So when Tark rolls over in a couple of days, I will have my best overall team in my short time of playing HD.

I am just looking for advice on how to become a better coach. When I first came here, I didn’t ask a ton of questions and kind of figured the game out for myself for the most part. I am obviously not well versed in the nuances that seperate championship teams from teams that drop out of the NT early.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Basically, the pinned thread by AE Jones ..is the place to start.

I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Very helpful, thank you.

Also just wanted to make one comment about Ostby. Would his insane potential at virtually all other categories justify taking him? At the start of his freshman year he was green in SPD/REB/BLK/PE/BH/P and Blue in DE/ST/DU. He was black for ATH and red for LP. I know that some of that is wasted since he is a center, but I couldn’t resist passing on someone with ridiculous potential like he had.

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 3:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Very helpful, thank you.

Also just wanted to make one comment about Ostby. Would his insane potential at virtually all other categories justify taking him? At the start of his freshman year he was green in SPD/REB/BLK/PE/BH/P and Blue in DE/ST/DU. He was black for ATH and red for LP. I know that some of that is wasted since he is a center, but I couldn’t resist passing on someone with ridiculous potential like he had.

On Ostby, there a ton of great potentials there, but just one problem. His ATH+DEF, even after fully developing, will be unplayable in a man to man defense.

Here are Ostby's minimum final ratings (i.e. worst case scenario as a senior, assuming you max out all categories...if you need a link to the Google spreadsheet to calculate this, sitemail me).
ATH -- 50
SPD -- 38
REB -- 98
DEF -- 38
BLK -- 85
LP -- 83
PER -- 40
BH -- 39
PASS -- 49
STAM -- 79
DUR -- 94

If he had a higher ATH (say, 65+), you could justify him as a bench scorer PF and emergency C. His best case scenario is 61 ATH, 45 DEF. That low ATH and DEF just kills you. He gives up as many points as he scores.

The other part to consider is this...even if you do recruit him, you need to redshirt him and play him sparingly as a freshman/sophomore. You can't be giving him 17 minutes a game with that DEF rating.

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 4:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 3:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Very helpful, thank you.

Also just wanted to make one comment about Ostby. Would his insane potential at virtually all other categories justify taking him? At the start of his freshman year he was green in SPD/REB/BLK/PE/BH/P and Blue in DE/ST/DU. He was black for ATH and red for LP. I know that some of that is wasted since he is a center, but I couldn’t resist passing on someone with ridiculous potential like he had.

On Ostby, there a ton of great potentials there, but just one problem. His ATH+DEF, even after fully developing, will be unplayable in a man to man defense.

Here are Ostby's minimum final ratings (i.e. worst case scenario as a senior, assuming you max out all categories...if you need a link to the Google spreadsheet to calculate this, sitemail me).
ATH -- 50
SPD -- 38
REB -- 98
DEF -- 38
BLK -- 85
LP -- 83
PER -- 40
BH -- 39
PASS -- 49
STAM -- 79
DUR -- 94

If he had a higher ATH (say, 65+), you could justify him as a bench scorer PF and emergency C. His best case scenario is 61 ATH, 45 DEF. That low ATH and DEF just kills you. He gives up as many points as he scores.

The other part to consider is this...even if you do recruit him, you need to redshirt him and play him sparingly as a freshman/sophomore. You can't be giving him 17 minutes a game with that DEF rating.

So how would you recommend I use him?

I plan on starting Lough, Davis, Aguilera, and Edwards. Do I start Ostby?

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 5:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 4:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 3:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Very helpful, thank you.

Also just wanted to make one comment about Ostby. Would his insane potential at virtually all other categories justify taking him? At the start of his freshman year he was green in SPD/REB/BLK/PE/BH/P and Blue in DE/ST/DU. He was black for ATH and red for LP. I know that some of that is wasted since he is a center, but I couldn’t resist passing on someone with ridiculous potential like he had.

On Ostby, there a ton of great potentials there, but just one problem. His ATH+DEF, even after fully developing, will be unplayable in a man to man defense.

