cubcub, when you argue with Ward you can't win. For one thing, there is his great record. You have to face it; numbers don't lie. At Chowan, where he first bragged in the forums about how good he is, his RPI went 160-184-307-342. At Miles, where he succeeded in his long term goals, he went 112-122-71-167. Have you ever built up an RPI to such big numbers? No; he is awesome. Argue with him after you have succeeded in your long term goals, but do it at your peril.

Posted by CoachSpud on 2/3/2017 10:28:00 PM (view original):
cubcub, when you argue with Ward you can't win. For one thing, there is his great record. You have to face it; numbers don't lie. At Chowan, where he first bragged in the forums about how good he is, his RPI went 160-184-307-342. At Miles, where he succeeded in his long term goals, he went 112-122-71-167. Have you ever built up an RPI to such big numbers? No; he is awesome. Argue with him after you have succeeded in your long term goals, but do it at your peril.

I believe this post because it has bolded and underlined things.

I take into account both what the opponent does and what I fear, but what my team can stop. So basically if I have awesome post defenders and weaker guards then I'll lean my defense more towards the perimeter to help my weaker team. So i would then look at my team as having a base defense of +1 or + 2, then I'll adjust it up or down for what the other guy does. To me it's always best to figure out YOUR base defense first.

Posted by all2matt on 2/3/2017 11:36:00 PM (view original):
I take into account both what the opponent does and what I fear, but what my team can stop. So basically if I have awesome post defenders and weaker guards then I'll lean my defense more towards the perimeter to help my weaker team. So i would then look at my team as having a base defense of +1 or + 2, then I'll adjust it up or down for what the other guy does. To me it's always best to figure out YOUR base defense first.

This also.

A coach at the community college once told me that the biggest stat he looked at was rebounding, because if his team could out-rebound the opponents by 10 percent over the course of a season the wins and losses generally took care of themselves. So, based off that premise, a number of years ago I crafted the following formula, which I generally still use (with tweaks based on tendencies) designed to get me

Start with a base position of -2 for press, -1 for zone and 0 for man.

Adjusting team ratings for walk-ons, ineligibles and redshirts, subtract your opponent's rebounding rating from your own. Take that figure, negative or positive, and add it to your opponent's team PER rating. Using that new PER number, subtract the opponent's LP from it. If the number is -3 to +3 inclusive, play the base defense above barring some reason to adjust. For each block of five points in either direction, adjust the base positioning up or down accordingly, so a -11, for instance, would adjust the base down 2. A +18 would move it up 3, etc.

Like I said, I will call an audible every now and then based on tendencies, athleticism differentials between the teams, if I get adjusted into the +/- 4's and 5's because I usually prefer being adjusted into them rather than playing them from opening tap, or I see something on my opponent's roster that I fear worse than potentially losing the rebounding battle for that game.

Certainly not claiming its a perfect formula, but it has served me well over the years and even when down at the half I rarely get auto-adjusted off the number, which I have taken as a positive sign.

Posted by pallas on 2/3/2017 10:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 2/3/2017 10:28:00 PM (view original):
cubcub, when you argue with Ward you can't win. For one thing, there is his great record. You have to face it; numbers don't lie. At Chowan, where he first bragged in the forums about how good he is, his RPI went 160-184-307-342. At Miles, where he succeeded in his long term goals, he went 112-122-71-167. Have you ever built up an RPI to such big numbers? No; he is awesome. Argue with him after you have succeeded in your long term goals, but do it at your peril.

I believe this post because it has bolded and underlined things.

But check out coachwards imaginary alt IDs! He's been super duper successful on all his other made up teams.

I do positioning a bit by sense of smell. I almost always lean towards -

I will take a look at 3pt ratings and then check out gamelogs to see how many they attempt and how many they hit. Then I just do a gut call from there. If they take a ton of 3s but rarely hit them (like most sims), I still will go - or maybe 0. Part of the reason is that I WANT the other team to take more 3s if they're terrible at it. Them shooting 25 3s and hitting only 20% is good for me and my chances. I'm not going to go bananas and go -5 but I'll do -1 or -2 in that situation.

If they shoot around 45% from 3 and have multiple 90 PER guys, I'll go +1 or +2 but usually not more than that.

I wish coachward would make a post like aejones "how to win at d2". Man that would be freaking gold. I think we can make this a reality.

