in the WCC, with San Francisco and two openings, I concentrated 'mostly' on guards. I have 222 total recruits scouted to L4 and of those 189 are guards from 26 states, Canada, and International. This also includes the far NE (ME, VT, MA, NH, and RI) looking for a possible FFH candidate. Yes, lots and lots of trash...but sometimes you find unexpected gold in that trash.

This also shows there are multiple ways to go about this to be successful and why I actually like the current scouting\recruiting model.

To clarify, I FSS'd 26 states, Canada, and international. Top 100 could be from non-FSS states.

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/16/2022 8:21:00 PM (view original):
Yes it's 500 miles. And if you're in an area that has very few players, you won't get a lot of players in it. But it's still more than worth doing it because you only get charged for the players that are, and it's still cheap. You will then have to continue on doing something else for scouting. Which is fine. But in the described situation, the camp didn't "hurt" you. It just wasn't as powerful because of your location.

Also, to snewell's point..... he's not "wrong". It just depends on your preference. What he stated IS much faster. But not necessarily more efficient. You can get your scouting done in a matter of minutes if time is an issue. But for efficiency, what's the point of having a giant pool of nearby players, no more budget, but not have any interest in almost all of the players when it boils down to it? Sifting thru trash.

I just happen to value "more players in my pool that i might actually sign", more than i value the speed of getting my scouting done. I literally spend 0 time scouting until recruiting is actually in session. And instead of having lots of players to L4 that are 600 miles away and no budget left, I end up with less players at L4, much further out (1000 miles to potentially the other end of the country), and scouting budget left to use during recruiting. But ALL are likely worthy of a ship, AND within my reach as far as talent.

It's just a decision difference, and fine investment difference

It is a decision difference. And it does depend on your preference. And if you are forgoing the last level, and recruiting based only on L3 (other than the Top100 players in states you FSS who show up to your camp of course, they’ll be L4), I suppose you can claim to be efficient, too.

But if you’re using the manual scout button to get to level 4 on individual players, you are specifically giving up efficiency. Efficiency is not primarily about time here, though I certainly do enjoy that part. If you scout a player that way 800 miles away, you’re spending ~$300 dollars. That’s one level for one player. An assistant scout could get you 5 done that way for that price. If you scout up, say, 15 targets like that, it’s probably equivalent to at least 50 guys on average from the assistant, likely more depending on how far out you’re going for these guys.

If you want to have budget remaining when you’re done, just reserve some budget. You can use the advanced tools to figure out exactly how much it will cost to send the assistant out. I leave a few thousand cushion, sometimes more (lots more sometimes, like Fresno St this year, just anticipating maybe going after some transfers, for example). With 4 scholarships, I can always get around 300, usually a little more if I get super granular with the positions, and that includes internationals and all the top 100. Before you press that manual scout button, you should always at least check the advanced tools to see if you are already set up for your assistant to get this guy easily (since you can narrow an assistant search by distance and position, the target you want might be the only pg left within 500 miles, for example, after scouting everyone else up).

Anyway yeah, to each their own. Just want to clear up the whole “sifting through trash” thing, and the idea that it’s only about time - those are just complete misconceptions. The idea is, while getting all the guys you should be seeing, to also find all the useful players others may miss, who will be very cheap, which is incredibly valuable in the big scheme of things.

Definitely a "to each their own" thing. And if I didn't say it before, no method is "better" than another. By a wide margin or anything. It's about the way you as a coach, see the game.

And I don't "completely stop" at L3 (and never go to L4 on players). What I mean is that I only get to L3 on my pool UNTIL RECRUITING STARTS. And I save myself like $12k rather than just getting a giant pool "before" recruiting starts. I feel the most important scouting tool in the game is the considering list. And it's not even close. You don't have a considering list until one cycle processes. At that point I choose who I take to L4. They have to 1) have good preference matches. 2) look decent at L3. And 3) have a considering list of schools that I feel comfy competing with. Again, that means almost every player I look at is hand picked (I do have some guys at L4 due to the assistant. But I have lots of money left to play with). Few players at L4 that are garbage. Few that aren't within my reach. Expensive at times? Yes. But money isn't an issue doing it this way. Sometimes I fill a class with $5k to $8k scouting left. Simply because I'm lazy and I've found an awesome group of players to target and sign.

There's SO many players out there that suck, have bad preference matches, and/or you have no chance at. Personally I just can't get with scouting them up to sit there.

i dont have much/any new d2/d3 experience but i heard this theory from dogg a couple years back and it sounds legit to me. for most players, knowing their level 3 potential is enough to rule them out. and for most decent players, knowing who is after them is enough to rule them out. that level 4 is quite important when it comes to making the actual decision on who to sign, for many guys (not all), but for whittling hundreds of options down to a dozen or fewer final candidates, level 3 gets you pretty darn far.

i can't imagine this rises to the level of extreme importance, but i do imagine it is more efficient, that there's a meaningful edge there, or at least a really good way of doing things. i do something similar at times in d1, for distance where efficiency matters considerably. in the olden days, when we only got level 4 info via spending actual recruiting money (not scouting money), you had to be highly selective (compared to today, at least). it was kinda annoying, you'd pay to get the potential for like 3-4 attributes in an email the next cycle, and if you wanted them all, you had to do it a bunch of times, which could rather a lot if you got unlucky (overlap was allowed). but anyway, the concept of being selective on level 4 scouting, its not new, and it just makes a lot of sense on its face.

