in the past 4 games, my St. John's team has lost 3 games that I was favored to win, and won one game I was a 10 point underdog in. Indeed, all season I've been losing games I was favored in. That just makes no sense to me. Am I just doing something fundamentally wrong? I have 4 of the top 10 players in the conference, and about a 40 point cushion in overall rating between me and the next highest rated team, but I'm barely above .500. After spending an obscene amount of money on this game, its completely infuriating to be losing this much to AI teams, with no apparent reason.

Well, first, pure talent wise I would say you are more like fourth in that conference: You need to remember that while they have good side effects for improvement and not being injured, as far as comparing two teams on - the - court performance, Work Ethic and Durability are useless.  But even including those, you actually have more like a four point advantage over the next best.  Taking DUR and WE out of the equation, you are fourth with number one having a 16 point lead on you, and numbers two and three having a 14 point lead on you - St MAry's, St. Olaf and Bethel - who are, incidentally, three of the teams ahead of you.  Even there, that understates a little - Generally the number 11 and 12 players on a sim won't even see playing time, so you have to take those out of the equation.

For example, St Thomas has the two walkons WIlliams and Simpson, who vastly drag down that teams overall rating by simply being on the roster, but haven't seen a minute on the court thus being irrelevant to game results.  In the same vein, Carelton has RIchardson and Wall who similarly skew the numbers - thus making it look like every single team ahead of you in the conference actually has higher relevant ratings in the players who actually play.  The only two conference games that look like real upsets are the two Macalaster games. 

In game terms, your problem looks like its:  You foul way too much.  Either cut to just the zone defense, perhaps cut down on the game pace. . .

 

The last thing to remember is that the computer set game lines are almost but not quite entirely unlike useful. . .

 

You switched your lineup 5 games ago, starting Fowler.  While his PER is great, his relatively low SP and ATH is a drawback.   I like Roberts at PG and Hawkins at SG.
  Fowler could backup at either SG or SF.

You team is being outrebounded by 7/game. That's a huge deficit.  There's not too much you can do about it unless you give more minutes to the freshmen center. But I don't like to rely on freshmen too heavily.

Totall unrelated... but what a horrible state of the game/world when you only play one human the entire regular season.

FOX needs to promote. No one wants to sit ina conference full of SIMS.

Posted by alblack56 on 7/12/2011 7:58:00 AM (view original):
You switched your lineup 5 games ago, starting Fowler.  While his PER is great, his relatively low SP and ATH is a drawback.   I like Roberts at PG and Hawkins at SG.
  Fowler could backup at either SG or SF.

You team is being outrebounded by 7/game. That's a huge deficit.  There's not too much you can do about it unless you give more minutes to the freshmen center. But I don't like to rely on freshmen too heavily.

I agree, I don't have much more experience than you, but based on the relevent skills for a PG (Ath, Spd, BH and P) Roberts is your best available, on top of the absolute awesome stamina.

Hawkins should be your SG, he has the speed to get open enough and create his own shot.  Cox and Smith down low should give you enough punch that teams can't just try to take away Roberts and Hawkins on the outside. 

Lesley is the interesting one, he doesn't have the best skills on the offensive side of the ball, but you could match him up against a teams best frontline player since he will be faster and more atheletic then most big men he would face at this level, and he could be a shutdown defender. (I would give him a distro based on his matchup game by game, as he could pull he defender (against man) away from the basket letting your two big guys get some additional boards.

With Fowler I would bump his conditioning, he can't get open on his own, unless he's going up against a slow 3.  He needs more speed.

Your really going to have to make the most of matchups with this team, distro will be really important.