Posted by georgerollin on 2/18/2021 10:55:00 AM (view original):
so basically this patch does nothing

I agree with George for once. But I'm ok with baby steps. We have an amazing game. And if minor changes is where it all begins...... I'm cool with it. Good things will come in the future.

Posted by fd343ny on 2/18/2021 7:14:00 PM (view original):
are there really folks at power five jobs who have not had a winning season in 20 years? really?

I totally agree that firings should be increased - with warnings along the way (better than the "expectations" messages - and better criteria.

There are coaches out there that aren't making NTs in 20 seasons in Big 6 conferences I believe. With baseline prestige being a thing, getting an A+ school down in the B- and C ranges, is grounds to be fired in my opinion.

I think people that are glued to a school for 60 seasons and say they'd quit if they got their team taken away, they don't even "have fun" playing the game anymore. They just go thru the motions. Let me be loud and clear, I'm the LEAST job hopping guy out there. I get a school and I stay. I've never moved back down a division. And I don't consider a coach moving UP a division to be a job hopping coach. Point is, I'm a guy that wants to stay put and build. But, as much fun as it is to get to the school of your choice, it gets stale. The times I move up and change jobs, I realize once again how fun this game is. And I don't realize it until I do it.

firings should be a MUST for big 6. As far as the season caps (whether it's 30, 50, 200 seasons, whatever), by the time someones been at a school that long, they're like a grumpy old man. Stuck in their ways. A change in schools would bring back some fun that has been forgotten, and it wouldn't turn out as bad as they think..... "my screen has had a red logo for 60 seasons, and now I have to look at a blue one. This sucks"...... really guys? We're playing a game. We're not owners of a piece of property.

I love staying put. But after 60 seasons I would love it if someone smacked me in the face and said, you've been there forever! Go do something else for fun! That's way to long.

Posted by mlitney on 2/19/2021 2:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/19/2021 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Ambivalent on promises. I think they’re fine as is. Teams who are giving starts and significant time to freshmen are risking games and potentially postseason seeding, and that matters. It’s a pretty balanced risk/reward choice right now. Promises are most powerfully utilized by teams who are “punching up” for recruits, a C+ team battling an A team for a recruit, where the C+ team can promise a start and 25, while the A team may only want to promise 10 or 15, or nothing at all. Dis-incentivizing the promise will discourage these battles over time, which is probably the opposite of what we want.

I think it makes some sense to have players with a “wants to play” preference lose work ethic faster, and maybe transfer in progressive years in cases when they lose *significant* minutes. They don’t seem to ever transfer now, and that maybe isn’t necessary. But definitely don’t make it absolute, nor for all players. And it really shouldn’t apply to losing a starting spot, either. I don’t think any player in real life is guaranteed a 4-year starting spot, that doesn’t seem realistic. At that level, it should be understood you have to perform on the court every year, because coach is on the trail this year making the same kinds of promises to next year’s freshmen that he made to you last year.

And a hard pass on extending to the postseason in any year. LOL to the idea that any recruit is going to influence Coach K or Coach Cal on a postseason lineup decision with a “Now coach, I know it’s the Final 4, but remember what you told me that one time at my High School gym...”

I disagree with you on postseason seeding mattering that much. Every season in every world you see teams that are hampered by starting freshmen get low seeds, only to start their upperclassmen in the postseason and make the FF as an 8-10 seed. I know we've all been stung as a top seed losing in the 2nd round to a great team that started 3 freshman in the regular season. I'd say the risk is much lower than the reward, especially since success in this game is 80% recruiting.

I also feel like having to manage promises/starts will help to separate the good coaches from the great ones. And if anything, I feel like it benefits lower prestige schools who can be a little more careless with promises. They won't be targeting multiple 5-star recruits each season and so they can afford to offer big minutes and starts to 1 recruit where top tier teams really can't.

Also, as an added benefit, there will almost certainly be more top-tier transfers which helps out with the EE situation.

Really? An 8-10 seed in the final 4 in every world, every year?

I think people overstate the case, because like bad beats, they remember the cases where they see the 8-10 seeds advance in this way - especially if they lose to them. What they don’t remember are the good teams who don’t advance, or miss the tournament entirely because of bad early losses, when they were giving lots of minutes to freshmen. The latter is far more common, I think. It’s just not noteworthy.

Seeding matters a lot. You’re much more likely to get a favorable path to the E8 from a 1-2 than a 8-10 seed; and getting a top seed is much easier with no promises to fulfill.

As I said, I’m not opposed to *some* players losing work ethic, and in significant cases transferring; but that should be pretty rare and egregious cases. The senior redshirt trick for players who came with the wants to play preference, or who are very good for their division is a good place to start.

I think mlitney is correct. Seeding is somewhat irrelevant.