Correct, definitely not new. 0nly taught me the game. And it just made perfect sense to me. And I consider it to be the turning point of my career. Keep in mind, I was terrible in my 1.0 career. And when I returned, benis kinda put me on the right path to start. But once I learned the value of scouting like this from 0nly, I really took off. It was just the icing on the cake.

To be honest, now days there's so many avenues for coaches to learn the game quickly, that lots of new coaches can catch on quickly. But when I first started doing this, it wasn't like that and I shot out of a cannon. Now I'm just an average coach with a good season every once in a while. Because there's a lot more good coaches in the game. Makes for great competition! And many coaches know the different tricks and strategies.

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/18/2022 4:27:00 AM (view original):
Correct, definitely not new. 0nly taught me the game. And it just made perfect sense to me. And I consider it to be the turning point of my career. Keep in mind, I was terrible in my 1.0 career. And when I returned, benis kinda put me on the right path to start. But once I learned the value of scouting like this from 0nly, I really took off. It was just the icing on the cake.

To be honest, now days there's so many avenues for coaches to learn the game quickly, that lots of new coaches can catch on quickly. But when I first started doing this, it wasn't like that and I shot out of a cannon. Now I'm just an average coach with a good season every once in a while. Because there's a lot more good coaches in the game. Makes for great competition! And many coaches know the different tricks and strategies.

i do feel like the overall caliber of coaching is higher than it used to be and i think that's definitely a reflection of all the things you said! i think part of it is my d1-only life, and how balanced man and press are over there now. its pretty great really! it used to be that the best press teams were very hard to tangle with, unless you were one yourself, and so i think that kinda made the good man and zone programs struggle too much, and led to not enough parity. sure seems like there is plenty of parity now, with 3.0 whacking the talent level of the top teams too, spreading the wealth.

outside of the d1 recruiting bloodbath being perhaps too competitive for the average coach long term, i think d1 balance is by far the best its been in my time! the coin flips are frustrating but the balance improvement IMO makes it well worth it, and i think the coin flips help create variety, give coaches some challenges and stuff, instead of just building the same team over and over. i am really warming up to the coin flips in general, i suppose?

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/18/2022 4:27:00 AM (view original):
Correct, definitely not new. 0nly taught me the game. And it just made perfect sense to me. And I consider it to be the turning point of my career. Keep in mind, I was terrible in my 1.0 career. And when I returned, benis kinda put me on the right path to start. But once I learned the value of scouting like this from 0nly, I really took off. It was just the icing on the cake.

To be honest, now days there's so many avenues for coaches to learn the game quickly, that lots of new coaches can catch on quickly. But when I first started doing this, it wasn't like that and I shot out of a cannon. Now I'm just an average coach with a good season every once in a while. Because there's a lot more good coaches in the game. Makes for great competition! And many coaches know the different tricks and strategies.

There were lots of coaches doing this kind of method in beta. The0nlyis and TheWizard (among others) put the novel aspect of relying on certain other coaches to determine what recruits were worth leveling up. Wiz went so far as to not level up at all some years, and just recruited on L2 info for the most part. He also got burned doing that, and (along with 0nly) quite famously and loudly flamed out. Probably a coincidence I suppose.

If you’re diligent and know who to watch, you can definitely be successful. I (and others) started doing things differently primarily because that method is both labor/time intensive, and also invites lots of battles and abdicates prospects, ie valuable players you can get for very cheap. You are trusting that the coaches you are watching A) know what they’re doing, B) don’t know what you’re doing, C) are predictable, and D) are not f***ing with you.

Posted by gillispie on 2/18/2022 11:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/18/2022 4:27:00 AM (view original):
Correct, definitely not new. 0nly taught me the game. And it just made perfect sense to me. And I consider it to be the turning point of my career. Keep in mind, I was terrible in my 1.0 career. And when I returned, benis kinda put me on the right path to start. But once I learned the value of scouting like this from 0nly, I really took off. It was just the icing on the cake.

