How To: Scheduling - Rebuild vs Successful

Scheduling

For a Rebuilding Team

Team Composition

This is vital for your team's success in order to rebuild your program appropriately. You will want to find teams that you can beat or have an advantage over, but you also want those teams to win most of their games as well. So when you are rebuilding your team you want to schedule more Sim AI teams that have a good balance of players in terms of Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshman. When you are looking for this team you will not look at the current Seniors as they will be leaving, unless one is going to be a 5th-year senior. I generally do not care about 5th-year seniors for the most part. So look at their current Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshman. You want to look at their ratings to ensure that you are going to be able to be better at almost every position the following year.

This means that you will need to know your own teams composition and strengths as well as possible weaknesses. Is your team fast and athletic with little defense or are your players' defensive menaces? basically, you need to know how you are going to attack the team the following season, especially during a rebuild since you will have either young players because of cutting players or dealing with the Sim recruited players. Essentially you need to know before you schedule how you are going to try to win those games.

You also want to schedule for the most part away from home to boost the RPI and SOS from scheduling against the Sim AI coaches. In other words, it is vital to help yourself get to the postseason and get as many wins as possible. Now you do not want to just blanket schedule those games away from home because maybe that will hurt you if you lose most or all of those games. Remember it is a balancing act with scheduling when you are rebuilding with winning games at home as well as winning games away and winning games to boost your team's prestige faster as well as make the NT or PI.

Researching Available Teams

This is very important and will probably take you the most amount of time when rebuilding. Like I stated above you really want to win these games and research the teams you are going to be playing the following season. RPI and SOS do not matter when rebuilding, play teams that are going to be not as good so you can get the wins. In this case winning is slightly better than RPI or SOS specifically when comparing it to successful team scheduling. So schedule these games in order for you to win and research them specifically for you to win the game based on their composition as well as their ratings to ensure a game that you are going to win no matter the location. I know I stated above to schedule away for the most part, but that is only to boost RPI and SOS, the MOST important part for you as a rebuilding program is to WIN and win RIGHT NOW! So research teams that you WILL beat not ones that you think that there is a possible chance.

Home vs. Away

Remember to schedule away if you can to boost RPI and SOS, am I starting to sound like a broken record yet, good! Schedule games you can win away from home to boost RPI and SOS in order to get to the PI at least and win as many games as possible otherwise, you will not increase your prestige. 

Summary

Rebuilding a program can be fun, and rewarding process and remembering this and scheduling properly can help you achieve the rebuilding process faster as well as increase your chances of becoming a perennial powerhouse quickly and getting into the NT quicker. Also, remember that recruiting is essential for a rebuilding program to prosper faster. I will be posting a specific recruiting process for rebuilding programs that I think will assist them in developing faster into a powerhouse program, I personally have not done this as of yet at my time at Hoops Dynasty. I think it could be neat and a process to undertake but I am not made of cash and have not been able to make a splash at this time. 

For a Successful Team

An important aspect in Hoops Dynasty! If you want to make the NT or PI you will need to schedule very carefully and I ALWAYS schedule as tough as possible with lots of human coaches, sometimes this backfires but it is all about how you view the teams. I almost always come out of non-conference play with a minimum of 7 wins sometimes more and sometimes less but most often 7.

Researching Available Teams

I always wait until the RPI numbers come out because you will notice the teams that are always near the top every season and these are the ones that you usually want to play against usually in the top 40 RPI each season. You will figure it out after every season. 

Team Composition

This is HUGE, this can either make or break your RPI and win possibilities. You generally want to schedule against a team that will have a lot of underclassmen if you can. Otherwise, find a team loaded with Sophomores or Juniors who will be good but not good enough to beat you, this will take a few seasons to figure out. Always base it on your own team. 

Home Vs. Away Games

Schedule games based on the impact on the Team Composition from above. If you KNOW you can win the game, schedule it AWAY that way you get a boost to RPI when you do win, otherwise schedule at home to get a boost in productivity from your players.

Summary

When I schedule I generally schedule very hard because I know that my teams can handle a difficult schedule and come out in a decent position afterward. If you are new with the team DO NOT SCHEDULE like I do. This will ruin your season and will not help your RPI or rebuild. You should always schedule as difficult as your team can handle to win the most amount of games. Do not schedule easy just to get wins, that will hurt your RPI and SOS in the long run. Find teams that will give your team a challenge but you can win. You need to play teams that have a good chance of winning their other games so that they have a high RPI and SOS to boost your RPI and SOS. 

This will take the most time to get correct but will pay off in the end as it will help you to make good decisions in scheduling in order to make the PI and NT every single season. It also takes the most amount of time for me especially because you have to take into account recruiting and Early Entries into the NBA draft because that will affect the team you are playing and make them easier or more difficult. 

If you have any additional questions please post a comment or if I missed something I would be happy to add it to the post.