Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

The inverse question is also valid. Why risk a bad roll resulting in losing a player for half the season (or the postseason) if you don’t have to? The consequences of “wasting” 6-10 minutes of a freshman’s practice time are tiny, in most cases. We run into diminishing returns on these attributes fairly early. The consequences of losing a player can really hurt a team, depending on depth and sets.

I dont think there’s one right way to do it. It’s all situational, in terms of how much value you’re getting from your practice time. The practice plan sets and reflects the priorities for your team. Do you want to take guys with lots of blue/green in key categories that will benefit more from maximizing practice efficiency? Then playing conservative with study hall might not be the best move. Do you play sets that require a lot of depth, and tend to recruit players who are more “fully baked”? Then the risk of losing a player, even if it’s just once every dozen or more seasons, may not be acceptable.

Personally, for most players I start at 6-10 for freshmen, depending on GPA and work ethic, 3-5 for sophs, and 0-2 for upperclassmen. I make lots of exceptions, though. If I have a guy who has potential, but really *needs* to get better in multiple places, I am more likely to skimp on study hall, and take my chances. For the 4-5 star players I’d like to see stick around for at least their junior season, I tend to extra load the study hall. I also spend 10 minutes on a combo press, because again, that’s where I have chosen to look for some extra value. Getting extra possessions every game through a HCP means more to me than making sure all my guards max their rebounding and my bigs max their ball handling by their senior seasons. Different strokes.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/24/2020 1:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

The inverse question is also valid. Why risk a bad roll resulting in losing a player for half the season (or the postseason) if you don’t have to? The consequences of “wasting” 6-10 minutes of a freshman’s practice time are tiny, in most cases. We run into diminishing returns on these attributes fairly early. The consequences of losing a player can really hurt a team, depending on depth and sets.

I dont think there’s one right way to do it. It’s all situational, in terms of how much value you’re getting from your practice time. The practice plan sets and reflects the priorities for your team. Do you want to take guys with lots of blue/green in key categories that will benefit more from maximizing practice efficiency? Then playing conservative with study hall might not be the best move. Do you play sets that require a lot of depth, and tend to recruit players who are more “fully baked”? Then the risk of losing a player, even if it’s just once every dozen or more seasons, may not be acceptable.

Personally, for most players I start at 6-10 for freshmen, depending on GPA and work ethic, 3-5 for sophs, and 0-2 for upperclassmen. I make lots of exceptions, though. If I have a guy who has potential, but really *needs* to get better in multiple places, I am more likely to skimp on study hall, and take my chances. For the 4-5 star players I’d like to see stick around for at least their junior season, I tend to extra load the study hall. I also spend 10 minutes on a combo press, because again, that’s where I have chosen to look for some extra value. Getting extra possessions every game through a HCP means more to me than making sure all my guards max their rebounding and my bigs max their ball handling by their senior seasons. Different strokes.

My answer to that inverse question would be that if you follow my rule (16 SH minutes for less than 2.1, 12 for other yellows), I don’t believe you’ll ever lose a player. The only way I’ve ever lost players was when I didn’t see the mid terms email and didn’t change minutes to yellows, but that can happen with either strategy. I disagree that it’s not a big deal. It can result in a few points more progressed for JR and for FR it can result in a few points as well that leads to more depth. I just do not see a reason to give people unnecessary minutes if you find a strategy that will never have a guy go inel.

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 4:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 1/24/2020 1:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

The inverse question is also valid. Why risk a bad roll resulting in losing a player for half the season (or the postseason) if you don’t have to? The consequences of “wasting” 6-10 minutes of a freshman’s practice time are tiny, in most cases. We run into diminishing returns on these attributes fairly early. The consequences of losing a player can really hurt a team, depending on depth and sets.

