Without saying *too* much, I think many in this thread may need to re-examine how they value recruits at D1. The “best” players may not return the most value over the career of the player (just like real life) — many highly rated recruits in HD essentially function as 2-year JUCOs, valuable for only one season before leaving. Instead of overhauling EEs to fit your preconceived optimal strategy, perhaps consider adjusting your strategy to fit the the current parameters of the game.

Posted by Benis on 6/9/2022 8:29:00 AM (view original):
Actually, thinking about D2 players at D1 some more...

Cub and I tried this experiment in a difficult conference with some good teams and good coaches. The Big Sky in Tark is #4 in RPI (get it together ACC!)

Looking at some of these other conferences that are mostly empty, I think you could really build a team with D2 players that could win those conferences every season. Or even getting a D2 player here or there could help your team. I think I'm going to encourage new D1 coaches who are rebuilding to go for D2 players. They are without a doubt much less talented but with so much competition for D1 players, its a viable solution to at least cover your bum after some misses. You won't win titles but you can be somewhat competitive.

A D2 pool player: https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerHistory/Ratings.aspx?&pid=4733453. Pretty sure he'd be able to help out a D1 team.

Posted by bpielcmc on 6/9/2022 1:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 6/9/2022 8:29:00 AM (view original):
Actually, thinking about D2 players at D1 some more...

Cub and I tried this experiment in a difficult conference with some good teams and good coaches. The Big Sky in Tark is #4 in RPI (get it together ACC!)

Looking at some of these other conferences that are mostly empty, I think you could really build a team with D2 players that could win those conferences every season. Or even getting a D2 player here or there could help your team. I think I'm going to encourage new D1 coaches who are rebuilding to go for D2 players. They are without a doubt much less talented but with so much competition for D1 players, its a viable solution to at least cover your bum after some misses. You won't win titles but you can be somewhat competitive.

A D2 pool player: https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerHistory/Ratings.aspx?&pid=4733453. Pretty sure he'd be able to help out a D1 team.

100 stamina

BOING!

Posted by tkimble on 6/9/2022 12:43:00 PM (view original):
Without saying *too* much, I think many in this thread may need to re-examine how they value recruits at D1. The “best” players may not return the most value over the career of the player (just like real life) — many highly rated recruits in HD essentially function as 2-year JUCOs, valuable for only one season before leaving. Instead of overhauling EEs to fit your preconceived optimal strategy, perhaps consider adjusting your strategy to fit the the current parameters of the game.

I think people are plenty good at adjusting strategy to fit the current parameters of the game. I use Monte Carlo simulations to make sure I develop my guys as much as possible but so they only have a <5% chance of leaving junior year. It's just stupid we have to stunt growth.

I just think it is possible to both adjust your strategy to fit the current game as well as criticize it for being stupid that taking an EE incurs you ridiculous recruiting penalties and gives you a prestige penalty.

Posted by Benis on 6/9/2022 8:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rugburn on 6/9/2022 3:28:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 6/7/2022 6:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Fregoe on 6/7/2022 6:04:00 PM (view original):
Part 1

I love that its harder.

I have a bunch of low to mid level teams that I am running Fastbreak/press or man. some still a work in progress. I did this to see if I could recruit C/B- recruits and with two good(not great) classes back to back, could I maybe be competitive with 9 man B+/A teams. maybe maybe not to early to tell. Boise St in Crum is farthest along in the exp. Just beat the #5 team actually. Miss st in Smith has some promise I think 9 So/Fr currently. Wyoming in Knight is the one I am most excited about though. went 4-23 this year, but returning 10 so/fr with 5 players over 700 and 5 over 597. Maybe these all fail but I am loving the ride.

Thanks for the response. I'm very interested to see how this goes for you. I'm kind of trying to do the same thing with my D2-only experiment in Tark. Basically taking a lot of vastly inferior talent players compared to what the slowdown man uber-walkon reaching battle people get, but filling my ships every year so we are deeper than the competition. So far we can't get over the Top 60 hump, but we'll see how it goes. I do have some hope, since press can be pretty powerful if you build it well and are deep.

Looks like you have a few real players on Wyoming talent-wise and I agree you have a solid chance to at *least* make the NT there. I'd take Greathouse, Thompson, and Rutledge even if I was running man at the D+ prestige you recruited them from.

I'll be happy when you end this experiment. It's a pain navigating around your DI team for those DII recruits.

