In the Wooden world, I have built my way up from a non-competitive DIII school to now the coach at Vanderbilt. I'm working to build Vanderbilt into a power in a powerful conference. We're going into my fourth season there and we've improved drastically.

However, I am still swinging and missing at decent/good recruits. To compete in the SEC, I'm going to need big-time recruits and while I'm not shooting for five-star guys yet, even guys that are 1 and 2-star guys with lots of favorable preferences that I pour *every*thing into (50AP, scholly, visits, promised start and 20 mins) are getting outrecruited and often by teams in lesser conferences.

So my question is this: am I missing something and at what point will I be able to compete for higher-level recruits? Is it just a prestige thing (I'm at C+ after making the tourney this year), is it just a coach tenureship thing, is it bad luck, a combination, or something else entirely?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Here's the advice I give everyone who is building up a D1 team - focus on building a REALLY good D2 team. There is absolutely no reason that your D1 team can't be better than any D2 team in your world. You have the prestige and financial advantage over all D2 teams. Some of the D2 teams people are building these days could make the tourney at D1 in favorable circumstances. It's probably a little more difficult to do so in a power conference but still doable.

So what I mean by this is take a look at your team and be try to just get better players than you have now and don't feel the need to get those super star players right away.

Looking at your team, you have a couple players that I probably wouldn't take on my D2 team. Again, that doesn't make sense, right? If I can recruit better players with D2 Rockhurst, then you should too w/ D1 Vandy.

Specifically I'm looking at guys like Guidi and Diaz. They don't belong on a competitive D1 team. Mioduszewki is pretty borderline as well.

Thanks for the response!

Comparing to D2 makes sense and that's what I've been focusing on.

Those guys are the best I'm able to find and get but I'll work on increasing the talent level.

With that said, it doesn't quite answer the question at hand. If I should focus on slowly building up talent, is the answer that better and better recruits will be considering my team?

Yeah, I mean, it can be a combo of things. D1 recruiting has the most battling/dice rolls of all the divisions so there is certainly some luck involved. Over time you'll build up prestige and preferences will improve which can increase your odds. You'll do better battling against bottom feeder D1s and can take the occasionally shot at a big fish against high D1 teams. But it takes time.

But again to my point - when you say those are the best you're able to find, it means you need to take a step back and rethink your strategy because borderline D2 guys shouldn't be the best you're able to find. D2 teams are signing better players than that and so you should too. You play M2M so don't be afraid to take walkons if you need to.

How many guys are you scouting to level 4 every year? With a normal amount of scholarships, you should have a pool of at least 250 guys to level 4. I get to >300 some years with 3 scholarships, if the recruit generation is favorable for my location.

As for how high you can shoot, pay attention to preferences, but also watch what others are doing, and who’s getting ignored after a cycle or two. There are 4-5 star guys that go for peanuts every year. A lot of the high quality (ie, high potential) 1-2 star guys can have as much or more spent on them than top 100 guys. Scout wide, stay adaptable; always keep an eye on 4-5 star guys who have a wants rebuild preference when you’re at C+ or below (even if you’re neutral or worse, higher prestige teams will be penalized more, so you still have an advantage); especially if they have other preferences you match up with.

Thanks, shoe. That's actually very valuable input. I think I might not be casting a wide enough net. But doesn't getting 200-300 guys to level four mean spending dozens of hours recruiting?

Posted by kaw_86 on 10/22/2019 1:16:00 PM (view original):
Thanks, shoe. That's actually very valuable input. I think I might not be casting a wide enough net. But doesn't getting 200-300 guys to level four mean spending dozens of hours recruiting?

Nope. I don’t ever spend more than a handful of minutes clicking. The time I spend on scouting is almost entirely spent on prioritizing.

This is how I do it.

Wow, that's amazing. Great stuff, shoe. Do you happen to have a similar thread on your recruiting (post-scouting) process? Especially with regard to when to get in battles, etc.?

Kaw_86 you kind of have to learn your own strategy after scouting is complete. Some key things to think about are your budget and how much you are willing to spend on a guy. I always look at my competition's needs and calculate how much i think the player is worth to them as well. You can usually find a solid class in D1 from guys within 400 miles of your school. These guys are more affordable to visit. The more close to home guys you go after the more HVs you can do. Also dont be scared to carry a scholarship over so you have more resources in the future. I usually carry at least 1 scholly but a lot of times 2. The last tip i have is if you going after a guy that is a good all in candidate dont battle a team with a prestige 1 full letter grade above you. For example. if im battling for a stud player and im a b- prestige ill bow out 90% of the time if an A- or better jumps on them. Its hard to beat a team with a huge prestige advantage unless they just dont spend on them or you dominate them in preferences.
Feel free to message me with any questions.

Thanks, Nick! That's also super helpful. I lost to a team with lesser prestige in a lesser conference than me last cycle despite having good preferences, 50AP, promised start, and 20 mins. Not sure why but they jumped back up to "Very High" and I fell to "moderate". I just don't get what could've happened.

But I'll definitely keep your advice in mind!