I dont think there’s one right way to do it. It’s all situational, in terms of how much value you’re getting from your practice time. The practice plan sets and reflects the priorities for your team. Do you want to take guys with lots of blue/green in key categories that will benefit more from maximizing practice efficiency? Then playing conservative with study hall might not be the best move. Do you play sets that require a lot of depth, and tend to recruit players who are more “fully baked”? Then the risk of losing a player, even if it’s just once every dozen or more seasons, may not be acceptable.

Personally, for most players I start at 6-10 for freshmen, depending on GPA and work ethic, 3-5 for sophs, and 0-2 for upperclassmen. I make lots of exceptions, though. If I have a guy who has potential, but really *needs* to get better in multiple places, I am more likely to skimp on study hall, and take my chances. For the 4-5 star players I’d like to see stick around for at least their junior season, I tend to extra load the study hall. I also spend 10 minutes on a combo press, because again, that’s where I have chosen to look for some extra value. Getting extra possessions every game through a HCP means more to me than making sure all my guards max their rebounding and my bigs max their ball handling by their senior seasons. Different strokes.

My answer to that inverse question would be that if you follow my rule (16 SH minutes for less than 2.1, 12 for other yellows), I don’t believe you’ll ever lose a player. The only way I’ve ever lost players was when I didn’t see the mid terms email and didn’t change minutes to yellows, but that can happen with either strategy. I disagree that it’s not a big deal. It can result in a few points more progressed for JR and for FR it can result in a few points as well that leads to more depth. I just do not see a reason to give people unnecessary minutes if you find a strategy that will never have a guy go inel.

But what if giving a Freshman 4 minutes would have kept him from being yellow and now you have to go 12 or 16 to make up for it? That's a waste of even more practice time.

In general, I agree that people put too many minutes into SH. But I also don't think giving a FR with a 2.6 HS GPA 0 minutes is saving any minutes at all.

i do think shoe is right to an extent, different strokes for different folks (and scenarios) - especially when it comes to the question of, 'are you diligent enough to update right at midterms or are you likely to realize you have a problem after you already lost a player'.

but on the other hand, the sh issue is just one issue of a cluster of related issues. 'conservative' practice planning (high study hall, reluctance to 0 out categories, reluctance to allow off-cores to flatline or drop even temporarily to grow cores aggressively) very significantly disadvantages you when compared to aggressive practice planning. i recommend aggressively growing cores, aggressively trimming study hall, and aggressively 0ing out (or even cutting to 3ish, in some cases) categories where the return on investment is less than the return on investment elsewhere. this might mean you 0 out a blue category even, in some cases (that's rare, but you should be 0ing out lows like crazy)

i think being not-so-aggressive in 1 of those areas, with an otherwise aggressive approach, is fine. but the folks who really pushed back on the 'you can 0 out lows' thing, from my experience, tend to be the guys pushing back on the 'you can 0 out sh till midterms' thing, and the rest of the package as well. without question, the difference between aggressive and conservative practice planning can really add up. so, i'm not going to really argue about whether or not there is a viable case for not 0ing out before midterms, but i will say - if you read this and think, well i'm not really doing any of that aggressive stuff, then you should seriously reconsider. in short, your top few categories of growth for each player should be hitting 20 or more for most of your fr/so - thats an easy, half-way decent metric you can use to assess if you are being aggressive enough or not. if you are sitting there with a big with green rebounding, and you aren't at least 20 minutes, and probably ~24, then you are doing something (likely several things) wrong, and probably significantly so (outside of contrived scenarios, and probably a couple realistic but very edge case situations too).

I’m all about hybrid adaptability. I zero out plenty of black categories, and even blue and green sometimes, if they’re low and non-core. I lose some points on players every year. At the same time, I *almost* never put more than 20 minutes in any category, until I literally have no other non-yellow/red place to put it (some exceptions for blue or green LP/Per).