I say somewhat, because there is a structure that helps make the best teams get the higher seeds. Best, meaning wins/rpi/sos/etc...... but promises mess that up.

Shoe it's pretty obvious..... lower seeds win a LOT in this game. Cuz they're starting freshman during the season. And not in the post season

I'll chime in with the Home Visit bug. I discovered it and reported it. One day I was recruiting, and had offered like 10 HVs already. I decided to offer 6 more. Then decided in the same cycle to go ahead and go up to 20, but I could still offer 10 more instead of just 4, so I could actually have had 26 HVs on a player. I reported it as soon as I saw it. Not sure if anyone else discovered it. I am really excited about all of the new changes. I love the fact that admin actually cares and we are seeing improvements. Great job!

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/19/2021 11:04:00 PM (view original):
I think mlitney is correct. Seeding is somewhat irrelevant.

I say somewhat, because there is a structure that helps make the best teams get the higher seeds. Best, meaning wins/rpi/sos/etc...... but promises mess that up.

Shoe it's pretty obvious..... lower seeds win a LOT in this game. Cuz they're starting freshman during the season. And not in the post season

Yeah, I know how that thinking goes. And I explained how it’s based in some flawed premises. For example, the idea that every year in every world, there is a lower seed advancing to the final 4. Now that’s probably hyperbole. Fine. But it reflects the phenomenon I talked about above, how we remember the bad beats. In this case, it’s the bad beat of running into that “power house” 8 seed that was starting 3 freshmen this year. You remember that, because they upset you in the second round. But you don’t remember all the teams that started 3 freshmen and didn’t make the tournament because of it. There are more of those teams. And maybe that 8 seed loses in the sweet 16, running into another strong team, and just can’t pull off 3 top games in a row, where if it had earned the top seed it maybe deserved, it would have had an easier path.

Anyway, I got curious, so pulled the final four seeds from the last 5 D1 years in the 6 worlds I currently play. In Iba and Tark, 2 and 3 teams 8 seeds and lower reached the final four in the last 5 seasons. Didn’t happen more than once in the other 4 worlds I’m in, not at all in Knight or Smith.

Phelan

150 - 1,1,9,5

149 - 1,1,1,2

148 - 4,6,2,4

147 - 2,3,2,5

146 - 2,3,2,3

Naismith

123 - 2,3,3,4

122 - 9,3,2,7

121 - 2,4,1,2

120 - 2,4,2,3

119 - 1,3,1,1

Smith

122 - 4,2,3,3

121 - 2,4,1,1

120 - 2,3,1,4

119 - 5,1,2,1

118 - 1,1,1,1

Tarkanian

171 - 1,1,2,4

170 - 3,12,2,3

169 - 2,2,4,1

168 - 11,2,1,4

167 - 1,8,2,1

Iba

121 - 7,1,2,3

120 - 6,2,2,6

119 - 6,2,1,1

118 - 1,9,1,3

117 - 1,1,12,1

Knight

151 - 3,1,3,1

150 - 2,2,1,7

149 - 6,2,1,4

148 - 1,1,1,1

147 - 3,1,3,2

For whatever that’s worth.

Posted by mlitney on 2/19/2021 2:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/19/2021 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Ambivalent on promises. I think they’re fine as is. Teams who are giving starts and significant time to freshmen are risking games and potentially postseason seeding, and that matters. It’s a pretty balanced risk/reward choice right now. Promises are most powerfully utilized by teams who are “punching up” for recruits, a C+ team battling an A team for a recruit, where the C+ team can promise a start and 25, while the A team may only want to promise 10 or 15, or nothing at all. Dis-incentivizing the promise will discourage these battles over time, which is probably the opposite of what we want.

I think it makes some sense to have players with a “wants to play” preference lose work ethic faster, and maybe transfer in progressive years in cases when they lose *significant* minutes. They don’t seem to ever transfer now, and that maybe isn’t necessary. But definitely don’t make it absolute, nor for all players. And it really shouldn’t apply to losing a starting spot, either. I don’t think any player in real life is guaranteed a 4-year starting spot, that doesn’t seem realistic. At that level, it should be understood you have to perform on the court every year, because coach is on the trail this year making the same kinds of promises to next year’s freshmen that he made to you last year.

And a hard pass on extending to the postseason in any year. LOL to the idea that any recruit is going to influence Coach K or Coach Cal on a postseason lineup decision with a “Now coach, I know it’s the Final 4, but remember what you told me that one time at my High School gym...”

I disagree with you on postseason seeding mattering that much. Every season in every world you see teams that are hampered by starting freshmen get low seeds, only to start their upperclassmen in the postseason and make the FF as an 8-10 seed. I know we've all been stung as a top seed losing in the 2nd round to a great team that started 3 freshman in the regular season. I'd say the risk is much lower than the reward, especially since success in this game is 80% recruiting.