To be honest, now days there's so many avenues for coaches to learn the game quickly, that lots of new coaches can catch on quickly. But when I first started doing this, it wasn't like that and I shot out of a cannon. Now I'm just an average coach with a good season every once in a while. Because there's a lot more good coaches in the game. Makes for great competition! And many coaches know the different tricks and strategies.

i do feel like the overall caliber of coaching is higher than it used to be and i think that's definitely a reflection of all the things you said! i think part of it is my d1-only life, and how balanced man and press are over there now. its pretty great really! it used to be that the best press teams were very hard to tangle with, unless you were one yourself, and so i think that kinda made the good man and zone programs struggle too much, and led to not enough parity. sure seems like there is plenty of parity now, with 3.0 whacking the talent level of the top teams too, spreading the wealth.

outside of the d1 recruiting bloodbath being perhaps too competitive for the average coach long term, i think d1 balance is by far the best its been in my time! the coin flips are frustrating but the balance improvement IMO makes it well worth it, and i think the coin flips help create variety, give coaches some challenges and stuff, instead of just building the same team over and over. i am really warming up to the coin flips in general, i suppose?

I'm the exact same. I'm literally ready to walk away from this game right now. Because of rolls. And I'd be plenty fine doing it at this point. But after a few days go by, I realize I love the competitiveness of it. I just wish the bulls>>t recruiting rolls were not the way to make that parity. I have no idea how I'd fix it other than that.

My Kansas Wooden team. Right now we're not doing well, yes we won our conference regular season. But I feel like we're a top 5 or 10 team as far as talent. And we ended up losing more games than I expected. THAT I'm cool with all day! Game losses, upset losses make me feel like I need to get better. Focus more. Fight harder. Roll losses when I'm leading 74/26 (which I know are stretched) makes me wanna break phone screens and other things within my reach. I hate that it's the way that the game levels itself out, between the lower levels and the elites

Posted by Fregoe on 2/15/2022 5:13:00 PM (view original):
I have yet to run a camp, its probably a mistake. But I just search geographically. What's the upside to using the camp as opposed to scouting by state?

This.

Posted by phalla on 2/19/2022 1:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Fregoe on 2/15/2022 5:13:00 PM (view original):
I have yet to run a camp, its probably a mistake. But I just search geographically. What's the upside to using the camp as opposed to scouting by state?

This.

because the private camp gives you 2 levels per guy for 60 bucks, while the assistant coach gives you 1 level per guy for 60 bucks. FSS is being used by everyone in all cases, i believe.

i use camps for most d1 seasons, occasionally if its a really small class i don't, and also when i don't start scouting till 2pm the day recruiting starts, i don't because its too late (unless i want to do nothing for the first cycle!). but generally speaking, its a good tool.

At D3 you can make a good case for skipping camps, depending on region. Out west where there are fewer recruits and larger geographic states, a camp makes more sense, but doing a camp in the East, it gets expensive fast. Even if you limit it to 50, you still might draw from 8+ states, and then to get full value you have to FSS those states, making your pool much too big to think about getting to L4 via asst (unless you’re going to limit to a couple positions, which brings its own issues of course). So now you’re probably committed to hand selection, or recruiting from L3.

For D2 and D1, camps are usually a good idea. I used to do D1 scouting just Top100, internationals, and a small local radius, but international competitiveness got to the point where I didn’t see the consistent value in that anymore, so I usually take the camp and the extra few dozen L4 stateside guys I get in my pool.

I only have 1 team at division 1. I never use camps. I tried it when it first started I felt it was a waste. I can scout all the local states and all the players in the top 100 within 225 miles and i still have about 30k in scouting budget. I don't understand the need to use camps at division 1 unless you plan on doing a lot of long distance scouting.....I think only once did I ever dip below 10k in scouting and thats because I was desperate to find a worthwhile player late in recruiting.

Posted by plague on 2/22/2022 10:53:00 PM (view original):
I only have 1 team at division 1. I never use camps. I tried it when it first started I felt it was a waste. I can scout all the local states and all the players in the top 100 within 225 miles and i still have about 30k in scouting budget. I don't understand the need to use camps at division 1 unless you plan on doing a lot of long distance scouting.....I think only once did I ever dip below 10k in scouting and thats because I was desperate to find a worthwhile player late in recruiting.

My mentality is somewhat the same, except that I DO long distance scouting. Can't miss out on a 5* with all very good preferences for me, just cuz he's 609 miles away from me. Sure it costs more. But you also have a higher chance of signing him with all your very goods. Also the reason I target far from home guys regularly. I feel it's THE strongest stand alone preference in HD. Sure it's costly. But if you go about it right, it's like spending 10k for a sure signing. Or spending 5k on two different rolls, which you could lose both (or even win both!).

Risk vs reward. Name of the game

My success (and enjoyment) skyrocketed when I started using the camp-FSS-Assistant search method. It's certainly the fastest method and always creates a big enough pool of players that I always run out of recruiting cash faster than I run out of players to spend it on.

If I was really diligent, I think there is probably other successful ways to scout (especially if you are willing to take the time to stalk who coaches are on after the cycle) but I'd rather commit my time to this game in other corners of it. I haven't played D3 in 3.0 but following this strategy to a T in D1 and D2 is a top recommendation for new players from me.