I'm probably going to end my D2 recruits only experiment in Tark after this season. I'm right on the cusp of making the NT this season and I feel like that's good enough. Too lazy to put any more effort in to it.

But in Cub's defense, I've had to battle several other D1 teams going for D2 players. It's not just Cub going for them. And if D1 is overpopulated then I could see more coaches adapting and going for D2 players more often.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I would say you should get used to it. I've had to battle 3 other D1 coaches so far during the experiment so it's definitely not just me.

I've started scouting D2 a lot in Allen with my A Prestige D1 Louisville team. My 3rd best big on the #2 team in the country is actually a Proj D2 guy. The issue is sometimes I can't find anyone worth taking, such as this year.

I think Sac State in Tark could be decent next year. We will see.

Posted by bpielcmc on 6/9/2022 1:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 6/9/2022 8:29:00 AM (view original):
Actually, thinking about D2 players at D1 some more...

Cub and I tried this experiment in a difficult conference with some good teams and good coaches. The Big Sky in Tark is #4 in RPI (get it together ACC!)

Looking at some of these other conferences that are mostly empty, I think you could really build a team with D2 players that could win those conferences every season. Or even getting a D2 player here or there could help your team. I think I'm going to encourage new D1 coaches who are rebuilding to go for D2 players. They are without a doubt much less talented but with so much competition for D1 players, its a viable solution to at least cover your bum after some misses. You won't win titles but you can be somewhat competitive.

A D2 pool player: https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerHistory/Ratings.aspx?&pid=4733453. Pretty sure he'd be able to help out a D1 team.

the thing about these players is they are signed caps unknown. on average, this guy is garbage for any d1 team. should d1 schools occasionally take fliers and pray to their respective gods for an outcome like this? surely - but you can't do it all the time, and its pretty hard to take such a flier when the guy in question is, with average growth, so unplayable. smart coaches would sign a guy like this, then cut him end of freshman year if his potential was less than stellar, but a lot of folks don't think like that.

the idea that d1 schools are, as a matter of course, recruiting from d2, is nuts to me. the idea that this is a reasonable course for someone with a clue, is even more nuts. shoe coming out and saying that, fine, he has an extreme approach to rebuilding with guys like this, and he probably would say this back when we had 120 coaches per world. but for this to even be a discussion among the rest of us, more or less shows how out of whack things are. its definitely too competitive for low end d1 players. i agree with whoever said d1 should not be able to drop to d2 - i've always agreed with that - its just basically always been moot, because d1 schools with any regularity looking for d2 players, was unthinkable.

this all goes back to the disaster that was the last recruit gen change, that cost us a third of total d1 population, but which has not been addressed. it all worked fine when we had 100, maybe 120 coaches in a d1 world (after we lost the third). but d1 recruit generation does not gracefully support 150, 180 coaches, and it has not since that horrible change.

Posted by cubcub113 on 6/9/2022 2:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tkimble on 6/9/2022 12:43:00 PM (view original):
Without saying *too* much, I think many in this thread may need to re-examine how they value recruits at D1. The “best” players may not return the most value over the career of the player (just like real life) — many highly rated recruits in HD essentially function as 2-year JUCOs, valuable for only one season before leaving. Instead of overhauling EEs to fit your preconceived optimal strategy, perhaps consider adjusting your strategy to fit the the current parameters of the game.

I think people are plenty good at adjusting strategy to fit the current parameters of the game. I use Monte Carlo simulations to make sure I develop my guys as much as possible but so they only have a <5% chance of leaving junior year. It's just stupid we have to stunt growth.

I just think it is possible to both adjust your strategy to fit the current game as well as criticize it for being stupid that taking an EE incurs you ridiculous recruiting penalties and gives you a prestige penalty.

See this is what I don’t get cub. And this is an honest question, I’m not picking on you - but if you really feel like walkons are worth more than roster filler, why do you also feel like you need to stunt growth junior year? I get watching them before they’re done as sophs, I always do that (and I’m super irritated when I lose sophs, for sure, like the mid 2nd rounder at Minny last year that blew up what should have been the best team in the country). But why stunt juniors in that case? Why not let them go and take the walkons if necessary, if late signee replacements don’t pan out?