I also feel like having to manage promises/starts will help to separate the good coaches from the great ones. And if anything, I feel like it benefits lower prestige schools who can be a little more careless with promises. They won't be targeting multiple 5-star recruits each season and so they can afford to offer big minutes and starts to 1 recruit where top tier teams really can't.

Also, as an added benefit, there will almost certainly be more top-tier transfers which helps out with the EE situation.

success is wayyyyyyyyyy less than 80% recruiting, even in the most expansive view of what recruiting entails. i don't know why coaching and game understanding get such a bad wrap in this game. there's no way i would trade my mastery on the coaching side for equal mastery on the recruiting side. its not even close.

i don't know why a couple coaches are so frequently rocking those 8 seeds with those freshman. if you look in the 3-5 seeds you see more of the freshman heavy 1 seed caliber teams i think than those 6-10. usually a 1 seed with basically an inverted lineup should still be pulling a 3 or something. i'm honestly not sure what some folks do to take such good teams to those low seeds, its almost like they get a kick out of it and are doing it on purpose :)

i know i am one of the hyperbole-pushers on this but shoe is right that its overdone a bit, i've sort of softened my stance a bit. seeding may not matter much to me or perhaps as many as a couple dozen other high d1 coaches, but it does matter to most folks. and i sure as **** care if my 1 seed team drops to an 8!! that is a pretty real cost. 90% of my championship teams were not good enough to hand wave away a 1 to 8 drop, i can only think of 3 teams that were so good that a 1 to 8 (or 16 - roughly same thing) drop would have barely dented my odds. whenever i've had to sell my 'regular season doesn't matter, seeding doesn't matter, we play for the NT only' view of HD to co-coaches, i've always used the same standard - maybe the 1 seed teams drop to a 3 instead, and i assure them that will only happen sometimes, that its usually not that bad...

Why not open up a test world?

Set it up to have firings, season caps, 3 games a day, easier upward movement... any new idea that may make the game more appealing. Run in for 10 seasons and see how many users the new world has. If the numbers rival the other existing worlds then keep it. If it's numbers are low then modify it more or scrap it. This way you could leave existing worlds alone keeping your loyal users happy and the new world could somewhat cater to the users looking for change.

I have only been here a year so not a expert on this by any means. I really like the game as is but I can see the merit in make changes if it improves the experience for the users.

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/19/2021 11:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 2/19/2021 2:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/19/2021 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Ambivalent on promises. I think they’re fine as is. Teams who are giving starts and significant time to freshmen are risking games and potentially postseason seeding, and that matters. It’s a pretty balanced risk/reward choice right now. Promises are most powerfully utilized by teams who are “punching up” for recruits, a C+ team battling an A team for a recruit, where the C+ team can promise a start and 25, while the A team may only want to promise 10 or 15, or nothing at all. Dis-incentivizing the promise will discourage these battles over time, which is probably the opposite of what we want.

I think it makes some sense to have players with a “wants to play” preference lose work ethic faster, and maybe transfer in progressive years in cases when they lose *significant* minutes. They don’t seem to ever transfer now, and that maybe isn’t necessary. But definitely don’t make it absolute, nor for all players. And it really shouldn’t apply to losing a starting spot, either. I don’t think any player in real life is guaranteed a 4-year starting spot, that doesn’t seem realistic. At that level, it should be understood you have to perform on the court every year, because coach is on the trail this year making the same kinds of promises to next year’s freshmen that he made to you last year.

And a hard pass on extending to the postseason in any year. LOL to the idea that any recruit is going to influence Coach K or Coach Cal on a postseason lineup decision with a “Now coach, I know it’s the Final 4, but remember what you told me that one time at my High School gym...”

I disagree with you on postseason seeding mattering that much. Every season in every world you see teams that are hampered by starting freshmen get low seeds, only to start their upperclassmen in the postseason and make the FF as an 8-10 seed. I know we've all been stung as a top seed losing in the 2nd round to a great team that started 3 freshman in the regular season. I'd say the risk is much lower than the reward, especially since success in this game is 80% recruiting.

I also feel like having to manage promises/starts will help to separate the good coaches from the great ones. And if anything, I feel like it benefits lower prestige schools who can be a little more careless with promises. They won't be targeting multiple 5-star recruits each season and so they can afford to offer big minutes and starts to 1 recruit where top tier teams really can't.

Also, as an added benefit, there will almost certainly be more top-tier transfers which helps out with the EE situation.

success is wayyyyyyyyyy less than 80% recruiting, even in the most expansive view of what recruiting entails. i don't know why coaching and game understanding get such a bad wrap in this game. there's no way i would trade my mastery on the coaching side for equal mastery on the recruiting side. its not even close.

