into the 600s after starting below 500. I expect both to be over 700 before the end of the year (and grier will only be a junior)

my currenty soph class is pretty bad - i just sucked - but i try to RS a player every year (look at poulin/grier) to make up for not having the prestigue to pull down better players to start with.

i will tend to ignore players with better cores in recruiting unless they have high or at least average potential and 50+ work ethic.

There's no doubt that I started out at ACU on the wrong foot.  But the program was in the gutter as bad as a program could be (I inherited 5 scholarship players, only 2 of whom were worth a damn thanks to the sim AI).    I was only dimly aware of the value of pulldowns/dropdowns when I started, which would explain the crappy players I signed that first season just to have warm bodies.

I learned a lot from my mistakes and hope to rectify them over the next 2 or 3 recruiting cycles.  It takes time and lots of patience - patience that quickly dwindles for me every time I lose another game.  Knowing why I lost doesn't help me feel better.

Doing as you suggest - redshirting 1 player per season - is one method I've adopted, though I already notice that my redshirt this year isn't improving by leaps and bounds.  That conforms with what the Player Guide says so the main advantage I take from redshirting is simply another year and 20-40 points of possible improvement before they hit the floor.

From the Player's Guide:

"The rate of improvement in any individual category will be based on a player's playing time, practice time, work ethic and how near/far a player is to reaching their potential. "

Those improvements are pretty much about the norm. If you get a 40+ WE with like 4+ high improvements, you'll see great talent within a few seasons. As for how you recruit, you got the right idea. However, with that low of prestige you won't get enough talent to be on the same playing field. What I would do is sign guys others won't. For example, I just signed this player in wooden...

	Current Rating	Potential			Current Rating	Potential
Athleticism	77	Average		Perimeter	1	High
Speed	30	High		Ball Handling	35	Average
Rebounding	44	Low		Passing	27	Low
Defense	63	Average		Stamina	57	High
Shot Blocking	34	High		Durability	75	High
Low-post	31	Average		FT Shooting		High

I knew nobody would want him, so I got him for a couple hundred bucks which gave me over 10k to play around with. If I found somone better I could have dumped him, but didn't. I would never take a 44 reb and low pot on my other teams, but in this case its fine. He will have like 80 ath/speed and end up shooting over 50% and average like 17 a game while still bringing in 4-6 rebs a game. Yet nobody else wanted him. Be more about scouting to find the diamonds in the rough. Be willing to play FR more often so you can sign them with a promise start and save thousands of dollars to bring in the real gems like this...

	Current Rating	Potential			Current Rating	Potential
Athleticism	23	High		Perimeter	13	Low
Speed	31	High		Ball Handling	29	Average
Rebounding	74	High		Passing	2	High
Defense	21	High		Stamina	60	Average
Shot Blocking	72	High		Durability	49	Average
Low-post	46	High		FT Shooting		High

Also has a 70+ WE