FWIW, some jrs I do hold back a little, if the value to full development just isn’t there. Like if they’re sitting at 88 LP, and 45 on the Big Board, I’ll probably just sit back with them and try to hold tight. But since scoring is the last thing I develop, it more likely they come into junior season with LP at a just-black 75, and if that guy is like already near the first round, I’m just going for it.

Posted by gillispie on 6/9/2022 2:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bpielcmc on 6/9/2022 1:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 6/9/2022 8:29:00 AM (view original):
Actually, thinking about D2 players at D1 some more...

Cub and I tried this experiment in a difficult conference with some good teams and good coaches. The Big Sky in Tark is #4 in RPI (get it together ACC!)

Looking at some of these other conferences that are mostly empty, I think you could really build a team with D2 players that could win those conferences every season. Or even getting a D2 player here or there could help your team. I think I'm going to encourage new D1 coaches who are rebuilding to go for D2 players. They are without a doubt much less talented but with so much competition for D1 players, its a viable solution to at least cover your bum after some misses. You won't win titles but you can be somewhat competitive.

A D2 pool player: https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerHistory/Ratings.aspx?&pid=4733453. Pretty sure he'd be able to help out a D1 team.

the thing about these players is they are signed caps unknown. on average, this guy is garbage for any d1 team. should d1 schools occasionally take fliers and pray to their respective gods for an outcome like this? surely - but you can't do it all the time, and its pretty hard to take such a flier when the guy in question is, with average growth, so unplayable. smart coaches would sign a guy like this, then cut him end of freshman year if his potential was less than stellar, but a lot of folks don't think like that.

the idea that d1 schools are, as a matter of course, recruiting from d2, is nuts to me. the idea that this is a reasonable course for someone with a clue, is even more nuts. shoe coming out and saying that, fine, he has an extreme approach to rebuilding with guys like this, and he probably would say this back when we had 120 coaches per world. but for this to even be a discussion among the rest of us, more or less shows how out of whack things are. its definitely too competitive for low end d1 players. i agree with whoever said d1 should not be able to drop to d2 - i've always agreed with that - its just basically always been moot, because d1 schools with any regularity looking for d2 players, was unthinkable.

this all goes back to the disaster that was the last recruit gen change, that cost us a third of total d1 population, but which has not been addressed. it all worked fine when we had 100, maybe 120 coaches in a d1 world (after we lost the third). but d1 recruit generation does not gracefully support 150, 180 coaches, and it has not since that horrible change.

What's more nuts, that *some* d1 coaches recruit from the d2 pool or that you can actually compete at d1 with d2 recruits?

I agree with recruit gen being a cause of this issue we're seeing but the other is (stop me if you've heard this before) d2 teams recruiting d1 projected players. It just further limits the pool for d1 teams - whether you like this or not doesn't matter - it just does.

And yes of course you can beat a d2 team in a battle with a d1 team but it's not automatic without putting in any effort. I just lost a battle to a d2 team after putting in 5 HVs and 1 CV. D2 teams are legit threats in battles that need to be accounted for as well.

A.) It is kind of strange to see guys get so agitated over D1 or D2 PROJECTIONS, when those projections are nothing more than purely arbitrary (i.e. basically meaningless) window dressing. In truth, a recruit projects to someone useful to you or not useful to you based on his attributes and colors, not what "projection" is assigned to him. Don't you remember the threads where guys mock the projections that are the most meaningless of all ("this guy projects to D1 and I wouldn't even give him a look for my D3 team").

B.) It is puzzling that so many guys buy into some of the assertions in the OP, completely forgetting or ignoring the fact that the same recruiting conditions that you find suddenly confining are also equally restrictive on your opponents -- they have no more recruits to choose from than you do, it's all the same pool. And if, during times of low human coach populations, you built up an inflated idea of what quality D1 recruit "should" be lying there waiting for you to pick him up, does that mean the game is broken and they need to now reduce the population of human coaches so that your concept of how many recruits "should" be readily available to you is relevant again?

"the idea that d1 schools are, as a matter of course, recruiting from d2, is nuts to me. the idea that this is a reasonable course for someone with a clue, is even more nuts. shoe coming out and saying that, fine, he has an extreme approach to rebuilding with guys like this, and he probably would say this back when we had 120 coaches per world. but for this to even be a discussion among the rest of us, more or less shows how out of whack things are."

Yeah, it's weird. Especially at A Prestige. But recruiting D2 players (especially JUCOs) is just the only way to ensure landing a usable guard/big off the bench for the next year in a lot of areas in a lot of worlds. Totally wild.