Gil, generally even if I don't agree with one of your opinions, I always respect you. And I know you know a lot about this game. You're very good at the game. And you have the right mindset about approaching the game. You're helpful, give good advice, all sorts of things.

But 80% recruiting is not too high at all. Go pick a crap team and let's see this mastery of coaching go to work. I feel I have a masters in coaching as well. But not a single coach in this game can do well without talent.

Coaching can make a non tourney team, a tourney team. Coaching can make a 1st round team a S16 team. But coaching can NOT make a 1st round team in to a F4 team or a title team. It's just not do-able. Talent trumps all. Coaching has an impact. And good coaches like you and I can stretch that further than maybe an average coach can. But your mastery of coaching is NOT going to do unthinkable things. It's just NOT man. If you have examples (with proof, numbers, stats, etc) share them here.

Using my D2 brain, it's generally around 70 ATH/DEF that makes good teams. So I'm not asking to see teams that are 65/65, because I've won with that. That's not Mastery. That's still talent. I'm talking about I wanna see where you've done amazing things with a team that's 50/50. Because THAT would be coaching mastery that has a major impact. 70/70 is recruiting talent. 65/65 is recruiting talent. 50/50 would be coaching talent if you can succeed.

(Now of course translate that to D1 numbers since you're a D1 coach. And show me this evidence of Master gil with **** recruiting on a **** team that can do amazing things. Only THEN will I believe you)

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/20/2021 10:15:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/19/2021 11:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 2/19/2021 2:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/19/2021 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Ambivalent on promises. I think they’re fine as is. Teams who are giving starts and significant time to freshmen are risking games and potentially postseason seeding, and that matters. It’s a pretty balanced risk/reward choice right now. Promises are most powerfully utilized by teams who are “punching up” for recruits, a C+ team battling an A team for a recruit, where the C+ team can promise a start and 25, while the A team may only want to promise 10 or 15, or nothing at all. Dis-incentivizing the promise will discourage these battles over time, which is probably the opposite of what we want.

I think it makes some sense to have players with a “wants to play” preference lose work ethic faster, and maybe transfer in progressive years in cases when they lose *significant* minutes. They don’t seem to ever transfer now, and that maybe isn’t necessary. But definitely don’t make it absolute, nor for all players. And it really shouldn’t apply to losing a starting spot, either. I don’t think any player in real life is guaranteed a 4-year starting spot, that doesn’t seem realistic. At that level, it should be understood you have to perform on the court every year, because coach is on the trail this year making the same kinds of promises to next year’s freshmen that he made to you last year.

And a hard pass on extending to the postseason in any year. LOL to the idea that any recruit is going to influence Coach K or Coach Cal on a postseason lineup decision with a “Now coach, I know it’s the Final 4, but remember what you told me that one time at my High School gym...”

I disagree with you on postseason seeding mattering that much. Every season in every world you see teams that are hampered by starting freshmen get low seeds, only to start their upperclassmen in the postseason and make the FF as an 8-10 seed. I know we've all been stung as a top seed losing in the 2nd round to a great team that started 3 freshman in the regular season. I'd say the risk is much lower than the reward, especially since success in this game is 80% recruiting.

I also feel like having to manage promises/starts will help to separate the good coaches from the great ones. And if anything, I feel like it benefits lower prestige schools who can be a little more careless with promises. They won't be targeting multiple 5-star recruits each season and so they can afford to offer big minutes and starts to 1 recruit where top tier teams really can't.

Also, as an added benefit, there will almost certainly be more top-tier transfers which helps out with the EE situation.

success is wayyyyyyyyyy less than 80% recruiting, even in the most expansive view of what recruiting entails. i don't know why coaching and game understanding get such a bad wrap in this game. there's no way i would trade my mastery on the coaching side for equal mastery on the recruiting side. its not even close.

Gil, generally even if I don't agree with one of your opinions, I always respect you. And I know you know a lot about this game. You're very good at the game. And you have the right mindset about approaching the game. You're helpful, give good advice, all sorts of things.

But 80% recruiting is not too high at all. Go pick a crap team and let's see this mastery of coaching go to work. I feel I have a masters in coaching as well. But not a single coach in this game can do well without talent.

Coaching can make a non tourney team, a tourney team. Coaching can make a 1st round team a S16 team. But coaching can NOT make a 1st round team in to a F4 team or a title team. It's just not do-able. Talent trumps all. Coaching has an impact. And good coaches like you and I can stretch that further than maybe an average coach can. But your mastery of coaching is NOT going to do unthinkable things. It's just NOT man. If you have examples (with proof, numbers, stats, etc) share them here.