Prestige, preferences, and promises are all important, but the biggest factor in terms of battles, and the one I think few people really care to think about much is prioritization. The same player could be a superstar D3 player, an all-conference caliber D2 player, an important contributor as an upperclassman for a mid-major D1, and a 4-year backup on a Big6 squad. How high of a priority is this guy for you? Are you willing to go all-in on visits? Will you devote a significant chunk of AP every cycle? Because someone else might. If you’re spending 50 AP/cycle (which is a lot), but your rival is spending 65, over the course of 20 cycles he’s built up a significant advantage, which can make up for prestige differences. Maybe he’s promising 25 minutes compared to your 20. Maybe he did max visits, and you only did 12. Your preferences are good, maybe his are very good. There are lots of factors that go into building effort credit, so I don’t really agree with Nick’s suggestion of bailing if a team one grade above jumps in. Especially if you’ve put a good chunk of AP or visits into a guy, you can beat teams 2, 3, or more grades up. It all depends on what they have and are willing to invest.

As a rule of thumb, 2 full letter grades (probably a little less, like 1&2/3) is about the cusp of where you will be knocked out of signing range if the higher team matches your effort, promises, and preferences. If you’re at B-, you can pretty much get into play on anyone *with maximum effort and attention and promises*, unless you run into an A+++ team that’s going to match you, or come close. The rub is that to get into play, which might end up being just be a 25% shot, you have to pretty much shower the guy with AP, and do max visits. It can be a decent shot to take sometimes, but it should probably go without saying that putting all your eggs in one basket is a risk, so be sure you understand the consequences.

Anyway, probably the most important part of how I prioritize is how I select and tier my targets. This is how I use the color codes. Blue is for guys I might go “all-in” for - a significant chunk of AP, and maximum visits. Green is for high potential guys who I think will be just below what higher level teams might really want to invest in. Yellow is for backup options and early entry insurance, that I may or may not try to cultivate (preference given to late signing players for this group). Red is for high level players that I want to watch, maybe throw an early AP or 3 on, and see what happens, and how battles evolve.

Say I have 4 open scholarships. I might set aside the resources to go “all-in” and do max visits for 3 players, expecting to likely lose one of them. I will try to pick one guy from the green category to invest in; depending on what battles emerge, I might use the remainder of my resources to lock him in, or I might save them for yellow options. If I notice there’s only one team on one of those red category players, there’s a decent chance he’s vulnerable, ie the coach has moved most or all AP off him, and might use visits elsewhere. So I might start pumping AP in, and hold off offering a scholarship until close to the time when the player might sign. Lots of different strategies in play with how you spend those resources, and I try not to be predictable, so I switch it up year to year.

Thanks to you HF"ers for advising on this. I'm not at D1 but hoping to be someday? Reading all I can and trying to take it in, thanks again!

Shoe, man, you're a god. Seriously, this is brilliant stuff and is so helpful. Just having this sanity check helps so much. I feel badly not responding with as much as you are because you're putting so much time into this thread, but know that I'm saving this link and going to refer to it over and over. This is so helpful.

I have a similar question regarding D1 recruiting. I have played for a long time but now have moved up to D1 almost exclusively. How many times do you have to lose out on a recruiting battle when you are heavily favored before things turn in your favor? Getting extremely frustrated! 76% to 24%. Over a SIM team with less prestige! And I did all the things I needed to in terms of AP and HV. And this is only the latest example of probably five or six. am I missing something?

Posted by bhask2 on 10/24/2019 10:13:00 PM (view original):
I have a similar question regarding D1 recruiting. I have played for a long time but now have moved up to D1 almost exclusively. How many times do you have to lose out on a recruiting battle when you are heavily favored before things turn in your favor? Getting extremely frustrated! 76% to 24%. Over a SIM team with less prestige! And I did all the things I needed to in terms of AP and HV. And this is only the latest example of probably five or six. am I missing something?

Losing battles is just something you have to adapt to, especially at D1. If you go after players other teams want, sometimes those players are going to choose other teams. Keep a couple things in mind.
1) Five or six battles is a tiny sample size. It works itself out if you give it long enough.
2) Human nature gets stuck on the times you lost. Everyone remembers all the “bad beats”, but it’s easy to forget (intentionally, in some cases) all the mundane 55-45 wins you’ll get. Probably lots of good psychology papers on this topic.
3) You don’t need a team full of elite players to be competitive. I had a final four team at Oregon with only one player I beat another D1 human for in battle, and he was a soph that season. I had lost something like 10 of 11 battles in those first 4 seasons (I was rebuilding, so always punching up), but because I was also recruiting non-elite players and cultivating backup options, I had a full squad of players who developed into useful parts and it came together. You probably can’t win 5 titles in a row with that kind of team, but you can be competitive.
4) This part is really important in terms of how you think about those considering odds. The odds don’t tell you who the player “likes more”. They only tell you how much effort credit your team has accumulated, relative to what other teams have done. So the considering list isn’t telling you how much interest the player has in your team, so much as it’s telling everyone how much interest your team has in the player.
5) Related to 4, the final odds you see have been stretched to favor the winner. So the “underdog” is quite a bit closer to you in terms of accumulated effort credit than the odds show. If the odds weren’t stretched, that 74-26 battle would have been more like 61-39. It’s still an upset and a surprise, which is in the game by design because the developers want some surprise and unpredictability; but without the stretching, while it wouldn’t *feel* like such an upset, it would mean the leader would lose more often.