At my DI mid major, I certainly dip into the DII pool at times (I even landed a projected DIII juco that I gave a RS). With how competitive recruiting is at DI, the game incentives this. Let's say I've got 3 scholarships and I've found a pretty damn good projected DII player that I don't have to put a lot of resources into. It allows me to maximize my recruiting effort on better players. The goal of the game is to build the best team that you can. If projected DII players are good enough to be good DI players, I don't understand why they should be off limits.

I've only skimmed the 5 pages of responses, so it's possible this has come up - but CubCub I'm curious why one of your proposed solutions isn't to slightly increase the number of recruits generated each season (I don't know the right number... maybe increasing the number of recruits generated by 20%? Making it up). Seems like a simpler solve than adding worlds and one with fewer unintended consequences than further penalizing rosters with walkons.

Posted by dw172300 on 6/10/2022 3:00:00 PM (view original):
I've only skimmed the 5 pages of responses, so it's possible this has come up - but CubCub I'm curious why one of your proposed solutions isn't to slightly increase the number of recruits generated each season (I don't know the right number... maybe increasing the number of recruits generated by 20%? Making it up). Seems like a simpler solve than adding worlds and one with fewer unintended consequences than further penalizing rosters with walkons.

Adding recruits will make teams better, but there's still a limited number of NT spots. I think that's the reasoning behind opening new worlds.

Posted by mlitney on 6/10/2022 3:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dw172300 on 6/10/2022 3:00:00 PM (view original):
I've only skimmed the 5 pages of responses, so it's possible this has come up - but CubCub I'm curious why one of your proposed solutions isn't to slightly increase the number of recruits generated each season (I don't know the right number... maybe increasing the number of recruits generated by 20%? Making it up). Seems like a simpler solve than adding worlds and one with fewer unintended consequences than further penalizing rosters with walkons.

Adding recruits will make teams better, but there's still a limited number of NT spots. I think that's the reasoning behind opening new worlds.

^^ best way to keep the nice population boost we worked so hard for

I've only got to page 3 of this but I want to add comments before I forget. One thing important here is perspective.

Fregoe mentioned something like..... I'm B+ and I lost rolls when leading but I just won one too. When you have a B+ C+ whatever prestige, your mindset drifts that way. As an A+ prestige, I'm sorry, but you think different (not YOU Fregoe. But just people in general). You expect to win most rolls. You build to win most rolls. Feel sorry for A+? Sure you don't have to. But that's the difference. When I'm a B+ prestige trying to get up to A+, when I land that 5* after losing 3 others, I'm still ecstatic because I landed a big time player. When I land a 5* with an A+ team after losing 3 rolls, I say "geez, rolls are killing me and I'm running this team into the ground"

All about perspective. And expectations.

for those of you that don't have A+ teams, or don't play them because you haven't reached it, or even just by choice, I ask you to get one and play first before making judgments. You will see. I rushed to judgement on that previously. Also I rushed judgement on D1 entirely when I didn't play it. And I feel slightly different about it now.

Crabman made a point about hard to recover when losing a roll(s), and that he always has 10 players or more. That's good. I rarely get to 10. And I try to take decent backups as well. But my issue i run into after losing dozens of rolls, if I have 7 rostered players, and $3k from EE money, I'll be dammed if I'm going to find a marginal player to spend on. It won't help because I only have 7 players. So I spend on a stud, lead, and lose the roll. Cycle continues. I'm not crying, I'm giving an example of how a situation can realistically play out.

I'll also say that I have good D1 success. A couple of titles. But with lesser baseline schools. Point is, you guys that say A+ don't need more power or whatever, I understand why. I felt that way playing with B+ and C+ teams. But now that a lot of my teams are A+ I just see a different side. (Not to mention i suck with ALL of them).

Adjust strategy? Sure. Change it up? Sure. That's all part of the game and a part I'll have to address going forward apparently. But losing rolls is what it is. And it can decimate you or make you dominate. And I think the game overall shouldn't be that far on either side, and a happy medium fix (however) would be helpful.

Last part, sorry this is a gil length post.... one guy commented about being wired different and NOT rushing to D1 with his career...... bravo. Glad you are doing what you're doing. And one day you'll benefit from that. Not rushing to D1 made me the coach I am today. The winner part! Not the whiner part! And now I'll go read pages 4 and 5