Here are Ostby's minimum final ratings (i.e. worst case scenario as a senior, assuming you max out all categories...if you need a link to the Google spreadsheet to calculate this, sitemail me).
ATH -- 50
SPD -- 38
REB -- 98
DEF -- 38
BLK -- 85
LP -- 83
PER -- 40
BH -- 39
PASS -- 49
STAM -- 79
DUR -- 94

If he had a higher ATH (say, 65+), you could justify him as a bench scorer PF and emergency C. His best case scenario is 61 ATH, 45 DEF. That low ATH and DEF just kills you. He gives up as many points as he scores.

The other part to consider is this...even if you do recruit him, you need to redshirt him and play him sparingly as a freshman/sophomore. You can't be giving him 17 minutes a game with that DEF rating.

So how would you recommend I use him?

I plan on starting Lough, Davis, Aguilera, and Edwards. Do I start Ostby?

I don't think you can start him in man. It would be too easy for an opposing coach to increase the distribution to their center and kill you inside. He's probably going to end up at 50 ATH and 40 DEF. You can hide him against weak teams, but good teams will feast on him. He really is a D3 Enes Kanter.

I think you go into second session recruiting with a plan to get a good defensive center, even if his LP is low and have Ostby as backup PF and C.

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 5:34:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 5:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 4:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Wales_ on 5/7/2018 3:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by grimacedance on 5/7/2018 3:34:00 PM (view original):
I won't speak to the nuances of being a national title team (don't have one of those), but I did notice a few things looking through your roster.

-- You have to prioritize athleticism. The best way to describe it is as a force multiplier -- it makes nearly every other attribute more powerful. A 65 ATH/75 LP power forward will be much, much, much more effective scoring down low than a 45 ATH/80 LP guy. It has a huge impact on defense as well. You can go a little lower on ATH if you have a PG with destructive speed (Lough is a decent example of this on your roster). Unless your grouping of Maynard/Patel/Ostby is green or blue in ATH, they are all too low.

-- You are running man defense, so you cannot hide a weak defender anywhere. You have to make sure that all of your starters are above average defenders. Take a look at Ostby. At 49 ATH, 27 DE, he is going to be abused defensively by any competent opposing player. Think "Enes Kanter trying to guard Anthony Davis" level bad. You cannot afford to be playing any players who are not at least 50 DEF (you can recruit a player who is lower than that if his DEF is green/blue and you plan to redshirt him).

-- One thing I had to learn as I progressed was this: take a critical look at your team as if you were an opposing coach. What does your team do well? What would concern you in game planning against you? Too often, we collect recruits, but don't build a cohesive team. Looking at Millsaps, I love, love, love Edwards as a player. Could easily start for almost any midmajor D1. He has some readily identifiable skills (excellent shooter & ballhandler with high ATH and good SPD). I also like Davis as a good ATH, great DEF, good LP guy. But the rest of your team is just kinda there. So game planning you is pretty simple: if I can shut down Edwards, I can stop you (quick math: Edwards averaged 17.5 ppg in your wins and 12 ppg in your losses; you won every game that he scored more than 19 points). You will not win in HD as a one-man team.

-- Study the best teams. Go compare your roster to Colorado (D3). The lowest ATH on his roster is 52 and lowest DEF is 62. His team is so strong defensively that he can afford to spend practice time teaching them both man and press and alternative between those 2 defenses without losing any effectiveness (seems like he runs press unless the opposing team has the speed and ball-handling to beat it; if they do, he goes man). Just by looking at those two attributes, I know as an opposing coach that I am in for a defensive battle and there won't be any weak defenders for me to abuse. He runs triangle offense to get the ball to Post, Hughes and Tindle. So his team game plan is to have Post (89 ATH, 70 SPD, 98 PER) bomb me from outside with Tindle playing inside-outside at SF. I go outside to attack them, he throws it in to Hughes (74 ATH, 59 SPD, 95 LP) for easy baskets and if I try to stop Hughes, then Post/Tindle have open season from outside. Everything about his team is clearly defined. Every player has a role (Engelke is there to play superb defense, grab rebounds and block shots, etc.) within a specific attack. I got much better as a coach when I started trying to define every player's role on the roster and how they complemented each other.

