Alright gents, on my wits end about wis. I realize I’ve been starting a couple frosh but what’s wrong with this team? Be honest roast me. I feel like it’s game planning and I want to know how you’d set this starting lineup. We’re obviously FB/FCP. Edit: D3 Iba
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=6733.

Do you have any promised starts or minutes?

Alright here is what I would do if this were my team. I didn't look at any of this seasons stats or scores.

Lineup:

Wilson	White	Jones	Gordon	Desota
White	Slaughter	Palmer	Cipriano	Beagle
	Jackson	Jackson
Jones	Palmer	Slaughter	Gomez	Gordon

This might look strange so I'll explain my logic a bit. Also, sorry the formatting sucks.

All starters have at least A- IQ on O and D.
This keeps the best passers at 1. Its weird cause all three of them are starters, but they have solid stamina and there is good depth at guard. Slaughter will get a good amount of time at the 2, I like his speed and ball handling there over others. Jones and Palmer at three cause of their rebounding. I like starting Jones over Palmer here because of his superior D, Blk, Bh, Pass, and IQ. Palmer will be really solid off the bench. Jackson adds perfect depth at the 2 and 3. Finally ,Palmer and Slaughter at the bottom as a depth safety net.

Not too many options at big, where they are at should make sense. I only add Gomez as an emergency 4 there, not sure if I like it or not, could probably live without it. I would probably change the stamina settings on the starting bigs so they stay in longer.

Distro:
White 25%
Wilson 15%
Jones 15%
Gordon 15%
Palmer 15%
Desota 10%
Slaughter 5%

3pt Frequency. White +1, Palmer -1, everyone else -2.

I would start with this and adjust if necessary after seeing enough games. There could be alot of good ways to set the distro up.

This is just what I would do if it were my team.

Hopefully several coaches will weigh in.

Good luck!

A couple things stand out to me. First, you need more stamina when running FB/FCP, especially in your bigs. You have to be careful about recruiting guys that are in the 50's and 60's to start in ST, even if they're green. At a minimum you probably need your team ST to be in the mid to upper 70s to start the season and then in the low to mid 80s come tourney time to be competitive. Along those lines, unless you have an insane amount of ST you can't redshirt anyone. (All of this is unique to the FB/FCP set).

Second, when recruiting try and find guys with clear cut strengths. Admittedly I don't play D3 anymore since the changes came about but every player should have at least 2 things they are really good at (and ATH and DEF are the same, in my book). For example, White passes this test-he's fast and can shoot and ball handle. Palmer can shoot but he's mediocre at everything else. Gomez is going to be an ATH/DEF stud but doesn't do anything else well. Gordon's overall rating is great but he doesn't excel at anything. Slaughter is another well-rounded player but doesn't have any clear cut strengths. If you find a big that can't score but he's athletic, plays great def and can rebound then find a complementary big that can score and maybe pass, even if you have to give up a little rebounding and defense. Recruiting a team of studs is unlikely so find guys that complement each other well. Best of luck.

What darnoc29099 said, and also: *more shooting* and *more rebounding*. Rebounding especially is a clear weakness. A FB/press team can beat sims and 75% of humans on ath and def alone, especially in lower levels. But you can really turn a corner if you prioritize getting a few excellent rebounders and excellent (80+) shooters to mix in (you do have some good shooters, so I’m not as worried about that). When I ran FB/FCP in D2, I structured my classes 4-4-4-0, and in recruiting years, I aimed for 1 excellent rebounder and 1 excellent shooter every year; that way I always had 2 of each who were not freshmen.

Great feedback guys, I really appreciate it!! Yes, I have promised starts for those two freshman - I wouldn't have started them otherwise - but the conference I'm in is soft enough for it not to have too much impact on my NT hopes. I RS that SR because he was going to be lost in the depth chart and wasn't going to grow further anyway. I thought I could use an extra year of his eligibility more next season.

Fluff_nasty - the line up you have there is very enlightening to be honest. Thank you. It didn't occur to me to rotate those guys that way. I've always just filled the depth chart with each starter staying in "their lane". Will White and Jones play that much at the 1? I guess I mean, which depth chart supersedes which? If the PG is out because he's tired, does the starting SG then go to the PG spot since he's #2 on the depth chart for that position instead of the next guy on the list that isn't currently playing?

darnoc29099 - thanks so much with the thoughts on "strengths" when recruiting. I've been attempting to find guys who are generally good potential at ATH, DEF and PASS (60+ in each as a team) with some above average speed. Was under the impression with Fast Break at D3 that would get you pretty far as long as you could stretch the court a little. I fell on that aspect of my recruiting though because of a couple poaches. Of course it'd be nice to just recruit the guys with the strength at all of those positions but piecing them together makes a lot of sense. I'll make those adjustments. Thank you.

shoe3 - thank you for your insights this is good stuff on structuring classes and how it affects recruiting pieces. I lost what i thought was a stud forward in recruiting late so had to regroup. thank you!

