Took over a bad DIII team a season and a half ago. My first HD action in years. Did pretty well with old engine. Decided to try again. Joined after recruiting and roster was rough, but managed to sneak out 12 wins and improve RPI quite a bit (100 pts). After departing seniors and scholarship rescinds, we had 8 openings and signed 5 freshman, 1 sophomore, and 2 juniors. Recruiting class was top 25 in DIII; mostly DI/DII pulldowns. Granted, almost all 8 guys needed to learn our offense/defense (Triangle/Man-to-Man) and we're starting 2 freshman and giving lots of new players good minutes. But we're just getting smoked and I'm thinking my game planning is not up to snuff.

Player ratings are better. Record is worse. RPI is worse. Lost to 300 RPI teams. Losing most Overtime games. Been playing Slowdown a lot w new and young players, but it doesn't seem to matter. Any ideas on why we're sucking greatly appreciated. And any ideas on how to pull this together. Thanks!

Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Team Profile

On first glance, what are your third point settings? I think you have way too many players shooting threes.

My 2c:
Pg - Cordero, Phinney, Duncan
Sg - Karn, Shutts, Duncan
Sf - Harder, London, Shoemaker
PF - Brauer, King, Shoemaker
C - Donovan, Beverly, Shoemaker

I’d put the players over 50 perimeter at -1 3pt setting; everyone else at -2.

Distibution:
Brauer - 8
King - 8
Donovan - 7
Cordero - 7
Karn - 5
Shutts - 5
Phinney - 5
Everyone else: FR-0, SO-1, JR-2, SR-3

Im probably defaulting defensive setting to +1 with this team; if the opponent is taking normal number of 3pt attempts (roughly 1/3 3FGA/FGA) I’m playing out one tick. Inside defenders are generally a bit better. Might change on matchups, w/ M2M if they have a primary scorer at the 2, I would either double him, or play out a little extra, even if the 3FGA ratio is normal.

Posted by sportstar6ms on 5/15/2020 12:00:00 PM (view original):
On first glance, what are your third point settings? I think you have way too many players shooting threes.

Thanks for taking a look. Our 3-pt shooting is pretty bad at 30%. All are set at 0. Maybe I should bump any under 40% to -2? Our Perimeter guys are young and will be ready next season, maybe.

Posted by shoe3 on 5/15/2020 12:05:00 PM (view original):
My 2c:
Pg - Cordero, Phinney, Duncan
Sg - Karn, Shutts, Duncan
Sf - Harder, London, Shoemaker
PF - Brauer, King, Shoemaker
C - Donovan, Beverly, Shoemaker

I’d put the players over 50 perimeter at -1 3pt setting; everyone else at -2.

Distibution:
Brauer - 8
King - 8
Donovan - 7
Cordero - 7
Karn - 5
Shutts - 5
Everyone else: FR-0, SO-1, JR-2, SR-3

Im probably defaulting defensive setting to +1 with this team; if the opponent is taking normal number of 3pt attempts (roughly 1/3 3FGA/FGA) I’m playing out one tick. Inside defenders are generally a bit better. Might change on matchups, w/ M2M if they have a primary scorer at the 2, I would either double him, or play out a little extra, even if the 3FGA ratio is normal.

Thanks. Interesting distribution system. Way different than anything I've tried. Going to plug this in for today's PM game and see what shakes out. Appreciate your feedback!

Honestly, I wouldn't panic too much. You're just going to have a few rough seasons before the team is competitive. Obviously I can't see their potentials, but your freshmen look pretty solid right now and should be good down the road. I'd agree with shoe that the biggest opportunity is to set everyone at below 0 on 3PT setting, at least until your players mature. I also think that at the D3 level the game left to its own devices shoots waaaay too many 3PTs, so I think it's best practice to keep those settings low as a rule (I set my frontcourt players to -2 almost no matter what at D3).

I don't put a ton of stock into game planning, so other coaches can definitely give you better tips or tell you you're really screwing things up, but I'd say your biggest problem is that the skill and talent isn't there yet. By my estimation, you were only a mild favorite in your last two games against 300 RPI teams, and you only lost by a combined 8 points, plus the OT, so I think that's a string of bad luck. In your last two wins (E. Oregon and Whitworth in OT) you were only slightly better favorites against than those 300 RPI teams you lost two, so it also kind of matters that the teams you lost to also might be having slightly unlucky seasons. At any rate, I'd say your team is maybe slightly underperforming, but I don't know if they should be much better than a 200ish RPI team anyway.

Your team should be much better next season. When your freshmen become sophomores next season, they will probably already be as good as your seniors are this season. I think maybe you scheduled a little too tough this season in non-conference, so maybe fix that, but you should have a much better time beating your Sim AI conferencemates next season.

Posted by rls1 on 5/15/2020 12:11:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 5/15/2020 12:05:00 PM (view original):
My 2c:
Pg - Cordero, Phinney, Duncan
Sg - Karn, Shutts, Duncan
Sf - Harder, London, Shoemaker
PF - Brauer, King, Shoemaker
C - Donovan, Beverly, Shoemaker

I’d put the players over 50 perimeter at -1 3pt setting; everyone else at -2.

