Does anyone know whether actually *playing* an offense or defense in games helps improve the IQ for that particular offense or defense?

That is, is IQ development based on game-playing and practice time, or only practice time?

Game playing time does impact the learning curve for your players. Further more, the more minutes played, the more impact. This is why you will see your starters improve more quickly than your reserves, with the presumption that they get more PT.

Also, at one point, prior to the most recent engine change, playing against a particular offense or defense would improve your team's IQ. For instance, you face a ton of teams who play the triangle, your team may move from an F to a D- in that offense, even though you play the Flex. Not sure if this has been continued in the new engine or not.

I'm actually about 99% sure that playing an offense/defense in games does not impact iq development. (Or if it does, it's so miniscule that I would say it doesn't matter.) It does help individual skill development quite a bit, but not iq. IQ development is based on practice time, work ethic and HS GPA.

And wise, the whole deal about playing vs. a particular o/d improving your iq was a myth, a bad explanation offered by Admin at one point to explain something that shouldn't have been happening. (And we know it was errononeous because of situations like a bunch of us had, where fastbreak iq's increased despite never having played against a fb team.)

I can say that there is a minor amount of increase due to playing time.  When switching over on one of my teams, I played with my old D while getting my IQ up to snuff with my new one, and one of Freshman recruits did go up from a F in the old one.  Like daalter said though, it's not worth counting on.

Well, I am not sure now, so I sent in 2 questions to CS to see if they can give us a clarification.

I think its VERY minimal.

I asked something like this a couple months ago...www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx 
I also sent a ticket into CS and although the response was kind of vague (shocker there), the general message was that it only mattered about practice not playing time.

Well, if nothing else, extra playing time can cause WE to go up which causes a faster learning curve.

How many practices are there per season?

For example, Iguana1's BBIQ Practice Minute Chart: indicates that 200-300 minutes will bring a guy from an F to C-... but you have to know how many practices there are to figure out how many minutes/practice you'd have to put in.

Also, I thought I remembered something about a "break-even" point with IQ, where as long as the player's IQ was above a certain threshold, he would at least play to his ratings and not be penalized. Now I can't find it anywhere though - was I imagining it?

Yes, you're imaging that, lol. There's no official break even -- it's simply the higher his iq, the better he'll perform overall.

There's a practice after every game (including exhibitions) and every off day, except for the CT final and beyond. I believe that works out to 34 practices. Also, keep in mind that HS GPA and we effect how quickly iq improves.

I always did have an active imagination.  :-)

OK then, does anyone have any sort of guideline for how high an IQ has to be before they feel comfortable running that set/defense in a game?

Well.  Do you expect the team to have a chance of winning?  If so, I wouldn't even consider it until you pass c. . .

If not a contender, right away.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 8/10/2010 7:07:00 PM (view original):
Well.  Do you expect the team to have a chance of winning?  If so, I wouldn't even consider it until you pass c. . .

If not a contender, right away.

If developing IQ is based only on practice time, why would I switch right away even if I wasn't a contender?

Wouldn't that reduce my likelihood of winning games now, while not improving the chances of winning more in the future?

If I KNOW i'm not going to win now, I want to be able to start figuring out distributions and the like: call it a large exhibition season.  That would, however, require the team to be bad.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 8/10/2010 8:19:00 PM (view original):
If I KNOW i'm not going to win now, I want to be able to start figuring out distributions and the like: call it a large exhibition season.  That would, however, require the team to be bad.

Gotcha, thanks.

If I still hope to win some, you think playing a new D as long as I'm above a C won't hurt my chances too much?