Is there anyone who can give me some advice on my Duquesne team in Phelan? I feel like every time I start the game back up for a few seasons, I hit a ceiling pretty quickly. The team is under performing, I can't figure out why, and I can't seem to get to the next level. Frustrating to say the least.

Posted by shane182436 on 8/9/2021 8:58:00 AM (view original):
Is there anyone who can give me some advice on my Duquesne team in Phelan? I feel like every time I start the game back up for a few seasons, I hit a ceiling pretty quickly. The team is under performing, I can't figure out why, and I can't seem to get to the next level. Frustrating to say the least.

We can chat over sitemail too if you want, but broadly speaking, focus a bit more on the physical cores in recruiting when you’re using motion/man. Rule of thumb, I’d want my starters to be at least close to 80 in applicable core attributes; so for bigs, ath/reb/def, for guards spd/def/bh. The closer to 90-95 you can get them all to, the closer you’ll get to a solid Elite 8 caliber team. And at that point, if you can get your upperclassmen there on a consistent basis, it’s a matter of what you’re spending on set IQ. It looks like you may have switched sets, or possibly you just don’t spend many minutes on sets. I want my all starters to B+ by tournament time, and for a lot of sophs that requires more than 20 minutes.

Are you putting enough time into IQ? B IQ for seniors is very low.

And you gotta get more ath and speed. You should at least have one (like a super fast guard with offensive skills but low ath) but both are way too low for d2 let alone D1.

Posted by Benis on 8/9/2021 1:17:00 PM (view original):
Are you putting enough time into IQ? B IQ for seniors is very low.

And you gotta get more ath and speed. You should at least have one (like a super fast guard with offensive skills but low ath) but both are way too low for d2 let alone D1.

So should I be focusing less on core skills? Is ATH/SP THAT much more important than BH/PAS/PE/DE etc?

Well ath and spd impact both offense and defense while pass only impacts offense technically.

But the idea is that you need effective defense and offense. Higher ath and spd will help both. So you need both the cores and ath/spd

Focus on getting some faster guards AND the per, bh, pass. Then some bigs who have ath, def and then maybe Reb and LP.

ath/spd are core skills, so are bh/pass/per/def... it really depends on the player and what you need from them, what you should prioritize. there are usually PLENTY of minutes to go around on a 20/20 minutes team practice plan - which is where you should be starting in low d1. so this suggests to me you might not be using your practice minutes all that efficiently. its important to 0 out categories that are red and most of the yellows. if the yellow is say, per on a shooting guard, where per is the most important rating, maybe you keep practicing it. but when yellow is reb on the sg, its an automatic 0. also off-suit black ratings are good candidates for 0 practice minutes, and even a blue or green side rating is often only worth putting a couple minutes in, or even 0ing, when there are meaningful cores to practice.

there really aren't all that many cores... its kinda like this:
non-scoring guards: ath, spd, def, bh, pass (emphasis on the pass for pgs), sta
scoring guards: all that + per (you can also have lp-based scorers but that is more of a fringe case - true per scorers don't need any lp - but high ath/spd/bh guys can benefit from some lp)
non-scoring bigs - ath, reb, def, (blk if its zone or man), sta
scoring bigs - all that plus lp, and also somewhat per and spd

conditioning is the only way to improve ath, spd, and stamina, and for basically all players, 2-3 of those are cores, and most decent recruits have significant growth in at least 1 of those. therefore conditioning is probably on a team-wide basis the most practiced thing on many teams. for sure on press teams, but there its probably by a mile. even on man/zone teams, that conditioning is huge. there are many circumstances where ath and spd are the most important rating, or at least tied for it, so they are definitely cores.

Another thing, you should consider what roles a player has on your team. Like your Washington guy. What's he good at? What value does he really bring to the team? Maybe rebounding? But he's mediocre everywhere basically.

Or Franz. What's he going to be good at? He's not contributing offense or defense at all. And won't for at least 2 seasons.

