I don't know how many requests you other mentors are getting for help - I get some - enough that I see a trend in ?'s that are near impossible to answer, thought I would post here for some help.

The hard one goes something like this (actual sitemail):

Hello. I got your name from the list of those who will help mentor. I have a few seasons under my belt and really enjoy the game. However, the gameplanning is killing me. I have no idea how to setup a gameplan that can keep me close or even slow down opposing teams who are better than my team. Any simple advice will help.

My difficulty with answering this is simply there is no simple advice on gameplanning to take a guy who is winning 80-90% of his sim games and say 33% of his even matched human games - at this point the game just gets harder.  Here is a start of the answer from me, I am hoping others might tack on more answers, as well as correct my suggestions if wrong.

1 - Recruit better - this would take 1000's of words to discuss right, but overall, look at the best teams, who they play at PG, at SF, At C, and what types of core ratings they have, also, compare your team total to other team totals, are you missing some key elements, like your team total reb is 25 pts less than the top team in your conference - recruit more rebounding then

2 - Make sure your 'base' distro setup gets the ball to your best players - I once saw someone suggest set the distro to the number of shots you want each guy to take, I think that is great simple advice - note the total of distro does not need to add up to 100%, most teams shoot about 60 shots per game, having it add up to 60% is fine - then tweek things around if the distro is not yielding the results you wanted, although I would wait about 5-8 games to let random number theory catchup - that is why exhitbition games help & why I do not recommend ever setting distro to all zero's like some coaches do.

3 - Determine if you have an advantage or not for an uptempo game

4 - Determine if you have an edge in either rebounding / interior defense (so you can play plus) or exterior defense / lack of reobunding so you must play minus for defensive settings

5 - Pay special attention to how your team subs in the play by play vs your depth chart and vs your distro plan and how tired your ind players are getting - you may have to switch the depth chart, pace, and fatigue settings to keep your team fresher

6 - an offshoot of #5 - how does your team play down the stretch, if near each game you lose at the end, you might have to change things around

I think this is the tip of the iceberg on this issue, but the answer to such a ? is far from easy

Well, if they have just played a few games, you might give them an example game setup from a game they have already played this season and run a sort of critique of it?

I agree, OR, that is one of the toughest questions to answer. I think your advice is very solid and helpful. I would suggest adding the following:

Look at the type of teams you are losing to. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the various O&Ds and adjust to compensate for their strengths and your weaknesses.

Are your opponents upperclass heavy? If so, consider possible lineup changes to try and equalize the matchup.

What are your O&D IQs?  Do you need to add more minutes to team practice?

Does your opponent rely on one or two primary shooters? If so, consider using doubleteams or adjusting +/- settings to minimize their impact. 

Its been a while since I've played HD, but poked my head around.  Things may have changed a bit since my heyday, but in relation to the question at hand, how do you best spring the upset, I always felt a complete examination of each team was needed so you can find your advantages and take to capitalize on them.

I'll start by echoing OR's words on recruiting, the easiest path to victories is good recruiting, but I'll add in that recruiting versitale players will give you more options.  It became increasingly harder to have a handful of versitale players with the addition of 'potential' (is that still around, has it been improved) but I'll assume the theory remains the same.   One of my favorite players in my was a 5th year PF in D3 wooden.  He had an ordinary 1st game of the tournament his last year, then dominated to the tune of like 20 & 10 each of the next 5 games to bring home the title.  He did this while sliding b/w the SF, PF & C spot, where I could put him on the opposing teams best player each round where he had the defensive ability to shut them down.  Same theory applies to other positions, PGs that can play SG, SGs that can play the point or SF, etc...  Having versitality on your roster allows you to mix and match to take advantage of your opponents weaknesses.  Can you burn them with speed by inserting an extra PG into the lineup, or kill them on the boards by getting your backup PF some time at SF?  More depth, try to speed up the game and see if your backups can win the game vs their backups.  Less depth, try to slow it down and keep your starters in as much as possible.

I don't think there is any specific answer that can be given, as its going to be different for every situation.  If you don't have the talent, then all you've got is hoping for a good night w/ the RNG.  Try to get as much speed & athleticism as you can in recruiting, and with a handful of versatile players that you can move around positions, you'll be given ample weapons to put together a solid game plan and spring an upset.