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

Two seasons ago I had a guy at 2.1 at midterms, gave him 15 minutes, and he dropped to 1.9. Same frickin season, same team, had a guy at 1.9 and have him 20 minutes and he stayed at 1.9. Two players becoming ineligible on a team that ran press sunk my season. Needless to say, I give everyone at least 2 or 3 minutes now throughout the season when they are freshman or sophomores if their GPAs are lower than I’d like.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/24/2020 5:40:00 PM (view original):
i do think shoe is right to an extent, different strokes for different folks (and scenarios) - especially when it comes to the question of, 'are you diligent enough to update right at midterms or are you likely to realize you have a problem after you already lost a player'.

but on the other hand, the sh issue is just one issue of a cluster of related issues. 'conservative' practice planning (high study hall, reluctance to 0 out categories, reluctance to allow off-cores to flatline or drop even temporarily to grow cores aggressively) very significantly disadvantages you when compared to aggressive practice planning. i recommend aggressively growing cores, aggressively trimming study hall, and aggressively 0ing out (or even cutting to 3ish, in some cases) categories where the return on investment is less than the return on investment elsewhere. this might mean you 0 out a blue category even, in some cases (that's rare, but you should be 0ing out lows like crazy)

i think being not-so-aggressive in 1 of those areas, with an otherwise aggressive approach, is fine. but the folks who really pushed back on the 'you can 0 out lows' thing, from my experience, tend to be the guys pushing back on the 'you can 0 out sh till midterms' thing, and the rest of the package as well. without question, the difference between aggressive and conservative practice planning can really add up. so, i'm not going to really argue about whether or not there is a viable case for not 0ing out before midterms, but i will say - if you read this and think, well i'm not really doing any of that aggressive stuff, then you should seriously reconsider. in short, your top few categories of growth for each player should be hitting 20 or more for most of your fr/so - thats an easy, half-way decent metric you can use to assess if you are being aggressive enough or not. if you are sitting there with a big with green rebounding, and you aren't at least 20 minutes, and probably ~24, then you are doing something (likely several things) wrong, and probably significantly so (outside of contrived scenarios, and probably a couple realistic but very edge case situations too).

My only comment on this is that I rarely go over 20 when there are other categories with significant remaining growth (unless they are super lows or categories that don’t matter to the player) because of diminishing returns. I rarely have FR with anything over 20. I am usually aggressive in zeroing out categories though.

Posted by darnoc29099 on 1/24/2020 6:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

Two seasons ago I had a guy at 2.1 at midterms, gave him 15 minutes, and he dropped to 1.9. Same frickin season, same team, had a guy at 1.9 and have him 20 minutes and he stayed at 1.9. Two players becoming ineligible on a team that ran press sunk my season. Needless to say, I give everyone at least 2 or 3 minutes now throughout the season when they are freshman or sophomores if their GPAs are lower than I’d like.

Interesting. Never heard this. If it ever happens to me I will surely adjust though. Good to know.

Posted by mrslam34 on 1/24/2020 5:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 4:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 1/24/2020 1:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

The inverse question is also valid. Why risk a bad roll resulting in losing a player for half the season (or the postseason) if you don’t have to? The consequences of “wasting” 6-10 minutes of a freshman’s practice time are tiny, in most cases. We run into diminishing returns on these attributes fairly early. The consequences of losing a player can really hurt a team, depending on depth and sets.

I dont think there’s one right way to do it. It’s all situational, in terms of how much value you’re getting from your practice time. The practice plan sets and reflects the priorities for your team. Do you want to take guys with lots of blue/green in key categories that will benefit more from maximizing practice efficiency? Then playing conservative with study hall might not be the best move. Do you play sets that require a lot of depth, and tend to recruit players who are more “fully baked”? Then the risk of losing a player, even if it’s just once every dozen or more seasons, may not be acceptable.

Personally, for most players I start at 6-10 for freshmen, depending on GPA and work ethic, 3-5 for sophs, and 0-2 for upperclassmen. I make lots of exceptions, though. If I have a guy who has potential, but really *needs* to get better in multiple places, I am more likely to skimp on study hall, and take my chances. For the 4-5 star players I’d like to see stick around for at least their junior season, I tend to extra load the study hall. I also spend 10 minutes on a combo press, because again, that’s where I have chosen to look for some extra value. Getting extra possessions every game through a HCP means more to me than making sure all my guards max their rebounding and my bigs max their ball handling by their senior seasons. Different strokes.