To continue the discussion of cores and roles, I think of it like this - there are 6 basic skills I look for, and if I am going to spend resources in recruiting a guy, I either want him to be elite at one of those skills, best of the best among the level in an area of need; excellent at two, far above replacement level; or very good at three, much better than replacement level guys that I can get for cheap. Each of those skills has a few different attributes that *primarily* go into it, IQ and stamina (especially for press) affect all of them.

Distributing - pass, speed, bh
Rebounding - Rebounding, athleticism
Paint defense - Ath, Def, Blk* (Blk is more important for zone than other sets)
Per def - Spd, Def, Ath
Paint scoring - LP, Ath, bh
Per scoring - Per, spd, Bh

I want most players to defend well. If they’re not excellent defenders, I want them to bring an elite skill somewhere else. I most bigs to rebound, though some forwards in my FB/P teams will be pure defender/scorer types. I want at least a couple distributors on every team, and overall team passing is pretty underrated in general. Also at least a couple perimeter scorers on every team as well. Running flex and FB, I don’t tend to worry about paint scoring too much, but in motion and triangle, I’d want a couple developed inside scorers on every team as well.

At D1, I consider 70 to be about replacement level so a 70/70/70/70 big (ath/reb/def/LP) who doesn’t do anything else well, I would not expect to spend resources to get that kind of guy. If I was desperate for that on my roster, I could usually take a guy who projects to that from a D3 team early in RS2 for AP and a scholarship offer, and maybe a 10 minute promise or something. If that guy is on my roster, it’s usually because I’ve lost some battles, and I’m worried about an early entry in the future, and I’m looking to either cut him at some point, or possibly redshirt him (maybe as a senior down the line). As I said above, up closer to 80 is where you want to be for the “very good range.” Upper 80s, closer to 90 is where I’m considering the “excellent” range, with upper 90s as elite for D1. The more elite the better, obviously, but if you understand the roles and put your team together well, you can be very competitive with very good and excellent players.

Posted by shoe3 on 8/9/2021 2:15:00 PM (view original):
To continue the discussion of cores and roles, I think of it like this - there are 6 basic skills I look for, and if I am going to spend resources in recruiting a guy, I either want him to be elite at one of those skills, best of the best among the level in an area of need; excellent at two, far above replacement level; or very good at three, much better than replacement level guys that I can get for cheap. Each of those skills has a few different attributes that *primarily* go into it, IQ and stamina (especially for press) affect all of them.

Distributing - pass, speed, bh
Rebounding - Rebounding, athleticism
Paint defense - Ath, Def, Blk* (Blk is more important for zone than other sets)
Per def - Spd, Def, Ath
Paint scoring - LP, Ath, bh
Per scoring - Per, spd, Bh

I want most players to defend well. If they’re not excellent defenders, I want them to bring an elite skill somewhere else. I most bigs to rebound, though some forwards in my FB/P teams will be pure defender/scorer types. I want at least a couple distributors on every team, and overall team passing is pretty underrated in general. Also at least a couple perimeter scorers on every team as well. Running flex and FB, I don’t tend to worry about paint scoring too much, but in motion and triangle, I’d want a couple developed inside scorers on every team as well.

At D1, I consider 70 to be about replacement level so a 70/70/70/70 big (ath/reb/def/LP) who doesn’t do anything else well, I would not expect to spend resources to get that kind of guy. If I was desperate for that on my roster, I could usually take a guy who projects to that from a D3 team early in RS2 for AP and a scholarship offer, and maybe a 10 minute promise or something. If that guy is on my roster, it’s usually because I’ve lost some battles, and I’m worried about an early entry in the future, and I’m looking to either cut him at some point, or possibly redshirt him (maybe as a senior down the line). As I said above, up closer to 80 is where you want to be for the “very good range.” Upper 80s, closer to 90 is where I’m considering the “excellent” range, with upper 90s as elite for D1. The more elite the better, obviously, but if you understand the roles and put your team together well, you can be very competitive with very good and excellent players.

Shoe's post about the roles above is great. These are exactly what I'm looking for when trying to find complementary players to build out a squad. Not sure if this is in the "How to Win at HD" guide, but it would probably be a good tool for any new coaches.