Using my D2 brain, it's generally around 70 ATH/DEF that makes good teams. So I'm not asking to see teams that are 65/65, because I've won with that. That's not Mastery. That's still talent. I'm talking about I wanna see where you've done amazing things with a team that's 50/50. Because THAT would be coaching mastery that has a major impact. 70/70 is recruiting talent. 65/65 is recruiting talent. 50/50 would be coaching talent if you can succeed.

(Now of course translate that to D1 numbers since you're a D1 coach. And show me this evidence of Master gil with **** recruiting on a **** team that can do amazing things. Only THEN will I believe you)

this is such ridiculous hyperbole its hard to even take seriously. i said recruiting is way less than 80% - and i stand by that 100%. in no way does that mean someone can take a 50/50 crap team and beat 70/70 great teams. that's not what its about.

first off - i consider player evaluation (how good recruits are - not which to target) and EE planning to both be coaching functions. the primary driver of those decisions is the understanding of what makes players and team goods, not understanding of recruiting mechanics. by that view i'd call recruiting mechanics about 30% of success. but most folks look at recruiting more broadly, which as i said i kinda disagree with, but even under that view... 80% is nuts.

by the reverse logic, if recruiting is 80%, show me a ridiculously terribly coached team with awesome players who won... you won't be able to either. it would be ridiculous hyperbole just like yours?

anyway here's the rub. excellent recruiting and good coaching is enough to be pretty successful in this game. there are top 25 coaches all time who i would describe as such. if recruiting was SO much more important, you'd expect the reverse to be not nearly enough. excellent coaching with good recruiting - is that enough to be amazing? that is the question i think is reasonable, not whether i can take a sim ai recruited d1 team to the final 4. if recruiting is so much more important than coaching, i would think the assertion would go like "good recruiting with excellent coaching shouldn't be enough for world domination". but it is.

i'd be happy to continue the conversation, but only on the terms of some mutually agreeable perspective. there's no point in us going back in forth if you are taking my pushback to 'recruiting is almost everything' as something that requires proof of vastly inferior teams destroying the best ones. my claim is that people over-emphasize recruiting, and that exceptional coaching can lead to exceptional results, with merely good recruiting. and to quantify a bit, i feel like if i was roughly the 100th best recruiter in the game d1 today, i could compete for the best program in the game pretty easily. similarly, the best recruiting coach in the game could do that if they were the 100th best coaching coach. i'm not saying the coaching is vastly more important. i'm saying recruiting isn't.

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/19/2021 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fd343ny on 2/18/2021 7:14:00 PM (view original):
are there really folks at power five jobs who have not had a winning season in 20 years? really?

I totally agree that firings should be increased - with warnings along the way (better than the "expectations" messages - and better criteria.

There are coaches out there that aren't making NTs in 20 seasons in Big 6 conferences I believe. With baseline prestige being a thing, getting an A+ school down in the B- and C ranges, is grounds to be fired in my opinion.

I think people that are glued to a school for 60 seasons and say they'd quit if they got their team taken away, they don't even "have fun" playing the game anymore. They just go thru the motions. Let me be loud and clear, I'm the LEAST job hopping guy out there. I get a school and I stay. I've never moved back down a division. And I don't consider a coach moving UP a division to be a job hopping coach. Point is, I'm a guy that wants to stay put and build. But, as much fun as it is to get to the school of your choice, it gets stale. The times I move up and change jobs, I realize once again how fun this game is. And I don't realize it until I do it.

firings should be a MUST for big 6. As far as the season caps (whether it's 30, 50, 200 seasons, whatever), by the time someones been at a school that long, they're like a grumpy old man. Stuck in their ways. A change in schools would bring back some fun that has been forgotten, and it wouldn't turn out as bad as they think..... "my screen has had a red logo for 60 seasons, and now I have to look at a blue one. This sucks"...... really guys? We're playing a game. We're not owners of a piece of property.

I love staying put. But after 60 seasons I would love it if someone smacked me in the face and said, you've been there forever! Go do something else for fun! That's way to long.

Firings for poor performance at a Big 6 should be a thing, that's simple.

But I am strongly against a season cap on coaches who've been at the same school for a long time, especially if they are still successful. I have Indiana in Wooden. I'm from Indiana and grew up watching IU. I have Oklahoma State in Iba. I graduated from OSU, and waited patiently to qualify for them. While there, I've made multiple Elite Eights and even won a title -- OSU's first in 3.0.

If I were suddenly told, "Oh, you've been at Oklahoma State for sixty seasons. It's time to leave and take a random job, maybe Ole Miss or Nebraska?" my excitement for HD would certainly lessen, probably significantly. For me, OSU, and even IU, hasn't gotten stale, and I'm definitely not going through the motions. I'm not a grumpy old man. I'm not stuck in my ways. Getting to my alma mater, then winning a championship at my alma mater is my single greatest moment in HD.

So I respect your opinion, as always, top, but I couldn't disagree more.

