What am I doing wrong? Topic

I took over this team 7 seasons ago and signed 13 players in the first two seasons, so, this is a rebuilding project.  This is the first season that I came in with high expectations.  I can't figure out if my expectations for this team were too high or if it is because I haven't had as much free time and have neglected the team a bit.  I expected to have about half as many losses.  My thoughts are that it is either a result of having no good pg's.

Here are the problems i've been having:
1) Lack of an effective outside threat:  I have Papstein and i've placed him anywhere from 0 to +2, but he seems to take around the same number of 3pt attempts regardless of setting.  I wish I had another 3pt threat, as most of my good teams have been perimeter based, but, with my recruiting area, I have had to take whatever I can get. 
2) PG play: I knew this would be an issue, but expected it not to hurt me this much.  Is the PG exceedingly important in the FB?
3) Depth: I thought I had an extremely deep team, but my bench hasn't been as effective as I expected. 
4) McArthy: I predicted him to be a 12 and 8 guy this season.  I've increased his distro(only 2nd to papstein) throughout the season, but I don't notice a whole lot of difference.  Usually I leave anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of my distro up to the sim to account for opposing game plans and that's worked well in the past. 

Edit:Also, what lineup(s) would you all recommend?

9/17/2012 9:27 AM (edited)
You had a tough schedule. About the only loss that should be truly disappointing is st Mary's.

And what do you mean by "leave 1/3 to 2/3 of your distribution to the sim". If you set ANY numbers for the distro, you are setting all of it. Only way the sim decides are if you leave it at zeros.
9/17/2012 10:47 AM
Some of my initial thoughts:

1.) You definitely have two 3pt threats. Mize has taken a near identical amount of 3pters as Papstein. They're both over 40%, once again, nearly identical here. You're also getting a nice percentage from Mukai off the bench. You're only averaging 14 three point attempts a game, which is okay but on the low side. You could increase how many 3's Mize and Papstein take, espeically for Mize because he has a lowish low post.

2.) I haven't played enough fast break to comment.

3.) I find depth interesting in this game. I've had players be very effective off of the bench that I did not expect, and I've had very skilled players play very mediocre. With all the fluctuations that happen with lineups throughout the course of a game, it's hard to determine how much time is spent playing opposite what players on the opposing teams. I've never been able to gather much from my bench's effectiveness and just adjust distro accordingly if I have to.

4.) He's shooting a great percentage. He could easily be a 12 and 7 guy if you just feed him the ball more.

9/17/2012 10:48 AM
I might cut back reeves distro a bit. He's not extraordinarily efficient ...
9/17/2012 11:39 AM
I would suggest that your main issue is that, although you have a deep team, your best players don't have great STAM for the FB.  You should not be running uptempo against high quality opponents.  Doing so just runs McArthy, Humphreys & Barnes right off the court.  I don't know whether you have experimented with setting them to getting tired or not, but at the very least you need to take down the pace to be more effective.
  1. Problem with outside threats?  Papstein, Mize & Mukai are all hitting over 40% from 3.   Stevens would be efficient too, but his IQ is too low.   I would set everyone else to -2 (especially McArthy!) and let them pick up fouls, but I'd be perfectly happy to go as high as +1 on any of those and probably +2 on Mize.
  2. I had a FB & m2m team and probably had my most consistent success with it.  PG is important, but I really thought that SPD, BH , ATH & DEF were the most important attributes (next either FT grade or PER).   FWIW, in my experience with FB, the least important category is LP - ATH is enough.
  3. See the top - re: tempo.
  4. Again - tempo; I'm hoping that earlier in the season you may have experimented with setting McArthy to getting tired, rather than just fairly fresh to see how it went.  Also, A...B is right, just go ahead and set the distros so they add up to 100%.  Better you choose to try to take advantage of the other team's weakness, than the sim select to feed your best player right into the strength of the opponent.
For FB point guards I would be willing to trade off a lower passing rating given strong enough SPD & BH.  It looks like Mukai will be very good at PG next season, but I think that Mize fits best at the 2. So either:

A:    1) Pap; 2) Mize (+2); 3) Purtell (-2); 4) Barnes (-2); & 5) McArthy (-2); or 
B:    1) Mukai or Reeves; 2) Mize (+2); 3) Pap;...same as above.
9/17/2012 12:40 PM
Thanks for the responses guys.  
1) As far as outside threats, I didn't mean to imply that I only have one just that i'd like one more.  It isn't a terrible outside shooting team, I just usually put up 20-25 3's which really helps negate opponents with rebounding advantages.  This is probably the best rebounding team i've had here, so, it probably isn't as big of an issue as usual. 
2)  I haven't really thought about using Mukai or Papstein at the point.  I may play Mukai if I run against a opposing pg who struggles offensively.  Wouldn't Papstein struggle as a pg because of his passing and wouldn't it negate his rebounding ability? 
3) I usually don't go off uptempo during the season, but have done so during postseason play.  I sent this in a sitemail to another coach discussing the system:
Player improvement is related to potential, WE, study hall mins needed, and playing time. That last aspect is why I love the FB. Your bench, who always has more collective potential for improvement than your starters, gets more playing time than other teams benches. So, i've noticed that my teams improve more relative to other teams as the year goes on so that i'm at my best at the end of the season. I love reading through postseason games where teams that are used to going 7 deep have to go 9 deep against me, and usually struggle to do so. 
So, that's been my regular season philosophy.  Is that a wrong way of thinking about the system?  I also have liked it because one of my strengths is getting opponents in foul trouble.  I'll definitely put McArthy off of fairly fresh.  I hadn't thought of that. 
4) I'll start setting distro to 100%.  I haven't had much confidence in my game-planning, so, that's why i've been hesitant to do so. 
This all also raised some  more questions (sorry for the length):
1) Where are my holes?  I thought I had some at pg, but thought otherwise we were on elite 8/final 4 level.  
2) Would I be wise to think of switching to a zone defense in subsequent seasons if I don't want to overly concern myself with stamina?  I understand many will say to just switch from the FB, but I really like winning using a different system than most successful coaches.  Also, it allows me to go after a different type of player (see Leo Barnes) that I don't think would be as successful in other system.  Usually I have 2-3 guys like Barnes, as far as forwards go.
3) Someone mentioned that Reeves hasn't performed that well.  I knew he wasn't that good, but is that a skill type issue or skill level issue?  The reason I want to know is that I am redshirting a player who is a somewhat similar in skill type, but will have a higher skill level (Turner-average ath, def, sta   high-spd, lp, per, bh, pass, and ft).  Should I not expect much out of him either?

Thanks for all the help guys.  I've had limited success as a coach, but am still developing and really appreciate the responses. 
9/17/2012 1:57 PM
Reeves isn't playing bad -he's scoring inefficiently. His d should be fine. His passing is fine. Just don't have him shoot so much.
9/17/2012 2:05 PM
What am I doing wrong? Topic

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