Posted by shoe3 on 1/5/2022 10:37:00 AM (view original):
Meanwhile Wisconsin, preseason #1 and clearly one of the top 5 teams coming in to the season, is sitting at 2-5. rowle1js is a solid coach, and is doing nothing wrong except having to start a couple freshmen, as we do. Some teams get hit a little harder with the sim’s ugly stick than others because of that. Having been on both sides of this situation more than once, I can confidently say coaching ability has little to do with the difference here.
i could perhaps buy that coaching has nothing to do with it in this one case, and there are definitely rogue sims when folks start multiple freshman, but managing having to start multiple freshman, and juggling highly imperfect early season lineups, there's a ton of coaching skill there in general.
by the time you get to 7 games (7 games is actually the magic number i use more or less, for # of games that exceeds small sample size, although a smaller # is appropriate for considering rotations / fatigue), its time to be assuming your woes are self-inflicted. there's almost no chance a top 5 team is sitting 2-5 starting 2 freshman without meaningful imperfections. for me the big one that stands out is probably paquet starting, i don't see a reason for him to be starting over a better scorer option.
lastly - 'clearly one of the top 5 teams' is clearly wrong. on an individual talent basis, they are probably top 5, but with that lack of per scoring on that flex/man team there, there's just no way its a top 5 team.