Also, when you see a guy like Post, who was a first team All-American (https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/RatingsHistory.aspx?tid=12672&pid=3848436) go look at his ratings history. Right now, he is 89 ATH, 70 SPD, 74 DEF, 98 PER, 83 BH. But he was at 48 ATH, 52 SPD, 58 DEF, 50 PER, 44 BH when he was being recruited. He was a 492 overall recruit from Montana. I'd be willing to bet that he wasn't the subject of a heated recruiting battle. He wasn't ranked at his position. It's easy to look at Post now and see a stud player. But when you look at the ratings history for the best D3 players, you can begin to understand what those coaches saw in them when they were just recruits.

Very helpful, thank you.

Also just wanted to make one comment about Ostby. Would his insane potential at virtually all other categories justify taking him? At the start of his freshman year he was green in SPD/REB/BLK/PE/BH/P and Blue in DE/ST/DU. He was black for ATH and red for LP. I know that some of that is wasted since he is a center, but I couldn’t resist passing on someone with ridiculous potential like he had.

On Ostby, there a ton of great potentials there, but just one problem. His ATH+DEF, even after fully developing, will be unplayable in a man to man defense.

Here are Ostby's minimum final ratings (i.e. worst case scenario as a senior, assuming you max out all categories...if you need a link to the Google spreadsheet to calculate this, sitemail me).
ATH -- 50
SPD -- 38
REB -- 98
DEF -- 38
BLK -- 85
LP -- 83
PER -- 40
BH -- 39
PASS -- 49
STAM -- 79
DUR -- 94

If he had a higher ATH (say, 65+), you could justify him as a bench scorer PF and emergency C. His best case scenario is 61 ATH, 45 DEF. That low ATH and DEF just kills you. He gives up as many points as he scores.

The other part to consider is this...even if you do recruit him, you need to redshirt him and play him sparingly as a freshman/sophomore. You can't be giving him 17 minutes a game with that DEF rating.

So how would you recommend I use him?

I plan on starting Lough, Davis, Aguilera, and Edwards. Do I start Ostby?

I don't think you can start him in man. It would be too easy for an opposing coach to increase the distribution to their center and kill you inside. He's probably going to end up at 50 ATH and 40 DEF. You can hide him against weak teams, but good teams will feast on him. He really is a D3 Enes Kanter.

I think you go into second session recruiting with a plan to get a good defensive center, even if his LP is low and have Ostby as backup PF and C.

Hypothetically, what if I was zone? Would he be a viable starter then?

No. Zone can hide flaws but his ATH/DEF is so bad that it would be a liability.

Posted by gomiami1972 on 5/7/2018 8:13:00 PM (view original):
No. Zone can hide flaws but his ATH/DEF is so bad that it would be a liability.

This is correct.

Here is how you have to think of zone: for every below average ATH or DEF you have on the floor, you need an *equally* above average ATH or DEF player also on the floor.

Let's say your goal is 65 ATH, 65 DEF across all 5 players on the floor (which would be a good D3 zone defense). If you have a 50 ATH, 40 DEF guy, you need a 80 ATH, 90 DEF guy to balance him out (and the other 3 guys need to average 65-65). This is an oversimplification (there are some differences between front court and back court and 3-2 vs. 2-3 zone), but the general principle is true.

Zone is a license to use low defense guys, but only to the extent they are counteracted by high defense guys.

I disagree just a little. He could be a viable D3 starter at C in a 2-3, when he has upperclassman level (B+ and up) IQ. His block rating is good enough to make him something more than a defensive liability in that one position - the 5 in a 2-3. His elite rebounding is definitely a plus that can help a team win. I would not use him as a starter in a 3-2, unless I had a number of bust classes in a row. Hard pass for press and man.

It always depends on what else is available to you, however. He won’t kill you, but you can likely find someone better. I would not recommend switching defenses to accommodate him, and I would not recommend passing up on more talented players because you want to get the most out of him.

This is a great post - thanks for breaking down the ATH/DE this way for Zone. Early on I was too enamored with the Total OVR and virtually ignored the individual attributes. My Seniors are proof of my limited knowledge at the time. Too bad its taken 3 seasons for me to figure that out.

