Does anyone know the approximate chances of players going EE? Specifically off the draft board as a backup JR PG when the team only made the Elite 8? Also lost my starter JR PG as well at #76 on the board. So unlucky...

I mean, I don't even see this guy being drafted this season (maybe next year if he stayed): Brian Bicknell

That’s just bad luck. The more graduating seniors on the big board, the less chance the draft will go off the board. I use 30 as a general rule of thumb; when there are 30 or more graduating seniors on the big board when recruiting starts, I don’t worry about it (I don’t recall what it was at start of recruiting in Smith this year, but it was definitely less than 30, because I did line up a reserve option - it’s 24 right now, which is moderate-danger zone, IMO).

FYI, he’ll definitely be drafted, one of the last couple picks. That’s just how it goes sometimes. I’ve lost a couple that way, too.

I mean, why didn't you hold back his ratings? Why'd you let him grow 3pts in defense and 1pt in speed?? He's a whopping 760 overall man, he's a stud. OF COURSE he's gonna go EE even though he hasn't sniffed the big board. Don't you know ANYTHING??

Jk jk.

Yeah you got burned hard, trust me I've been there and it sucks. Which continues my ongoing complaint that the EE system needs to be improved. Losing a guy like this is ridiculous and does absolutely nothing to enhance gameplay.

Yeah, it sucks. I escaped a few of these in the past. I somehow kept the #2 overall recruit several seasons ago for all 4 years - he was on-the-fence twice. But lately, I'm getting a bit unlucky.

@shoe - about the graduating seniors thing. That's a good tip. I haven't had enough EE's to ever pay attention to it until lately. They'll only be my 3rd and 4th. I am only in two worlds and the other is D2 (as you know since you're in both divisions of both worlds too). The funny thing is, I have a graduating SG (not on the board) who is much better than Bicknell, so it's a wonder why he'd be drafted ahead of him, but it's probably a lack of PG.

Posted by mtnwild on 10/9/2020 12:09:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, it sucks. I escaped a few of these in the past. I somehow kept the #2 overall recruit several seasons ago for all 4 years - he was on-the-fence twice. But lately, I'm getting a bit unlucky.

I retract all my sympathetic condolences then

Posted by Benis on 10/9/2020 1:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mtnwild on 10/9/2020 12:09:00 PM (view original):
Yeah, it sucks. I escaped a few of these in the past. I somehow kept the #2 overall recruit several seasons ago for all 4 years - he was on-the-fence twice. But lately, I'm getting a bit unlucky.

I retract all my sympathetic condolences then

How long ago was that? Was an an ineligible?

Smith - 110 recruiting season. Nope, not Ineligible. It was this guy --> Thomas Powell

Posted by mtnwild on 10/9/2020 1:37:00 PM (view original):
Smith - 110 recruiting season. Nope, not Ineligible. It was this guy --> Thomas Powell

Ah okay. You must have meant #2 recruit, not #2 on big board since that guy went 24th overall in the draft, right?

Also, damn that guy had a remarkably consistent career, great 4 year player!

Right - #2 recruit instead of #2 big board. Yeah, he had a great career. Tough to find the right recruits to go 4 years.

Posted by mtnwild on 10/9/2020 1:48:00 PM (view original):
Right - #2 recruit instead of #2 big board. Yeah, he had a great career. Tough to find the right recruits to go 4 years.

Oh yeah you did say recruit. my bad!

But back to the topic at hand - the chance of a guy off the board leaving early is very low. From what I've tracked, I've see 20 guys not on the board leave early out of the 1022 total early entries tracked.

I sent in a ticket awhile back and Seble said he could increase the Big board to 150 so we'd have a better idea who was actually close to leaving but that was awhile ago and I'm sure it got pushed to the bottom of the pile.

I'll also add that I've personally had THREE guys leave early that weren't on the big board including one mediocre Sophomore. Ridiculous.

Posted by Benis on 10/9/2020 11:53:00 AM (view original):
I mean, why didn't you hold back his ratings? Why'd you let him grow 3pts in defense and 1pt in speed?? He's a whopping 760 overall man, he's a stud. OF COURSE he's gonna go EE even though he hasn't sniffed the big board. Don't you know ANYTHING??

I know this is a /s rant, but for anyone who believes the overall rating means something, it's worth noting this player has a durability rating of 8.

Sympathy to the coach, but it's not super weird that the kid declared. His guard skills are big-board-worthy.

Posted by mtnwild on 10/9/2020 11:32:00 AM (view original):
I mean, I don't even see this guy being drafted this season (maybe next year if he stayed): Brian Bicknell

This player is actually a really instructive example, looking more closely. He is top 20 by position as a recruit (not an actual standard, but another good rule of thumb), he has an elite skill - distributing, with high 90s speed and passing, he’s a fairly good scorer with LP+per nearing the 140 mark, and his physical/defense cores are passable, if not excellent. His OVR is deceiving because of his low durability, which the system ignores just like we do - if he had 50 durability, his OVR would be over 800.

I’d ignore the snarky comment about holding back his defense or speed, but there is an important player development issue to think about, related to those key areas above, specifically the scoring attributes. Did you really need those extra 7 points of LP this season? How much value did they add to your team in the postseason? My suspicion is if you would have held off developing LP until his senior season, he would have been safe.

So the next question is usually “but how was I supposed to know he was that close if he wasn’t on the Big Board?” And that’s kind of the point. The Big Board isn’t supposed to be a substitute for your player evaluation skills. With experience, a coach should be able to gauge whether or not a player they recruit *might* leave early without the Big Board, which is an evaluation tool, not an outcome.