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/20/2021 11:13:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/20/2021 10:15:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/19/2021 11:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 2/19/2021 2:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 2/19/2021 1:54:00 PM (view original):
Ambivalent on promises. I think they’re fine as is. Teams who are giving starts and significant time to freshmen are risking games and potentially postseason seeding, and that matters. It’s a pretty balanced risk/reward choice right now. Promises are most powerfully utilized by teams who are “punching up” for recruits, a C+ team battling an A team for a recruit, where the C+ team can promise a start and 25, while the A team may only want to promise 10 or 15, or nothing at all. Dis-incentivizing the promise will discourage these battles over time, which is probably the opposite of what we want.

I think it makes some sense to have players with a “wants to play” preference lose work ethic faster, and maybe transfer in progressive years in cases when they lose *significant* minutes. They don’t seem to ever transfer now, and that maybe isn’t necessary. But definitely don’t make it absolute, nor for all players. And it really shouldn’t apply to losing a starting spot, either. I don’t think any player in real life is guaranteed a 4-year starting spot, that doesn’t seem realistic. At that level, it should be understood you have to perform on the court every year, because coach is on the trail this year making the same kinds of promises to next year’s freshmen that he made to you last year.

And a hard pass on extending to the postseason in any year. LOL to the idea that any recruit is going to influence Coach K or Coach Cal on a postseason lineup decision with a “Now coach, I know it’s the Final 4, but remember what you told me that one time at my High School gym...”

I disagree with you on postseason seeding mattering that much. Every season in every world you see teams that are hampered by starting freshmen get low seeds, only to start their upperclassmen in the postseason and make the FF as an 8-10 seed. I know we've all been stung as a top seed losing in the 2nd round to a great team that started 3 freshman in the regular season. I'd say the risk is much lower than the reward, especially since success in this game is 80% recruiting.

I also feel like having to manage promises/starts will help to separate the good coaches from the great ones. And if anything, I feel like it benefits lower prestige schools who can be a little more careless with promises. They won't be targeting multiple 5-star recruits each season and so they can afford to offer big minutes and starts to 1 recruit where top tier teams really can't.

Also, as an added benefit, there will almost certainly be more top-tier transfers which helps out with the EE situation.

success is wayyyyyyyyyy less than 80% recruiting, even in the most expansive view of what recruiting entails. i don't know why coaching and game understanding get such a bad wrap in this game. there's no way i would trade my mastery on the coaching side for equal mastery on the recruiting side. its not even close.

Gil, generally even if I don't agree with one of your opinions, I always respect you. And I know you know a lot about this game. You're very good at the game. And you have the right mindset about approaching the game. You're helpful, give good advice, all sorts of things.

But 80% recruiting is not too high at all. Go pick a crap team and let's see this mastery of coaching go to work. I feel I have a masters in coaching as well. But not a single coach in this game can do well without talent.

Coaching can make a non tourney team, a tourney team. Coaching can make a 1st round team a S16 team. But coaching can NOT make a 1st round team in to a F4 team or a title team. It's just not do-able. Talent trumps all. Coaching has an impact. And good coaches like you and I can stretch that further than maybe an average coach can. But your mastery of coaching is NOT going to do unthinkable things. It's just NOT man. If you have examples (with proof, numbers, stats, etc) share them here.

Using my D2 brain, it's generally around 70 ATH/DEF that makes good teams. So I'm not asking to see teams that are 65/65, because I've won with that. That's not Mastery. That's still talent. I'm talking about I wanna see where you've done amazing things with a team that's 50/50. Because THAT would be coaching mastery that has a major impact. 70/70 is recruiting talent. 65/65 is recruiting talent. 50/50 would be coaching talent if you can succeed.

(Now of course translate that to D1 numbers since you're a D1 coach. And show me this evidence of Master gil with **** recruiting on a **** team that can do amazing things. Only THEN will I believe you)

this is such ridiculous hyperbole its hard to even take seriously. i said recruiting is way less than 80% - and i stand by that 100%. in no way does that mean someone can take a 50/50 crap team and beat 70/70 great teams. that's not what its about.

first off - i consider player evaluation (how good recruits are - not which to target) and EE planning to both be coaching functions. the primary driver of those decisions is the understanding of what makes players and team goods, not understanding of recruiting mechanics. by that view i'd call recruiting mechanics about 30% of success. but most folks look at recruiting more broadly, which as i said i kinda disagree with, but even under that view... 80% is nuts.

by the reverse logic, if recruiting is 80%, show me a ridiculously terribly coached team with awesome players who won... you won't be able to either. it would be ridiculous hyperbole just like yours?

