frustrated coach, I need help with gameplanning..........would really appreciate any veteran coaches who could show me the ropes. .......run a motion offense, zone/press combo

It seems that your biggest problem is your rebounding. You need to recruit better rebounding in your big men. You only have 1 player over 50, and he only played 10 minutes in your first game. Your starters each played over 29 minutes and their REB is 47, 49, 26, 11, 2.

I would definitely not run uptempo with that team, I may even try slowdown.

thanks for the advice hbmerlin. who should i be starting @ pg? should i make any other changes to my starting lineup?

I like Cooper starting ahead of Dunbar.

But you could improve your rebounding by trying Marley or Cooper at SF, with Dunbar and Marley/Cooper on the front line. If you make that move, put Lanier at backup for both the SF and SG spots.

In your opener, your bench didn't get many minutes. Are you using the fatigue setting? Or the Minutes setting? I prefer Fatigue so my players don't play tired. But, if you use slow tempo and feel that your starters are a lot better than the scrubs, you can get away with it.

I would start Cooper over Dunbar, you desperately need the rb.


But hb is right, you need to recruit some guys who can rebound. I think you also need to be more cognizant of team building, i.e. when you're recruiting, you need to be envisioning what your roster/lineup will look like a season or two down the road. For example: You shouldn't have two jr pg's, a soph pg and a freshman pg. That's a glut at one position (and yes, I realize that technically they can play the 2, but none of them can shoot).

I agree with the aforemntioned plans by the esteemed coaches above me...Will point out that I too struggled at the lower levels and never could seem to get a grasp on things...Stick with it...Look to your future classes and above all else recruit with your gut...Us fellow coaches can offer advice and wisdom but when the day is done it is your team...Keep plugging away and good things will surface eventually...I never once thought I'd ever be a good enough coach to make it to a Sweet 16 but after countless attempts I have finally made my first ever S16 and at DI no less...

You will get better :-)

I agree with most everything above. I differ from daalter a bit in that I think within your PGs (except McLain, depending on his ATH, PE and BH potential) there are some viable future SGs. For instance, Sam has solid SPD, PE, BH and PA, with passable ATH. The only real weakness is DEF, and playing the zone with a good defender at the point will mitigate this. Land is a little less capable on offense, but is still passable, and his 90 DEF will really help your zone, and allow you to play poor defenders at the point.

In short, I think your guards are not bad at all, and have different strengths, allowing you to adjust based on opponent. For instance, against a press, you might go with Cortes at PG and Huff at SG (with 87 and 73 BH, respectively, along with great D3 SPD). Against a zone, you might sub Sam for better shooting, especially if the opponent doesn't have great scoring guards (to take advantage of the poor Sam DEF). Against great scoring guards, you might go with Land at SG and Cortes at PG, putting 45 and 90 DEF ratings on the perimeter, with Huff backup at both spots.

Now your rebounding woes will continue, but you can help them by playing - defense when advisable. You might also play Dunbar some at SF (even though Lanier should always start and play to "getting tired" fatigue - he's too good to ever sit much). Dunbar will be 2 spots from his natural C, but his REB could help in the zone, and his SPD, BH, PE are not too much of a liability.

At first glance, I think my base lineup might be:

PG - Cortes, Huff, Sam

SG - Land, Huff, Sam

SF - Lanier, Dunbar, Keller

PF - Cooper, Gonsales, Dunbar

C - Marley, Dunbar, Gonsales, Parker

In general, it looks like you've built a team of speed on the perimeter, and athleticism with some speed inside. The issue is that your zone defense is not best suited to take full advantage of those attributes: man, and better yet, press is. Not that having these skills in the zone is not helpful, especially the speed, but when recruiting (if you stick with the zone), you need to err to the rebounding side at the expense of a little ATH and SPD, and really keeping your eyes out for the very low DEF recruit with great scoring attributes. In D3, playing a zone, if you're not getting 1 of these every 2 years or so, you're wasting a significant advantage to the zone, and it looks like you've done this with Keller and Sam.

Good luck.

wow, thank you so much everyone, i really appreciate all the good advice.....just to let everyone know, the main reason why i recruited prospects with less then stellar rebounding stats is because i noticed that when i did have players with high rebounding stats but with lesser athleticism they never seemed to outrebound players with better athletic stats and low rebounding stats....when playing sims i could easily win the rebounding wars. , but humans seemed to have the edge, it appears that i went a little too far to the extreme and sacrificed too much of the rebounding rating for athletes.... thank you once again, and any more recommendations would be appreciated.

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=5054221

this is a link to my latest game. is it odd that cooper and marley only combined for five rebounds?

i put cooper in the starting lineup like suggested, and decided to put land in as my starting pg.