Keep in mind that I beat this team earlier this year by almost 20 on the road - So I used a similar team & player game plan.

www.whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx

What I really don't understand is the matchup between SFs (both teams are playing man). I easily have the superior SF, and I even have him on only the 4th highest distro, but he shoots 1-7 while their SF only misses 1 shot with such low core ratings?? I really don't get what makes a good player anymore. This is not just one upsetting game, I have consistently seen Sim AI players massively overperforming this season.

In my conference's CC, me and the other coaches have been getting very frustrated with the way this new engine works. I thought this was supposed to better exploit matchups, but players with defenses in the 20's are shutting down star players who are significantly faster, while players with low core ratings - i.e. LP, Per, BH all in the 30s or lower - throwing up large numbers against good defenders. Either I could have extremely bad luck, and all these games are just a small chance coincidence, or this new engine still needs a lot of tweaking.

Donald Schuyler ..........you need to take him off of redshirting status, that is your second best guard. and about your sf and sg actually, you have them playing too many minutes which is hurting their contributions.

you gave way too many shots to cash when he was out matched. you had a much better match up at the pf and pg spot, so i would've given most of the shots u had set for cash to brekke and richeson.

what does "distro" mean and where is it.  Sorry, newbie here and trying to learn.

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 8/7/2010 3:11:00 PM (view original):
Donald Schuyler ..........you need to take him off of redshirting status, that is your second best guard. and about your sf and sg actually, you have them playing too many minutes which is hurting their contributions.

you gave way too many shots to cash when he was out matched. you had a much better match up at the pf and pg spot, so i would've given most of the shots u had set for cash to brekke and richeson.

Well this season is already gone, so I'm gunna keep Schuyler on redshirt so I get an extra year out of him.

As for the fatigue, I have both Brown (SF) and Burnett (SG) set to 'fairly fresh'.

About the shot distribution, that's the main issue - I took advantage (or tried) of the mismatches. Here's my distro numbers: Brekke 28 (who scored 28 points - 12 of 18 shooting - at the PF position in their last meeting with a distro of 25), Richeson 14, Cash 14, Mayer 12, Brown 11, Burnett 3. But my main issue lies with the fact that their SF dominated my SF offensively and defensively, which doesn't make sense.

Why isn't it just possible that your SF had a bad game? Even Jordan had subpar games once in a while...

i would've cut cash to 4 to 6 and boosted richeson to 18 to 24.....

Posted by dacj501 on 8/7/2010 4:47:00 PM (view original):
Why isn't it just possible that your SF had a bad game? Even Jordan had subpar games once in a while...

That would be completely fine, but this has been a pattern repeating all season. I'll give that their SF was a decent defender so I didn't expect Brown to have a good offensive game, but how did their SF make 6-7 shots against Brown? Has anyone else been seeing Sim players overperforming?

Here are the seven shots taken.

1) Defensive rebound at 16:28 of the first half.
Scruggs hits a finger roll and is fouled by Richeson at 16:24 of the first half. 

Brown was *in* the game, but the other team was running a fast break offense, so it only took 4 seconds from defensive rebound to made basket.

2) Craig Scruggs hits the finger roll on a great pass from Thomas Schrack at 15:45. 

Brown was in the game, but Scruggs' teammate set him up with a great pass. Seems reasonable that he'd score.

3) Scruggs misses badly on a three.

4) Craig Scruggs lays it up and in set up by Paul Washington at 14:52.

5) Craig Scruggs scores on a fadeaway jumper from the right wing on a nice dish by John Burnham at 10:54.

Another nice set-up by a teammate.

HALFTIME

6)  Craig Scruggs knocks in the 3 pointer from the left wing on a nice dish by Dennis Gilbert at 16:49.

Yet again, Scruggs benefited from a good play/pass from his teammate.

7) Craig Scruggs scores on a 3 pointer from the right wing set up by Paul Washington at 5:45.

You had scored a basket at 5:49. Four seconds from through the net to a made shot. Again, they were running a fastbreak offense.


So yes, he went 6/7 from the field, but two were shots that didn't come against a set defense. Three more came as a direct result of a nice/great pass from one of his teammates. The other 1 out of 2, he made a layup from an assist (not like he backed Brown down and took it to him) and missed badly on a 3.

Seems pretty reasonable when you look at what actually happened.

Also, if you have Burnett and Brown set to come out at fairly fresh, I'd check and make sure you have depth chart set with adequate backups, because both were playing at tired in the 1st Half.

Oh, and in the game you won by 18, you hit 20/27 FT.

In this game you lost by 7, you hit 13/26 FT.

There isn't a "make FT" setting, but had you hit a similar rate to your win, you'd at least have gone to OT.

Alright I'm going to try some changes over the next few games and see what kind of differences they make. Thanks for all the help zbrent, and sorry if it felt like i was just whining. Coming into this season I never could of guessed that I would be under .500 heading into the home stretch, or all the losses to Sim teams.

No problem. There are a lot of times when I feel like I have no clue how well my team is going to do from one game to the next. One game we'll beat a good human-coached team, the next we'll get outplayed by a team of AI-coached scrubs.