anyway here's the rub. excellent recruiting and good coaching is enough to be pretty successful in this game. there are top 25 coaches all time who i would describe as such. if recruiting was SO much more important, you'd expect the reverse to be not nearly enough. excellent coaching with good recruiting - is that enough to be amazing? that is the question i think is reasonable, not whether i can take a sim ai recruited d1 team to the final 4. if recruiting is so much more important than coaching, i would think the assertion would go like "good recruiting with excellent coaching shouldn't be enough for world domination". but it is.

i'd be happy to continue the conversation, but only on the terms of some mutually agreeable perspective. there's no point in us going back in forth if you are taking my pushback to 'recruiting is almost everything' as something that requires proof of vastly inferior teams destroying the best ones. my claim is that people over-emphasize recruiting, and that exceptional coaching can lead to exceptional results, with merely good recruiting. and to quantify a bit, i feel like if i was roughly the 100th best recruiter in the game d1 today, i could compete for the best program in the game pretty easily. similarly, the best recruiting coach in the game could do that if they were the 100th best coaching coach. i'm not saying the coaching is vastly more important. i'm saying recruiting isn't.

Gil I purposely stretched it to be able to point out what I'm getting at. Having said that, I only read like the first sentence and will read it later.

But my point is, a 70/70 team and a 65/65 team can be equal or different. There's other aspects of the game, ball skills, scoring, etc. But if you don't think recruiting is 80%, what do you think it is? 50%? And if you do think it's 50%, then it WOULD take you winning with a crap roster (somewhat) for me to believe that. If you think recruiting is 75%, then why are we even discussing this? That's close to 80%. Almost the same thing. So from what I'm taking from your conversation about "mastery coaching", that would have to mean significantly worse team. If you're not talking about having a chance with a significantly worse team, then we're back to recruiting being 75 to 80% again.

So fill me in on what percentage you think, and we'll go from there

One more add on..... generally speaking, good coaches are good coaches because they can recruit AND game plan. If we take every coach that has 10 titles (or maybe not even titles. Let's say 20 or 30 F4s), none of them would be terrible recruiters or terrible game planners. I've ALWAYS agreed with your point about "factoring in EEs, seeing into the future for your roster balance, etc" being part of game planning. You couldn't be more right about that. That's what makes a great coach an elite coach.

So for what I'm getting at, let's say we took 16 solid teams and 16 elite coaches. And played 16 different "S16 and beyond tourneys". And all the teams stayed the same each time. Some with different strengths. Some have better ball skills, some have better ATH/DEF, some have better shooting, etc. But we each got to play 1 time with all 16 of the teams. In a round Robin type of setup. Does that make sense.

If we were to do that, I'm willing to bet that Gil doesn't go 16-0 winning every title because of his mastery coaching. I bet it would be fairly equal in wins amongst the coaching part (some would do better than others I'm sure. But it wouldn't be total domination by one or a couple). But what I believe we would see is a couple of those 16 teams be dominant over the rest. Whichever teams were built the best in our random format.

Posted by pallas on 2/20/2021 12:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/19/2021 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fd343ny on 2/18/2021 7:14:00 PM (view original):
are there really folks at power five jobs who have not had a winning season in 20 years? really?

I totally agree that firings should be increased - with warnings along the way (better than the "expectations" messages - and better criteria.

There are coaches out there that aren't making NTs in 20 seasons in Big 6 conferences I believe. With baseline prestige being a thing, getting an A+ school down in the B- and C ranges, is grounds to be fired in my opinion.

I think people that are glued to a school for 60 seasons and say they'd quit if they got their team taken away, they don't even "have fun" playing the game anymore. They just go thru the motions. Let me be loud and clear, I'm the LEAST job hopping guy out there. I get a school and I stay. I've never moved back down a division. And I don't consider a coach moving UP a division to be a job hopping coach. Point is, I'm a guy that wants to stay put and build. But, as much fun as it is to get to the school of your choice, it gets stale. The times I move up and change jobs, I realize once again how fun this game is. And I don't realize it until I do it.

firings should be a MUST for big 6. As far as the season caps (whether it's 30, 50, 200 seasons, whatever), by the time someones been at a school that long, they're like a grumpy old man. Stuck in their ways. A change in schools would bring back some fun that has been forgotten, and it wouldn't turn out as bad as they think..... "my screen has had a red logo for 60 seasons, and now I have to look at a blue one. This sucks"...... really guys? We're playing a game. We're not owners of a piece of property.

I love staying put. But after 60 seasons I would love it if someone smacked me in the face and said, you've been there forever! Go do something else for fun! That's way to long.

Firings for poor performance at a Big 6 should be a thing, that's simple.

But I am strongly against a season cap on coaches who've been at the same school for a long time, especially if they are still successful. I have Indiana in Wooden. I'm from Indiana and grew up watching IU. I have Oklahoma State in Iba. I graduated from OSU, and waited patiently to qualify for them. While there, I've made multiple Elite Eights and even won a title -- OSU's first in 3.0.

