I’m not really interested in this part of the discussion so I’m going to shift gears back to the promises discussion from a while ago.
Tark recruiting is winding down (all done for me, anyway). Fresno had 2 scholarships. I run FB/P there, so I wanted to cover both, and really should avoid actively recruiting ineligibles (I’ll toss an AP or 3 early so I remember to watch them in case they become eligible, if I like them, but otherwise it’s generally a waste). I knew I wanted to cut one player, so was kind of hoping to recruit an extra late signee if possible.
This year there was a distance recruit - 2175 miles away! - that only had one other (local) team on them. He also had 4 other VG preference matches, including one specific to me. So I made a decision pretty early to go in on this guy. Knowing it would take all my resources to stay in on him if the local decided to fight me, I declined other battles, and focused on this one. But instead of *completely* dropping all my AP on him, I used between 35 and 50 (of 60) most cycles. The rest spread around a handful of backup options. Because like I said, running FB/P, I definitely don’t want walkons.
As it happened, a few of those backups panned out, and I decided they worked better for my team than other guys at the bottom of my roster. So two guys were cut to make room for everyone coming in. One of them before I knew the 5-star was on board, since annoyingly he was the last to sign (of course). And it’s always possible one or more of those guys may be cut in the future if I happen to like a future class even better. That’s the nature of the game as I’m playing it.
Anyway back to promises. Alongside the 5-star Mann, who is obviously getting a start and 20 minutes (which will be pushing it early in the season, but he’ll grow into it, with a green 58 stamina, and mega-loaded conditioning), Young and Carwile will get starts and 15 minutes, and Torrey will get 10 minutes from the bench. Those promises helped secure their positions, as none of them got any visits from me; in fact, none of those recruits got more than 67 total AP from me (Young only got 19). Of course, starting 3 first year players will bring some pain next season - but 2 of them will have very limited minutes, so it’s more about covering their low stamina, and making the pieces fit well behind them than anything else.
I don’t bring this up so you feel sorry for me if they ever make promised starts into 4-year commitments. I’ll adjust fine to whatever. This is more of an idea of how you can creatively do this kind of thing now, and an argument that it’s more than possible. Mann is a legit 5 star, with a chance of staying 4 years. The freshmen bigs are not stars, but project to solid role players (both athletic, one rebounder, one defender) as upperclassmen; the Juco guard has high potential in the right spots, and good work ethic and will be a deadly bench scorer in his senior season. These are not D2 pool throwaways, both will be quite valuable to a high level FB/P team. Many of my perfectly competitive teams have been built on these types of classes - minus the 5-star, because you can’t count on always winning that battle.
This is the stuff that makes the game fun, to me. It isn’t all about everyone doing everything the same way.
6/19/2022 3:35 PM (edited)