Distibution:
Brauer - 8
King - 8
Donovan - 7
Cordero - 7
Karn - 5
Shutts - 5
Everyone else: FR-0, SO-1, JR-2, SR-3

Im probably defaulting defensive setting to +1 with this team; if the opponent is taking normal number of 3pt attempts (roughly 1/3 3FGA/FGA) I’m playing out one tick. Inside defenders are generally a bit better. Might change on matchups, w/ M2M if they have a primary scorer at the 2, I would either double him, or play out a little extra, even if the 3FGA ratio is normal.

Thanks. Interesting distribution system. Way different than anything I've tried. Going to plug this in for today's PM game and see what shakes out. Appreciate your feedback!

I updated Phinney to distribution 5, after looking at IQ, since it doesn’t correlate well with class when you take over a new team and switch out sets, or take a bunch of juco/transfers. The class is just shorthand, what really matters for me in setting distribution of non-primary and secondary scorers is IQ.

Might also consider setting King to second on depth chart at all three frontcourt positions, and making him a “super-sub”. He can rack up points against backup defenders at D3, so might be worth trying to move him around, get him those extra 5mpg.

Posted by ltfuller on 5/15/2020 12:11:00 PM (view original):
Honestly, I wouldn't panic too much. You're just going to have a few rough seasons before the team is competitive. Obviously I can't see their potentials, but your freshmen look pretty solid right now and should be good down the road. I'd agree with shoe that the biggest opportunity is to set everyone at below 0 on 3PT setting, at least until your players mature. I also think that at the D3 level the game left to its own devices shoots waaaay too many 3PTs, so I think it's best practice to keep those settings low as a rule (I set my frontcourt players to -2 almost no matter what at D3).

I don't put a ton of stock into game planning, so other coaches can definitely give you better tips or tell you you're really screwing things up, but I'd say your biggest problem is that the skill and talent isn't there yet. By my estimation, you were only a mild favorite in your last two games against 300 RPI teams, and you only lost by a combined 8 points, plus the OT, so I think that's a string of bad luck. In your last two wins (E. Oregon and Whitworth in OT) you were only slightly better favorites against than those 300 RPI teams you lost two, so it also kind of matters that the teams you lost to also might be having slightly unlucky seasons. At any rate, I'd say your team is maybe slightly underperforming, but I don't know if they should be much better than a 200ish RPI team anyway.

Your team should be much better next season. When your freshmen become sophomores next season, they will probably already be as good as your seniors are this season. I think maybe you scheduled a little too tough this season in non-conference, so maybe fix that, but you should have a much better time beating your Sim AI conferencemates next season.

Thanks for the feedback. This has kinda been my hope, but losing to the 300+ teams is a big slice of humble pie. Did try to schedule a little easier, too.

shoe has given great advice. Tone down the 3's. You don't have a terrible team but you don't have a great one. Minimizing the three's, particularly if you are going to run slowdown which is going to limit your opportunities (and low FG% + slowdown offense = very bad outcomes unless you have an elite defense) is key. Honestly, by reducing most of your team to -2 and a small handful to -1, you can probably run normal even with the youth on your team against lesser opponents.

You genuinely should be better than 5-13 but I wouldn't expect a record better than maybe 10-8 and in a best case scenario with the human-coached talent in your conference it would have been an uphill battle to a +.500 record. I think you'll start to chip away with those gameplanning tweaks shoe recommended but you've got a decently tough conference schedule ahead of you. If you gameplan well though I could see a 10-16 record with an upset over Whitman or Linfield a real possibility.

You should be better next season. Keep building on that foundation you've got and you should be a competitor in-conference in a season or two.

Posted by sportstar6ms on 5/15/2020 12:00:00 PM (view original):
On first glance, what are your third point settings? I think you have way too many players shooting threes.

This is the first thing I noticed as well. Dial back on the threes and you'll probably see some improvement immediately. Too many wasted possessions.

Posted by emy1013 on 5/15/2020 3:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by sportstar6ms on 5/15/2020 12:00:00 PM (view original):
On first glance, what are your third point settings? I think you have way too many players shooting threes.

This is the first thing I noticed as well. Dial back on the threes and you'll probably see some improvement immediately. Too many wasted possessions.

And running slowdown every game with wasted possessions...that's a recipe for a losing record.

Posted by emy1013 on 5/15/2020 3:46:00 PM (view original):

Posted by sportstar6ms on 5/15/2020 12:00:00 PM (view original):
On first glance, what are your third point settings? I think you have way too many players shooting threes.

This is the first thing I noticed as well. Dial back on the threes and you'll probably see some improvement immediately. Too many wasted possessions.

And running slowdown every game with wasted possessions...that's a recipe for a losing record.

More of a baseball guy so learning a lot here. Thanks, y'all!

Typically at D3, I advise that a player average about 60 in speed, perimeter and ballhandling before being set to -1. That’s a “good” perimeter shooter at D3, and as long as his distribution isn’t too high, he can score efficiently. But when you’re lacking any real good perimeter shooters, you can dip down a bit further without hurting too much. If your opponents can just ignore the perimeter defensively, it makes your job harder, so I don’t normally recommend going without, unless that’s part of an overall team strategy (ie mfnmyers). When a team has no good outside shooting, I usually say pick the 2-3 guys with the highest spd/per/bh average, and set them to -1.