Hi Everyone,

I haven't had a lot of sucess with this game, so I am looking for some guidance about which of my bigs I should be playing most and why.

I realize they are all flawed, but  these are what I have.  I'm DIII and I run Motion and am most likely going straight man this season.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

	Yr.	Pos.	A	SPD	REB	DE	BLK	LP	PE	BH	P	WE	ST	DU	FT	OVR
Stan Kinsman	Jr.	PF	46	17	60	33	48	56	27	25	30	70	80	70	C+	562
John Charles	So.	PF	51	20	37	47	20	57	15	35	25	28	62	74	D+	471
Wendell Sipe	So.	C	79	19	24	77	2	43	23	18	15	60	70	53	C-	483
Carlos Cain	Fr.	C	56	8	57	49	38	11	12	1	10	77	71	76	D+	466
Vernon Saul	Fr.	C	28	26	64	41	45	20	15	12	14	44	71	72	D	452

This is a tough one. Sipe would be the obvious choice if he knew how to rebound. I don't like to start freshmen, so that leaves Kinsman and Charles. Charles can't rebound much better than Sipe. 

So, final answer....Kinsman and Sipe. 

If, later in the season, your team is out of contention for the NT or PIT,  I'd give Cain a shot.  Saul, too, if his ATH improves. 

Kinsman: Can rebound a little, can't defend.  Best stamina of the group and won't airball all his free throws.  BH/P isn't too shabby for a big.  LP is a bit of a help.

Charles: Can't rebound, can defend a little but not much.  BH/P also not too shabby.  LP helps a bit.  No stamina.

Sipe: Far and away the best defender of the group.  Doesn't know what a rebound looks like but may find the ball in his hands now and then due to that ATH.  He'll score some for you by way of ATH alone.

Cain: Some rebounding, not terrible defense.  Not much else going on yet.  Nice starting ATH rating.  If he's got some high potentials he'll be fun to develop with that WE.

Saul: The ATH neutralizes whatever positives he has going for him, at least early on.

I guess this was just a roundabout path to agreement with alblack56, down to the Cain and Saul comments.  With a bit of good fortune, Chretien can help mitigate your rebounding issues from the SF spot despite his low ATH.

this is a tough one, really need to focus on ath, reb, def more in recruiting for bigs. sipe is good at defense - so thats something. after that, its either kinsman or cain, as charles and saul are pretty bad in all major areas (offense, defense, and rebounding). charles is relatively better at offense so backup C should be his spot. i'd probably play kinsman if you need the offense and cain if you have plenty of offense at your guard spots.

but back to recruiting, do you use FSS scouting service when you recruit players? if not, you really should start scouting your local states (up in wisconsin, i'm guessing 3-5 states or so), and recruiting heavily for potential. i can't tell, your guards sort of look like you scouted, your bigs kind of look like you didn't.

i'd really try to focus hard on the cores, and take a walkon or two if that's what it takes to allow you to focus on more talented players. for your bigs you really need to focus on improving ath, reb, and def, and for your pg, defense (ath/spd/def, doesn't need all 3 but a good combination of the 3) and bh/pass (especially pass, that is the most important PG rating), and for your sg/sf, you probably should be focusing on offense there, to let you get reb/def from your bigs and def/guard skills out of your pg... focus heavily on spd/per/bh for your sg and sf can be the same or ath/lp oriented. a target rating of around 70 in the cores is really where you should be shooting for, maybe a bit lower on your ath for your bigs.

going 12 deep is totally not necessary and should be viewed as a luxury for those who have money left over after they've signed quality players to get to 10 scholarship players.

Thank you all for the input. It is much appreciated. I want to love this game, but I've only been frustrated by it.

Based on the feedback I'm going to give Sipe and Kinsman the most minutes. Cain will also get some time. I might try giving Chretien some time at PF as well.

As for recruiting, I really appreciated the input. I have been using the scouting service, but this season I went far away to get Cain, then had to spend a lot on him because a DII team jumped on him after he was considering me. Saul was just a late signing because I had very little money left, and he was a redshirt transfer, so I could at least see where he improved during his redshirt year. I think I'll have to stay closer from now on. The information about what's important at each position really helps. Hopefully I'll do better with that next season.

Thanks, again!

Posted by jodester22 on 7/6/2014 7:03:00 PM (view original):
Thank you all for the input. It is much appreciated. I want to love this game, but I've only been frustrated by it.

Based on the feedback I'm going to give Sipe and Kinsman the most minutes. Cain will also get some time. I might try giving Chretien some time at PF as well.

As for recruiting, I really appreciated the input. I have been using the scouting service, but this season I went far away to get Cain, then had to spend a lot on him because a DII team jumped on him after he was considering me. Saul was just a late signing because I had very little money left, and he was a redshirt transfer, so I could at least see where he improved during his redshirt year. I think I'll have to stay closer from now on. The information about what's important at each position really helps. Hopefully I'll do better with that next season.

Thanks, again!

One comment on your recruiting strategy: if you're going to recruit far away from home, it's best to wait until after signings start and try to find hidden gems across the country. FSS becomes much cheaper after signings start, and you'll have less competition. If you go far away early, you run the risk of a higher-division or closer team trying to poach your player, and you're either going to lose that battle or (even worse) win but get your budget pummeled in the process.

Thanks for the input. That makes a lot of sense about waiting on recruiting far from home. I didn't realize FSS becomes cheaper after signings start. That's good to know. I'm still trying to get the hang of scouting and recruiting because it was very different when I played in another world several years ago. All of this feedback is very helpful.