I have started to notice recently that my teams don't seem to be performing as well as I would expect, and I think it is due to a deficiency in gameplanning on my part. I generally go through determining my defensive +/- settings based on the other team's ability to shoot 3's, as well as their rebounding rating in comparison to mine. I will set my tempo based off of speed/athleticism/stamina comparison, as well as the opponent's IQ ratings. I then look for any defensive mismatches I can exploit and adjust my depth chart and distro accordingly.

I feel like I have recruited well through the seasons and my players should be performing fairly well, but I find myself losing about 5 or 6 games a season that I feel like I never should have lost. If anyone would be willing to offer up some advice I would be very appreciative. If you would like to take a look at some of my team's recent performances, I am mostly referring to my Ramapo team in Phelan, though I have noticed it with my other teams as well.

Thanks in advance for any help.

At a glance, the fastbreak offense is not what your talent dictates. Your assist/TO ratio is fairly bad. With the fastbreak, you need better SPD, ATH and BH, PAS. The PG in particular needs great BH/PAS and SPD. Plus you have too many poor shooters taking 3s, producing a team percentage just under 30. Such a combination of mismatched talent and strategies is going to produce mediocre results, even though you have some solid talent. My advice would be to (if you're staying at Ramapo long term) change offense to Triangle (which may be slightly better than Motion/Flex at getting shots for your best scorers) and change defense to man or zone (as you don't have enough SPD to produce enough TOs to make it worthwhile). I'd also set your players with PE above 50 to -1 on 3, and all others to -2, letting them stick exclusively to midrange jumpshots. Good luck.

My two cents in the form of two suggestions:

1) Don't look at opponents rebounding, perimeter, speed or athleticism ratings.  Instead, look at the stats (especially counting depth of rotation), game log, box scores for PIP, and past PBP for opponents gameplan tendencies and adjust your settings from that information instead.   

2) For recruiting, decide what each system really needs to be successful and what can be shortchanged and recruit to your system.  In my opinion, fastbreak & press needs by priority: #1 Speed, # 2 Athleticism, #3 stamina/depth.  IMHO, I think you are swimming upstream at Ramapo, because your guards don't overwhelm with speed and your forwards don't overwhelm with athleticism.  If I were in your shoes recruiting for next season, then I would look for forwards with massive ATH, that I could get cheap due to low LP.

Maybe that helps and maybe it doesn't.

Thanks for the advice. When I'm doing my gameplanning I certainly look at the opponents stats and tendencies rather than just ratings. I think my biggest problem from that aspect is probably a lack of in depth scouting of my opponents. I probably just need to do more work before each game, but its human nature to try to take the easy way out I suppose.

As far as recruiting, I thought I was doing well in that aspect, but I can certainly see the shortcomings you have mentioned. When I took over this team I had a lot of spots to fill, so my first recruiting class (Juniors now) wasn't one of my best. I feel like I did much better with this past recruiting class, especially in terms of speed and athleticism potentials, so hopefully that will continue and take shape over the next few seasons.

Thanks for all the advice so far, and keep it coming.