My answer to that inverse question would be that if you follow my rule (16 SH minutes for less than 2.1, 12 for other yellows), I don’t believe you’ll ever lose a player. The only way I’ve ever lost players was when I didn’t see the mid terms email and didn’t change minutes to yellows, but that can happen with either strategy. I disagree that it’s not a big deal. It can result in a few points more progressed for JR and for FR it can result in a few points as well that leads to more depth. I just do not see a reason to give people unnecessary minutes if you find a strategy that will never have a guy go inel.

But what if giving a Freshman 4 minutes would have kept him from being yellow and now you have to go 12 or 16 to make up for it? That's a waste of even more practice time.

In general, I agree that people put too many minutes into SH. But I also don't think giving a FR with a 2.6 HS GPA 0 minutes is saving any minutes at all.

I was more addressing the argument of people who overdo SH minutes (cough cough top! Haha just messin with you). I think giving up to 4 minutes before mid terms on 2.6 or so FR makes sense though and I’ll probably start doing that. I will ask this, what does yellow signify? That if you keep the guy as is he may be in danger, or that no matter what, he won’t be in danger. If you have a guy with 4 SH minutes before mid terms then he’s at 2.6 black or whatever, if you take him down to 0, can he still get below 2.0?

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 8:05:00 PM (view original):

Posted by darnoc29099 on 1/24/2020 6:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Sportsbulls on 1/24/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):
0 minutes is the best! Why waste minutes when you don’t have to? The key is just to always be super cautious once you have guys in yellow during the mid-term email. I generally put guys with 2.1 and lower GPA to 16 SH minutes and other yellows to 12 just to be safe.

Two seasons ago I had a guy at 2.1 at midterms, gave him 15 minutes, and he dropped to 1.9. Same frickin season, same team, had a guy at 1.9 and have him 20 minutes and he stayed at 1.9. Two players becoming ineligible on a team that ran press sunk my season. Needless to say, I give everyone at least 2 or 3 minutes now throughout the season when they are freshman or sophomores if their GPAs are lower than I’d like.

Interesting. Never heard this. If it ever happens to me I will surely adjust though. Good to know.

Now you've heard it. Now you see that your theory doesn't work. Your "system" is just numbers that you have used that haven't failed you yet. Not a real system. AND you just recently failed and lost a guy.

Give guys study hall minutes. Period. It takes a cold day in hell for me to agree with shoe on something! But it's this. Practice minutes aren't gold. A 12 or a 14 in a category isn't gonna make a difference. If you want big differences, playing time will help much much more that practice minutes.

There's also not much that's substantial about that extra growth you'd get. If you have a Soph that's 62 in every category and a B- IQ when NT starts (while giving SH minutes), and compare that to a Soph that's 64 in every category and a B- IQ when NT starts (because you saved those measly 3 practice minutes), he's still the same player. You're not gonna up his distro 15 points because he's a little bit better. His IQ remains the same in both scenarios so he's not any better there. You're likely not going to make any significant change at all.

Then comes offseason growth. Maybe he grows less than he would've going into junior year since he's developed further. That 64 only gets to 68. Growth slows as it reaches caps. Maybe it would've grown to the same exact 68 in the offseason from 62, because the growth hasn't slowed as much yet. Who knows.

But the one thing I do know is that EVERYTHING you've worked towards is screwed when you lose a guy for skimping on SH. A depth guy. Not a guy you're going to rely heavily on come NT (not many Srs and Jrs become ineligible due to grades). So why bother with the headaches?

No one is gonna win a title because they had a magic practice minute plan for freshman and sophomores. But people will lose a title shot by losing players they didn't have to