Posted by shane182436 on 8/9/2021 1:18:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 8/9/2021 1:17:00 PM (view original):
Are you putting enough time into IQ? B IQ for seniors is very low.

And you gotta get more ath and speed. You should at least have one (like a super fast guard with offensive skills but low ath) but both are way too low for d2 let alone D1.

So should I be focusing less on core skills? Is ATH/SP THAT much more important than BH/PAS/PE/DE etc?

I try to use this comparison for simplicity when helping coaches understand what ATH/SPD represents (since SPD isn't "as crucial" in bigs, I'm focusing mainly on your guards/wings here)........

A player that has a combination of +160 in ATH/SPD has an NBA body. At D1, if he has no other skills except maybe DEF and/or ST, he's not going to blow you away with scoring ability. But he's thick and strong and can hold his own defensively and won't hurt being on your roster. If he DOES have skills, then he'll likely be an elite D1 player.

if you have a player with 140ish combo of ATH/SPD, he's like a solid college player. If he has elite skills as a shooter or distributing skills, he'll still have some good games against the NBA bodies. But he may get pushed around physically at times. If he doesn't have good shooting or ball skills, he's not likely to step up for you in the big games.

If you have players with a 120ish combo of ATH/SPD, this is like the high school star. His body isn't fully developed. If he has 100 PER he's gonna have SOME games where he gets lucky and lights up the scoreboard. But night in and night out, he's going to have some tough times against the big boys and he will get pushed around some.

Below that, you're getting into kids that are just on the high school team and not stars. They're not going to perform very well in D1.

I tend to think of it in body mass to an extent. I didn't look at your team, but I'm going to assume you're not in the 160 range based off comments from others. You can take most any 80 ATH 80 SPD guy and he can at least log minutes. But if you're signing 38 ATH, 80 SPD guys with 95 PER/BH/PAS they will have inconsistencies. Fouling out often trying to defend the bigger bodies

It's always about body mass with Topdogg.

Posted by Benis on 8/9/2021 5:28:00 PM (view original):
It's always about body mass with Topdogg.

Come here big boy

Posted by topdogggbm on 8/9/2021 4:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shane182436 on 8/9/2021 1:18:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 8/9/2021 1:17:00 PM (view original):
Are you putting enough time into IQ? B IQ for seniors is very low.

And you gotta get more ath and speed. You should at least have one (like a super fast guard with offensive skills but low ath) but both are way too low for d2 let alone D1.

So should I be focusing less on core skills? Is ATH/SP THAT much more important than BH/PAS/PE/DE etc?

I try to use this comparison for simplicity when helping coaches understand what ATH/SPD represents (since SPD isn't "as crucial" in bigs, I'm focusing mainly on your guards/wings here)........

A player that has a combination of +160 in ATH/SPD has an NBA body. At D1, if he has no other skills except maybe DEF and/or ST, he's not going to blow you away with scoring ability. But he's thick and strong and can hold his own defensively and won't hurt being on your roster. If he DOES have skills, then he'll likely be an elite D1 player.

if you have a player with 140ish combo of ATH/SPD, he's like a solid college player. If he has elite skills as a shooter or distributing skills, he'll still have some good games against the NBA bodies. But he may get pushed around physically at times. If he doesn't have good shooting or ball skills, he's not likely to step up for you in the big games.

If you have players with a 120ish combo of ATH/SPD, this is like the high school star. His body isn't fully developed. If he has 100 PER he's gonna have SOME games where he gets lucky and lights up the scoreboard. But night in and night out, he's going to have some tough times against the big boys and he will get pushed around some.

Below that, you're getting into kids that are just on the high school team and not stars. They're not going to perform very well in D1.

I tend to think of it in body mass to an extent. I didn't look at your team, but I'm going to assume you're not in the 160 range based off comments from others. You can take most any 80 ATH 80 SPD guy and he can at least log minutes. But if you're signing 38 ATH, 80 SPD guys with 95 PER/BH/PAS they will have inconsistencies. Fouling out often trying to defend the bigger bodies

That's an interesting way to look at it. I'll log that into the 'ole noggin for later.