My group of Track Stars and George Lux (stupid guy is only at 56 DE as a junior-:p) at U. of Indianapolis are ripping up the competition and is 9-0 with the sixth RPI in the country. We have taken a whopping 75 less shots, because of more free throws and also because we rebound 23% of misses (extremely terrible) while our opponents get 27% of their misses (slightly below average). We have made 33 threes or about 3.5 per game to our opponent's 51 threes or 5.5 per game. Although we have a stellar assist rate (56%--from what I have seen 40% is average and 50%+ is fantastic) to our opponents 34% we turn the ball over a TON for a top tier team. We don't really get steals or blocks (our Team Average Player Disruption Rating--1 point for a steal 2/3 for a block is only an average of 3.32 on our team. I would say average for a non-pressing team is about 4.5 and 5.5 for a pressing team.) We are squarely below average in almost every statistical measure I use to analyze my team except for Defensive Rebounding (average) and Assist Rate (Top 10 in the nation I would guess).

That's okay. All we need is defense and free throws. We hold our opponents to a laughable 48% true shooting percentage. 45% from 2 and even more impressive 28% from three. Against the 44th SOS we committed only 13.5 fouls a game, good for second in the nation. We Shot between 27-32 free throws in every game this year (a little wacky consistency I guess) and our opponents only reached 20 free throws once and were held to SINGLE DIGITS twice. I though this team would be a 9-12 seed--If we keep this up I'll be a two seed. After jobs, I think devaluing Defense+Athleticism should be the next step. How is this relevant to 3.0? I love the shot-clock to 30 seconds update but now it is even harder to play against Ath+De powerhouse teams, like mine. What is the average projected De of guys I recruited? A solid 87.

There are many ways to win. TheOnly (before he went completely off the rails mentally in the forums) had a bunch of higher SPD and lower ATH teams and won championships ..at least at D2.

I think one still needs good Defense and I stilll think ATH is important for the 3, 4 and 5 positions .. but I have certainly seen people be able to make up low ATH with SPD .. but rebounding is much harder with low ATH.

I go back to .. there are many ways to win :D

Posted by hughesjr on 10/21/2016 9:08:00 PM (view original):
There are many ways to win. TheOnly (before he went completely off the rails mentally in the forums) had a bunch of higher SPD and lower ATH teams and won championships ..at least at D2.

I think one still needs good Defense and I stilll think ATH is important for the 3, 4 and 5 positions .. but I have certainly seen people be able to make up low ATH with SPD .. but rebounding is much harder with low ATH.

I go back to .. there are many ways to win :D

Also, I feel that I have seen 90 PE, 80 BH, 80 SP beast guards score better than 100 LP and 80 Ath bigs. Would you say that scoring is easier for guards or is it just my minimal experience and small sample size?

You assume a lot cub.
1st - your team really isn't that fast for DII
2nd - ripping up SIMS for a 9-0 start really isn't a telling tale.

Lets see how the rest of your season goes before declaring the system broken,

Posted by mullycj on 10/21/2016 10:55:00 PM (view original):
You assume a lot cub.
1st - your team really isn't that fast for DII
2nd - ripping up SIMS for a 9-0 start really isn't a telling tale.

Lets see how the rest of your season goes before declaring the system broken,

Ok. Maybe it isn't fast, you may be right about that one. However, my team played three pretty good human coached teams (two of them top 25 RPI) and another one that will get their record up later in the season. CSU Los Angeles and Nova Southeastern ,however, have all their upperclassmen (read as good players) recruited by a human coach. So that is 5 human recruited teams I have beaten. The five sim teams I've beaten are not regular sims. They have an average on 9.8 upperclassmen and have RPIs of: 45, 69, 80, 123, 145. I'm #3 in the projection report. The question is not quite is my team super-duper good?--there is no chance that they will sustain this nor is the question: has my team been super-duper good?--yes they have #3 on my projection report which is obviously very good. The question is why has my team been super-duper good? Is it a small sample size, do they just fit well together? Why? Is it just a small sample size, mully? If it is, great! Thanks for answering my question. I have enough experience to evaluate players pretty well, I would say, but not teams.

Your defense is carrying you and should continue. You also are stacked with upper classmen. That's always a decent combo to start with.

But I think your lack of offensive firepower will catch up to you vs the good humans in that conference. I boldly predict a 25-7 record and another 2nd round or sweet 16 appearance.

Posted by mullycj on 10/22/2016 12:34:00 PM (view original):
Your defense is carrying you and should continue. You also are stacked with upper classmen. That's always a decent combo to start with.

But I think your lack of offensive firepower will catch up to you vs the good humans in that conference. I boldly predict a 25-7 record and another 2nd round or sweet 16 appearance.

Sounds pretty much what I would guess. Starting to catch up to us last night. Weiss should not be taking 29 shots...

You have a good enough team to win it all, but Mully's prediction is probably more realistic. I often build teams like the one you have, with high ATH, SPD and DEF, but low offensive skills. It can work pretty well and I have succeeded many times with such an approach.

Typically, what has worked best for me is to do it running a press. The reason being is that the high ATH and DEF skills will translate into a lot of turnovers for the other team, which then gives your weak offensive team easy points off steals and more possessions in which to get fouled and go to the line. That will help offset the lack of three point shooting.

See my current Newberry team. Not very good offensive ratings, but a guy like Marlon Lee (92 SPD) can still score a ton and overall we shoot a high percentage as a team.