I ususally say recruit the best you can and get the ball in the best players hands.  I do get alot of questions like what line-up to use.  I try to just say whatI would do but let them know they should play around a little and find a system that worls for them not ot follow what I do.

I've gotten some good game planning advice from a couple of guys here.  They all seem to agree that the important thing is to look at positional matchups, compare your players, and figure out where you have an edge on the floor.  Then exploit it.

It was also suggested to me that if it looks like I'm overmatched, try something unexpected to throw off your opponent's gameplanning. One guy I played had an SG he played at any of the 1, 2, or 3 positions, which made it tough to gameplan against.

I'm still learning the tricks, but I can't stress enough how important it can be to look at your opponent's past play-by-plays.  When he lost close games, what sets did his opponent use?  Does he shift his starting lineup around?  Who's the biggest scoring threat, and can you focus on him and let a couple of other guys do their damage without sabotaging yourself?

My experiences with double teaming have been dubious so far.  I haven't thrown it out as a tool, but the times I've tried it some other 10 ppg kid I ignored will light me up for 30.

Guys, this has been very very helpful in understanding what I should be looking for as far as the team goes. Much of this I may have been able to figure out over the course of many many season however by then the losing may get too much to stand. I will hopefully be able to take the information that you have supplied here and apply it to my teams and then tweak it a bit as I need to in order to get my teams where they need to be.

Once again, thank you very much.

"
4 - Determine if you have an edge in either rebounding / interior defense (so you can play plus) or exterior defense / lack of reobunding so you must play minus for defensive settings"

Can you expand on this a little bit?  Let's say you have great interior defense, but poor rebounding (I know it's rare, but it happens), Do you still play minus defensive settings?

Depends, if your opponent jacks up plenty of three's (and hits them) you might want to still play more straight up or a + defense. If your opponent tends to shoot few 3's and score's mostly with interior players then you could look at that minus setting your referring to. I hope that helps some.

Posted by jbob23 on 4/20/2011 8:43:00 PM (view original):
Depends, if your opponent jacks up plenty of three's (and hits them) you might want to still play more straight up or a + defense. If your opponent tends to shoot few 3's and score's mostly with interior players then you could look at that minus setting your referring to. I hope that helps some.

and even if he jacks up lots of 3s and misses, I then go look at other games data to see if he missed coz he can't shoot straight, or if the other team played a + defense or had exceptional defenders - you may still need a plus to make him miss em

I try to look at a few main areas -- defensive positioning, distro/shot selection, tempo and depth chart. Usually you can find some things to point out in one or more of those areas that can help the newer coach not just for a particular game but overall and show him how to evaluate things to make proper decisions in those areas. 

Then I also try to look at his overall roster(s) and see particular areas that I think he's over or under emphasizing in recruiting (i.e. bigs need to rebound better, guards are too slow, you don't have any perimeter shooting, etc.) 

Obviously OR's right though -- those broad, open-ended questions are very difficult to address. I try my best, and hopefully something I say provokes an interesting follow-up or further thought on the other coach's part.

I guess the best thing (that I learned the hard way) is to gameplan, period.  I think trial and error is the best teacher, but many of you guys know how anti-advice I am, not because I'm uppity or don't like you guys, but I just like to do things on my own and succeed/fail on my own merit...plus I don't want to start playing the game like X coach, because at that point, are you playing the game, or just by the guidelines that someone else set?  I know that's a bit philosophical but those are my thoughts.

I don't get too wild with my gameplan one way or another, but I'm always sure to set my positioning and double teams before every game...that will do coaches/new coaches wonders.

Gameplanning always came natural to me. I've watched and played a ton of basketball in my life and believe it or not gameplanning here is not all that different from real life (basketball is not a complex sport). Things I do when it's a big game is go through my opponents game log and see when they shot their worst and look at the defense my opponent played. If I was planning on going -1 and I see their 4 worst shooting games came against a -3 then I'll go -3. If I notice they go with the same starters every game and I have a big who scores well and they have a PF with 40 D and a C with 85D I'll make sure my big plays at PF. I'll also adjust my distro from game to game so say in a vacuum I'll have my PG set at 7 SG at 10 SF at 3, PF at 5 and C at 13 but in this game my opponents PG has a D rating of 30 and everybody else is above 70 I'll raise my PG's distro up a bunch and lower everybody else's. It's all about exploiting your opponent anyway you can.