One thing that stood out was the stamina bar during the game.

Although, you'll get tired with a team stamina rating of 76, trying to run a fast break/full court press, I would definitely go from uptempo to normal pace setting. I've noticed a lack of efficiency running the uptempo setting.

You're sitting on the tournament bubble while redshirting a senior with upper 80s in stamina, I would strongly suggest removing the redshirt. Your team next year probably won't be good as this year, no sense in keeping that guy around next year, if he's not going to contribute to helping your team get into the NT.

Just noticed another thing, are you using target minutes? I would go with the stamina settings, it's better to have your freshman play 17 to 18 minutes per game, than to have the rest of your team in orange and red at the end of the half. You think having your freshman play less, because they aren't is good is going to make your team better, but that's not your case at all, it's making the rest of the team worse, because they're tired from trying to cover those minutes the two freshman aren't into the game.

thewizard17 - That's a very valid point about the RS, and the target minutes to that point. Thank you so much.

While I have you, how does the target minutes and fatigue settings work exactly? I was set to understand that the fatigue setting pulls the starters out when they get to that fatigue level but then holds them out until they recover to fully fresh. But the target minutes setting make sure the starters get their minutes even if somewhat tired throughout the game. How would one maximize the "clutch time" during a game?

This is a super-nitpicky detail, but I think there is a small error in the logic associated with fluff_nasty's lineup creation. Specifically, the decision to put the 3rd-string post options in slot 4 is, to the best of my knowledge, totally cosmetic. I'm fairly confident that the substitution patterns don't care about where a guy is in the depth chart except to determine who to bring in and in which positions to play the 5 guys you wind up with. I don't think there's any logic that says "minimize the minutes of guys lower in the depth chart." So given that there is no overlap with the depth charts at any other positions, the substitution patterns are going to look identical whether Gomez and Gordon are in the 3rd or 4th slots. The real reason to leave a gap is generally to prioritize positioning when it's not otherwise obvious what you want. So, e.g., if you had the same 2 backups at both post positions in the same order, you could leave a gap to make sure the preferred guy is first in for both post spots but still decide who plays PF and who plays C when both of them are on the court. So either:

PF	C	OR	PF	C
A	B		A	B
C	C		C
D			D	C
	D			D

Both of which (I think) will play identically to one another (based on my best recollection that the sim manager prefers a 1 and 3 to 2 2s, or in this case a 2 and a 4 to 2 3s; I am not 100% on this). But just dropping guys from the 3 slot to the 4 slot because you don't want them to play as much doesn't actually make any difference to the best of my knowledge. I've never actually studied this in detail, but it's never seemed as if it made a difference. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

(Edited for formatting)

Completely agree with Wizard's points regarding target minutes, up tempo, and the red shirt.

My first few teams were getting really funky results and multiple coaches recommended using stamina based subs and avoiding up tempo. I didn't like this idea because I felt like it took coaching control away from me. However, I immediately noticed a much more consistent team and will never go back.

I would remove the redshirt as well, hadn't even thought about that. When I first looked at your team I was gonna originally put him at backup pg, then I saw the red shirt and moved on. So I would put him at backup pg, move White to third string pg, and remove Jones from pg all together. The RS is also a decent scorer and should get some distro %.

This would be what I call my tournament lineup. I know you can't use this right now with the freshman starters, but come conf tournament time I typically re-arrange my depth chart. I'll ignore promised minutes and starts and also take into account player progression.


dahsdebator: Good point, I believe you are correct about the empty space on the depth chart. I think I've heard that before and completely forgot.

Makowski - "Will White and Jones play that much at the 1? I guess I mean, which depth chart supersedes which? If the PG is out because he's tired, does the starting SG then go to the PG spot since he's #2 on the depth chart for that position instead of the next guy on the list that isn't currently playing?"

Yeah my understanding is that White would then go to the 1, and slaughter would come in at 2. Now if you put the RS at backup pg, it will rotate more naturally.


Either way, best of luck!

I mentioned I don't use up-tempo anymore.

I should note that Arfy just dropped 105 on me using up-tempo haha.

Nothing wrong with uptempo, if your team is suited to it, and/or the gameplan calls for it. With FB/press, you want to have plenty of stamina - definitely over 80 - and speed and ballhandling are important too, because if you’re increasing your own turnovers, it’s counterproductive. The reason to go uptempo is to increase the overall number of possessions, and you do this when you clearly have the better team and want to reduce the danger of the other team just getting a really lucky streak and stealing one. My best FB/press seasons, I was running uptempo every game. Those D2 teams had stamina well into the 80s, and lots of 90+ speed guards.