I'm at D2. I have a freshman whose ATH and DEF are both in the low- to mid-70s. If I'm playing a team with a great scorer, can I use this freshman as a defensive stopper because of his skills, or will his low IQ negate whatever advantage his skills give him? Also, he's not very fast.

I figure the difference between an A and C is about 10 points in the relevant stat(s).

You may be focusing on the  wrong issue here. I am not a big believer in IQ over individual ratings. Are you playing 2-3 or 3-2? In a zone he may never be matched up with the opponent you want him matched up with. A bigger concern is hiding his terrible 13 reb. and 12 SB  in a zone. He doesn't reb and he doesn't block shots. This makes him somewhat of a liability.

Your opponent this game shoots a lot of 3's. I would go 3-2 with him in the SF slot to take  advantage of the Ath/D and hide the reb/b. I hope thios info helps in some way.

Thanks for the responses. Vegas, I've been running a man to man, but you might be right for this game.

Hobson is probably your best perimeter defender at this point.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 6/3/2015 11:26:00 AM (view original):
Hobson is probably your best perimeter defender at this point.

Yeah, I'd agree. Problem is, he's pretty much done growing.

Posted by pallas on 6/2/2015 2:30:00 PM (view original):
I'm at D2. I have a freshman whose ATH and DEF are both in the low- to mid-70s. If I'm playing a team with a great scorer, can I use this freshman as a defensive stopper because of his skills, or will his low IQ negate whatever advantage his skills give him? Also, he's not very fast.

im not sure what position the guy you are talking about is... it would be good to know. doesn't really affect your direct question but sort of affects the tangential parts of the answer.

anyway, IQ is pretty important. you can't really use a freshman as a defensive stopper, and anyway, a 70/70 type defender in d2 is not nearly elite, even as an upperclassmen. if he is a lot better ratings wise than an upperclassmen, however, he still is a better defender. like, the 70/70 C IQ player is definitely better than a 50/50 A- player. i'm not sure where to draw that line, nobody does really, its hard to even speculate. is a full letter grade worth about 10 points of defense? maybe. offense is easier to think about, in high d1 you really want a 90/90 spd/per with quality BH guy, for an outside scorer, and guards kind of need to be a B+ to start to take a prominent role, and hopefully A- if you are talking leading scorer type. an A+ guy with 90/90 i'd definitely take over a 95/95 B+ guy. but 90/90 B+ vs 85/85 A+, that would be tough, they are probably pretty close. you are probably looking at high single digits in the primary rating for the ability in question (reb for reb, def for def, per for per scoring, lp for lp based scoring sort of but not exactly a primary core in that one... pass for guard skill), for the value of a full grade of IQ. 

also just to comment by end of season most fr are b- which really isn't that bad anymore, 

Posted by gillispie1 on 6/3/2015 10:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by pallas on 6/2/2015 2:30:00 PM (view original):
I'm at D2. I have a freshman whose ATH and DEF are both in the low- to mid-70s. If I'm playing a team with a great scorer, can I use this freshman as a defensive stopper because of his skills, or will his low IQ negate whatever advantage his skills give him? Also, he's not very fast.

im not sure what position the guy you are talking about is... it would be good to know. doesn't really affect your direct question but sort of affects the tangential parts of the answer.

anyway, IQ is pretty important. you can't really use a freshman as a defensive stopper, and anyway, a 70/70 type defender in d2 is not nearly elite, even as an upperclassmen. if he is a lot better ratings wise than an upperclassmen, however, he still is a better defender. like, the 70/70 C IQ player is definitely better than a 50/50 A- player. i'm not sure where to draw that line, nobody does really, its hard to even speculate. is a full letter grade worth about 10 points of defense? maybe. offense is easier to think about, in high d1 you really want a 90/90 spd/per with quality BH guy, for an outside scorer, and guards kind of need to be a B+ to start to take a prominent role, and hopefully A- if you are talking leading scorer type. an A+ guy with 90/90 i'd definitely take over a 95/95 B+ guy. but 90/90 B+ vs 85/85 A+, that would be tough, they are probably pretty close. you are probably looking at high single digits in the primary rating for the ability in question (reb for reb, def for def, per for per scoring, lp for lp based scoring sort of but not exactly a primary core in that one... pass for guard skill), for the value of a full grade of IQ. 

also just to comment by end of season most fr are b- which really isn't that bad anymore, 

I appreciate the detailed response, gillispie. The freshman is playing at SF. He'll definitely end of being an elite defender, for sure. I just don't want to be enticed by the 70/70 ratings and start him too early. My upperclassman SF is a JR, 50/50, and he provides a lot more offense. I guess this might just be a trial and error situation. The freshman, even if he starts, isn't playing many minutes -- his stamina's not great and I'm using fatigue for substitution. 

Also, while the freshman SF isn't yet an elite defender, he's already the best defender on my team. The season before I arrived, the team went 0-27...so...freshmen might play a lot for a few seasons. haha