I have a tendency to promise a start to at least one freshman every season, typically a guy who is going to be playing either SG or PF.  Consequently I have a tendency to get to the end of the season without ever having tried terribly hard to put together my optimal postseason lineup.  So here I am on the eve of the conference title game with Rochester, the result of which will likely determine whether I'm a 6 seed or a 9.  I'm not too worried about that.  But once I get into that first round NT matchup I want to make sure I put together a lineup good enough to continue my increasingly prodigious streak of 2nd-round exits.  (Outdated; I was writing this up late last night (around 7 AM); I already lost the game in OT using my regular-season lineup and got an 8 seed.  My first round opponent has the 4th-highest team rating in Knight D3 at 598, so we'll see how that goes.)

The guards are the easy part.  There's no way I'm moving away from Towner at PG or Judge at SG.  They are 2 of the 3 elite players on my roster and the only real question is whether I should shift them down from "fairly fresh" to "getting tired" for their playoff rest.  Or maybe even "tired."  Betts, Michalik, and Vegas are going to form a very potent backcourt, maybe even by the end of next season.  But not now.  They're all pretty good for freshmen, but that's about the best you can say for them.

The other very easy part is that Holt will be starting.  Where is a bit less obvious.  He's made 75 starts in his career, all of them at small forward.  However, he has equivalent rebounding skills to all but 2 of my bigs and a mean low post game with solid athleticism, and his game would fit just fine at the PF spot if I decide to run out a smaller lineup.

Finally, at least one of those 2 rebounding bigs - Cochrane and Severns - will be starting at center.  I'm not really sure it makes a whole lot of difference which one I choose; they're very similar in all facets of the game at this point in their careers.  I've been starting Severns all season, so I'm probably going to give him the nod, although close analysis makes me think that maybe Cochrane's shot blocking would be slightly more valuable in the starting lineup than any advantage Severns might have, whereas Severns perhaps slightly better refined offensive game might be a little more useful on the 2nd team with 3 very good scorers already in the starting lineup.  So maybe I'll switch Cochrane in.  We'll see.  Like I said, probably doesn't make much difference.  I highly doubt the difference between the "right" and "wrong" decision on this one is worth as much as 1 point, and probably less than even that.

So now the question is who plays the 5th spot in the starting lineup.  Here are my options as I see them:

Vegas - Vegas may be the best all-around offensive option on my bench, but I don't think he's the best choice here.  What I probably should do is bump his distro up a bit.  Along with whichever of my bigs who look like they might belong on an A+ prestige team is coming off the bench Vegas provides most of the offense for my 2nd team.

Betts - Now that he has his IQs up to the B- range, Betts might be a good choice.  He's a good defender (54/68/60 ATH/SPD/DEF) with acceptable BH and Pass.  If I do start Betts I'm not sure where he would be the best fit.  As I said above, my natural instinct is to leave Judge at SG, where his very good passing seems to have the biggest impact.  On the other hand, Judge is now up to 40 Reb.  Maybe if I give Betts the nod Judge should slide over to SF and I should play Betts at SG.  Also, if I make this move am I better off switching into a 3-2 zone?  40 reb isn't bad at all at the SF position, but it's not good enough to demand a spot on the interior the way that Holt does.

Coles - Coles is sort of a weird player with a very unusual skill set.  I've never had a guy like him before and only have this one because he was cheap.  He has a really good combination of athleticism and defense, but he doesn't fit very well at any position.  His speed is much lower than what I would prefer at SF, but the real problem there is his abysmal BH/Pass.  His rebounding is really not good enough to start at PF, though he has spent some minutes as a reserve there in previous seasons.  I certainly wouldn't be hurting for his defense in the starting lineup, but the weaknesses might be too big.  I guess my best bet if I decide to start Coles would be to start him at SF with 1 or 2 distro so he touches the ball as little as possible.  He still might turn it over a little, but hopefully not too much.

Cox - Cox doesn't bring a whole lot to the table offensively, but like Betts and Coles he provides solid defense.  There are 2 other advantages here.  First, he fits the position I'll be vacating when I move Campbell out of the lineup, allowing everyone else to stay where they are and leaving my offense in essentially the same condition it's been in all year.  That means there won't be any questions as to whether my distros are set right.  Second, he's a much better passer than Coles, and his passing at the PF position is average to above-average and will let him fit into the starting offense without needing to be a scorer.

Cochrane/Severns - My original preseason plan was to have both of these guys move into the starting lineup in the postseason.  It wasn't until recently that I decided there might be a better option.  With Holt and Judge in the lineup I don't really need the rebounding help on the first team, and I think both the rebounding and the offense that these guys can provide might fit better coming off the bench.  That being said, the best overall starting lineup I can build probably still involves both of these guys.

At this point I'm leaning toward either Betts or Cox.  I like the speed and defense Betts would bring to the starting lineup, but I also prefer to have another rebounder in there with Cox.  So I'll think about it, but I'd love some other thoughts if anybody actually bothered reading this whole thing.  If not, it still helped me to write it all down.