If I were suddenly told, "Oh, you've been at Oklahoma State for sixty seasons. It's time to leave and take a random job, maybe Ole Miss or Nebraska?" my excitement for HD would certainly lessen, probably significantly. For me, OSU, and even IU, hasn't gotten stale, and I'm definitely not going through the motions. I'm not a grumpy old man. I'm not stuck in my ways. Getting to my alma mater, then winning a championship at my alma mater is my single greatest moment in HD.

So I respect your opinion, as always, top, but I couldn't disagree more.

Fair enough. And I'm sure you'd be VERY disappointed if you had to leave your school. I believe that. And wouldn't argue that.

What I do argue is that if you were forced to leave, when you get good ol Iowa or LSU because you had to leave, you'd have fun playing the game there too. That is my point. The game isn't fun because of Indiana or Oklahoma St. It's fun because it's fun and I think we forget that at times.

You had fun this entire time GETTING to your school of choice I would imagine, no?

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/20/2021 3:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by pallas on 2/20/2021 12:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 2/19/2021 7:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fd343ny on 2/18/2021 7:14:00 PM (view original):
are there really folks at power five jobs who have not had a winning season in 20 years? really?

I totally agree that firings should be increased - with warnings along the way (better than the "expectations" messages - and better criteria.

There are coaches out there that aren't making NTs in 20 seasons in Big 6 conferences I believe. With baseline prestige being a thing, getting an A+ school down in the B- and C ranges, is grounds to be fired in my opinion.

I think people that are glued to a school for 60 seasons and say they'd quit if they got their team taken away, they don't even "have fun" playing the game anymore. They just go thru the motions. Let me be loud and clear, I'm the LEAST job hopping guy out there. I get a school and I stay. I've never moved back down a division. And I don't consider a coach moving UP a division to be a job hopping coach. Point is, I'm a guy that wants to stay put and build. But, as much fun as it is to get to the school of your choice, it gets stale. The times I move up and change jobs, I realize once again how fun this game is. And I don't realize it until I do it.

firings should be a MUST for big 6. As far as the season caps (whether it's 30, 50, 200 seasons, whatever), by the time someones been at a school that long, they're like a grumpy old man. Stuck in their ways. A change in schools would bring back some fun that has been forgotten, and it wouldn't turn out as bad as they think..... "my screen has had a red logo for 60 seasons, and now I have to look at a blue one. This sucks"...... really guys? We're playing a game. We're not owners of a piece of property.

I love staying put. But after 60 seasons I would love it if someone smacked me in the face and said, you've been there forever! Go do something else for fun! That's way to long.

Firings for poor performance at a Big 6 should be a thing, that's simple.

But I am strongly against a season cap on coaches who've been at the same school for a long time, especially if they are still successful. I have Indiana in Wooden. I'm from Indiana and grew up watching IU. I have Oklahoma State in Iba. I graduated from OSU, and waited patiently to qualify for them. While there, I've made multiple Elite Eights and even won a title -- OSU's first in 3.0.

If I were suddenly told, "Oh, you've been at Oklahoma State for sixty seasons. It's time to leave and take a random job, maybe Ole Miss or Nebraska?" my excitement for HD would certainly lessen, probably significantly. For me, OSU, and even IU, hasn't gotten stale, and I'm definitely not going through the motions. I'm not a grumpy old man. I'm not stuck in my ways. Getting to my alma mater, then winning a championship at my alma mater is my single greatest moment in HD.

So I respect your opinion, as always, top, but I couldn't disagree more.

Fair enough. And I'm sure you'd be VERY disappointed if you had to leave your school. I believe that. And wouldn't argue that.

What I do argue is that if you were forced to leave, when you get good ol Iowa or LSU because you had to leave, you'd have fun playing the game there too. That is my point. The game isn't fun because of Indiana or Oklahoma St. It's fun because it's fun and I think we forget that at times.

You had fun this entire time GETTING to your school of choice I would imagine, no?

The game is MORE fun--by a wide margin--than when I was coaching anywhere else. If I were suddenly told I had to leave, it would cease being so fun for me. I know I wouldn't care as much about Iowa or LSU as I do with Oklahoma State. Day one in WIS, I looked at Oklahoma State. That was the goal. I joined a second world because Oklahoma State was taken in my first world.

If it's stale for people, let them make that decision. Like you did. DII had gotten stale for you, so you went to DI in some of your worlds, and now the game, as you said earlier, is more fun for you. My friend Crab had the game get stale for him at Oregon, so he went to Miami. Boom, no longer stale. If the game's not stale for me, and if I'm still making the NT and winning games in the NT, don't force me out to play the game a certain way. It will then be less fun. Personal connection makes the game fun for me, and I'm sure for many others. That's why we have dream jobs.