Posted by brantm217 on 2/4/2017 9:28:00 AM (view original):
I wish coachward would make a post like aejones "how to win at d2". Man that would be freaking gold. I think we can make this a reality.

Of course Ward should do this. I can see it now: "Evening out your classes, and other team goals." With the amount of time he spends playing, I know for a fact he has more game knowledge than the average casual coach.

Posted by rednu on 2/4/2017 12:43:00 AM (view original):
A coach at the community college once told me that the biggest stat he looked at was rebounding, because if his team could out-rebound the opponents by 10 percent over the course of a season the wins and losses generally took care of themselves. So, based off that premise, a number of years ago I crafted the following formula, which I generally still use (with tweaks based on tendencies) designed to get me

Start with a base position of -2 for press, -1 for zone and 0 for man.

Adjusting team ratings for walk-ons, ineligibles and redshirts, subtract your opponent's rebounding rating from your own. Take that figure, negative or positive, and add it to your opponent's team PER rating. Using that new PER number, subtract the opponent's LP from it. If the number is -3 to +3 inclusive, play the base defense above barring some reason to adjust. For each block of five points in either direction, adjust the base positioning up or down accordingly, so a -11, for instance, would adjust the base down 2. A +18 would move it up 3, etc.

Like I said, I will call an audible every now and then based on tendencies, athleticism differentials between the teams, if I get adjusted into the +/- 4's and 5's because I usually prefer being adjusted into them rather than playing them from opening tap, or I see something on my opponent's roster that I fear worse than potentially losing the rebounding battle for that game.

Certainly not claiming its a perfect formula, but it has served me well over the years and even when down at the half I rarely get auto-adjusted off the number, which I have taken as a positive sign.

Interesting formula. I think the takeaway here is that the positioning is not a standard best practice sort of thing. It's part of your own personal game plan. Rednu and I have both had some success, but my default base positioning is quite different. For press, I default to +1, for 3-2z I default to -2, and for 2-3z and man I default to 0. Our difference in philosophy may come down to his using defensive positioning primarily to maximize rebounding advantages, whereas I use it primarily to minimize opponents fg%, and maximize turnovers.

Thanks all for the input. It's crazy how many different takes there are on this. Most interesting to me is the difference in using 3pt shots attempted vs. actual points scored from 3pt shots. Benis makes a good point saying that you actually don't mind your opponent shooting a lot of 3s, as long as he's missing a lot too. Then you bring in the factors that others have mentioned of looking at your opponent's tendencies and adjusting to your own defensive weaknesses. Too many variables to stuff into a simple formula, but I think a lot of these guidelines are a good place to start, then you just have to add your own analysis to it.

Crazy how much thought you can put into a variable with 11 possible values.

Posted by Benis on 2/4/2017 7:15:00 AM (view original):

Posted by pallas on 2/3/2017 10:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by CoachSpud on 2/3/2017 10:28:00 PM (view original):
cubcub, when you argue with Ward you can't win. For one thing, there is his great record. You have to face it; numbers don't lie. At Chowan, where he first bragged in the forums about how good he is, his RPI went 160-184-307-342. At Miles, where he succeeded in his long term goals, he went 112-122-71-167. Have you ever built up an RPI to such big numbers? No; he is awesome. Argue with him after you have succeeded in your long term goals, but do it at your peril.

I believe this post because it has bolded and underlined things.

But check out coachwards imaginary alt IDs! He's been super duper successful on all his other made up teams.

I don't remember them and believe I was there for only 1 season lol!

Posted by brantm217 on 2/4/2017 9:28:00 AM (view original):
I wish coachward would make a post like aejones "how to win at d2". Man that would be freaking gold. I think we can make this a reality.

I've been thinking of making a guide just like aejones but its not time yet.

Posted by CoachWard95 on 2/4/2017 2:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by brantm217 on 2/4/2017 9:28:00 AM (view original):
I wish coachward would make a post like aejones "how to win at d2". Man that would be freaking gold. I think we can make this a reality.

I've been thinking of making a guide just like aejones but its not time yet.

Oh, it's time. Please let it be time.

Posted by cubcub113 on 2/3/2017 6:59:00 PM (view original):
Sorry man... One thing I would tell you in general is to not recruit sub 35 DE or ATH guys, even at DIII.

I completely disagree with this. One of the two can be lower and have a very successful player / team. Even if you play m2m