Posted by shoe3 on 5/7/2018 11:35:00 PM (view original):
I disagree just a little. He could be a viable D3 starter at C in a 2-3, when he has upperclassman level (B+ and up) IQ. His block rating is good enough to make him something more than a defensive liability in that one position - the 5 in a 2-3. His elite rebounding is definitely a plus that can help a team win. I would not use him as a starter in a 3-2, unless I had a number of bust classes in a row. Hard pass for press and man.

It always depends on what else is available to you, however. He won’t kill you, but you can likely find someone better. I would not recommend switching defenses to accommodate him, and I would not recommend passing up on more talented players because you want to get the most out of him.

I agree with all of this.

Im no expert but am relatively new to the game and have had some small level of success, here is my approach to gameplanning. My standard player distributions are 0-5, ive found being more balanced supports a better overall team (but will vary matchup to matchup or a team with a truly dominant scorer). Typically, and this varies, I have one or two bench scorers with a 3, 4, or 5 distro, just like my best offensive starters. So my gameplanning process is as follows.

1) look at opponents defense.
2) if m2m check out all 5 starters and look for any obvious defensive weakness (make a mental note of Ath, Spd), adjust distro accordingly (normally no major shifts, but as the situation warrants, possibly). Do the same with zone (2 guards together in 2-3, etc). If fastbreak, I rarely change from my standard distro for that team (again ive found balaned is better here).
3) check out a few of their gamelogs, do they vary tempo game by game? Always slowdown/fast? Frequently -2, or 1, or does it vary too? These affect again my distributions and my own pace. (Ex: id they standardly use -2 or are weak on perimeter, I may adjust up distro of 3pt shooters or adjust their 3p frequency up...0 to +1, etc.)
4) Then I take my mental note from before and try to decide if there is a major advantage in team ATH/DEF one way or the other. This will also affect my pace. If outclassed I often slowdown, if close but I have other advantages then normal, if you think yoi can elicit a bunch of fouls due to their poor Def/Ath potentially uptempo (but keep in mind your own BH/PAS and depth).

Now moving on to how I will defend them.

1) Do they have one dominant scorer? I may throw a double on him. If Im in man and have a very strong def at that position I may let it ride. Sometimes this is a bench guy, if they have pretty standard substitutions (again from Play By Play review) you can try to see who is most often on the floor with primary bench scorer, if its starters and other scorers I probably wont double, but if hes always with bench guys and scores in bunches I may double him. The only time I use two double Always is if they have a 1:1 sub. Ex: Starting SG is primary scorer, his direct sub is also primary bench scorer, Ive doubled both before but i try to avoid having two double always on the court at the same time, although some say it can be done.
2) often teams have one primary 3p shooter, if Im considering doubling that guy, but the rest of the team rarely shoots 3s, I might double the shooter but play -2 or visa versa.
3) then I look at 2 things in their player stats page (total totals not averages). What % of all FGA are 3PA (NOT 3P%, but 3PA/FGA), and how many times per game do they get to the line. I use about 33% as a standard 0 defense, if they shoot 3s at a significantly higher or lower rate Ill adjust my +/-. If they shoot a lot of FT per game I may not go quite as low as I normally would (25ish+?)
4) if Im in zone, my only real decision is my own +/-, I use a rule of thumb that 2/3 +1 or +2 equals M2M 0, and 3-2 -1 or -2.

Theres probably a lot more nuance in there Im forgetting but despite the wordy response I try to keep it simple, takes about 5min or less for me to plan most games. Love to hear other takes on it.

Finally, I prefer not to change my depth chart around a ton, but I will if the matchup calls for it. Ex: they have a really weak backup SG, I may move someone around to try to exploit that. Good luck

edit: this is way longer than it felt typing it on my phone, feel free to sitemail me with other questions. Just keep in mind Im not a long time expert, just sharing what more or less works for me.

Some really solid advice from grimace. Nice job.

Wales- take a look at your teams and assign every player a "role". Then look at where you have gaps.

For example - if you have 4 guys you label as defensive studs but no PG then you have a problem. Or if you have no bonafide scorer, you have a problem.

Understanding the ratings is key for this. Right now Millsaps doesn't really have a PG. Best passing is 60? Maybe with improvement you will get higher passing but right now you don't have a legit PG and it hurts you. Try to look for things like that.