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Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Recruiting and Scheduling

I know that this post has been long overdue, but I did not want to be like Coach Spud and just read off ticker news and play by plays, I do that in my own time and not on yours. I probably should have done this video right when recruiting had begun but I didn't think that it would have fit enough of the information and would have been too short of a video. For those that have been missing this video series, I have returned. Check out the latest Recruiting Basics and Scheduling Basics video.


**Please Comment on the Video or on here regarding your thoughts on moving after this season up to DII already or stay and Nazareth and develop the DIII team into something special.

Happy Coaching

Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Gameplanning

Check out the latest video on game planning. This was from the beginning of the season and has been a  little lack luster. It has not gone well. I will have an update here soon on the Nazareth progress.

Hope that this helps some and I did only go into basics and not the extra more complex stuff(The stuff that really makes your team great) Which basically means this should help you out generally. The complex stuff can take a long time to explain and a long time to implement and I really do not have enough time to be able to do that unfortunately. Maybe in a future episode.

Happy Coaching

Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Scouting

Check out the latest video in the series all about recruiting. This video is very long so I apologise in advance. I hope that this gives you a great overview of how to play the game in the scouting world which is only part of the battle at Hoops Dynasty.

If you want to see the blog post on this topic please click here!

Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Depth Chart

In this video it is important to note that your Depth Chart is how you will determine who plays, starts, and really how your team will play in the long run. If you want to see the original post on the depth chart check below:

Click Here for Depth Chart Post!

Enjoy the Depth Chart Video and again post any comments or things you would like to see.

Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Practice Plan

This post is all about the practice plan and getting the most out of your players. To check out the post that this video follows please click here!

Happy Coaching!

Video Blog Series - DIII to DI - Selecting a Team

When finding the right team there is a lot to think about rather than just selecting the first team you see or an alma mater or otherwise. This is something that I wished I would have known prior to selecting my very first team in Fisk in the Knight World. In this first video post for this series, I take you into the in's and outs of why I am selecting the team of Nazareth.

Top Reasons:

1. Class Structure
2. Location, Location, Location
3. PRESTIGE!
4. Conference

From these reasons, Class Structure will not follow my blog post on class structure. Class structure is what you should strive for, but to get wins early on having Juniors and Seniors will only help your team to be better in the long run. 

The location is HUGE when it comes to recruiting if we as a video blog stay at Nazareth for more than one season this will help in the recruiting trail. 

Prestige factor helps with recruiting and if you want to recruit at a high level then you will want to have a team with a high prestige value. Nazareth is an A. 

Conference selection boiled down to the number of humans and how many wins I want to have. I selected a conference in which I am going to be the only human coach. 

I hope that you enjoy this video series and explanation that I have below: 

If you want to see the actual blog post that I followed for this video please click here. 

User Interview - benrudy

The very first interview of this Hoops Dynasty Blog is for user:

benrudy

A quick look into benrudy's history at Hoops Dynasty.

1147-497(.0698) Overall Record
26 Conference Championships
1 National Championship

Q: Why do you play Hoops Dynasty?

A: I have a strange obsession with sports simulator games. I have been playing Football Manager 2008 for way too many hours. Whenever I play Madden, I simulate the whole season in dynasty mode and just do team management. I've always wanted a college basketball simulator, and this was the most detailed game that I could find.

Q: What got you started in Hoops Dynasty?

A: I was told about the game by a friend and colleague StrikeMike. he told me to just give it a try for one season. Before the season was over, I had already signed up for a 2nd team. 

Q: You have had a stellar DIII career at various schools, what contributes to your success at this level?

A: Stellar is a bit of a stretch. I have good success but spread out across many different programs as I take on rebuilds. I think I have two skills that drive my success: non-conference scheduling and recruiting game theory. With rebuilds, I can schedule sims who aren't a challenge to a quality human coached team and still land in the top 20 SOS. With recruiting I don't over commit to battles - I'd rather take 2 B players uncontested and fight for the A+ than, fight for 3 A- recruits. 

Q: How do you scout and recruit at the DIII level?

A: Scouting is the most important part of this. I try to cover a few players, but in as much detail as possible. I use assistant search and scouting service. At DIII, I'd say I spend 3/4 of my budget on DI and 1/4 on DII. With DI, I stay close to home, but at DII I go all over the map. I'm still experimenting to see the optimal way to scout, especially as a DIII school scouting DI where I have to deal with all the top 100 recruits in the area who I stand o chance at.

A: Recruiting, it's all about the APs. I use my recruiting budget when I am in a battle, but I'd guess that 90% of the players who I sign are signed exclusively through AP. I almost always have some recruiting budget left over at the end which I had been saving just in case I get a surprise contender for one of my uncontested players during RS2. 

Q: What is the MOST important thing you look for in a player when recruiting? 

A: My recruits must both meet the minimum requirement (around 45) in Athleticism and Defense, and must fulfill one other skill - passing, scoring, and rebounding. I tend to overvalue perimeter and 3 point shooting - the efficiency which a 99 PE player scores at DIII is very tough to overcome as an opponent. 

Q: What is your Offense and Defense preference for the DIII level? 

A: So I fully recognize the Press Defense is the best at DIII. Something like 60%-80% of DIII champions run a press defense. But I only play man or press. I have more success with Man, but I want to see if I can win a championship with a zone. I enjoy having the extra flexibility of being able to double team players when I'm not running a press defense. With the zone, I can get more imperfect players which is an advantage at the DIII level. On offense, I tend to do either motion or flex, but I am not particular on that end of the ball.

Q: What has been your favorite rebuilding team?

A: The one that was the hardest to leave was my alma mater. Trinity College (CT) in Tarkanian. The easiest to leave was Chestnut Hill in Rupp since I stayed in the conference with Hood. 

Q: What is your favorite college basketball team?

A: Oh boy, I don't really have one. I have family ties to a couple of big programs, but I grew up out of the country and went to a DIII school. I watch whenever a team has the most NBA prospects - so lately I have watched the most Kentucky, but I tend to cheer against them.

Q: What is your favorite sport to play in real life?

A: Rugby was my favorite sport to play before I graduated college and decided to stop. I especially enjoyed the strategy of Rugby, and for suck a physical game I thought the culture of respect was fascinating - everyone addresses the referees as "sir" and once the game is over, the home team invites the away team over to hang out after the game.

Q: What position would you or do your or did you play in that sport?

A: I was the scrumhalf of my junior and senior years. That position links between the small players (backs) and big players (forwards), calls some plays, and largely determines the tempo of the game. The way I played, it was more of a mental game that a physical one - I'm a remarkably un-athletic player, so I had to rely on my understanding of the game.

Q: What position would you play in Hoops Dynasty?

A: Bench? I suppose PG since I am short...but I can't pass or shoot.

Q: What would your rating be for that position?

A: I'd probably be your typical DIII walk on - most of my ratings would fall in work ethic and durability. I'd be on there to help with morale support.

Q: You are very good at the DIII level, what would you attribute that success?

A: I think trial and error drive my success. I like to try new strategies and see their payoffs. I evolve slowly, but I am constantly trying to improve what I do. I try to pick one area of the game and work on that. Efficient scouting, developing a long-term vision for the team, game planning with a man or zone defense are all examples of things I've worked on before. There are always coaches who do it better than I do, so I try to emulate what they are doing. I remember in 2.0 seeing how mfnmeyers at Dickinson (in every world) got SO many guys on their considering list and seemed still had enough funds to battle me for a recruit who was across the country. I worked out that he was offering a start and a scholarship to everyone on his list in order to scare off opponents, then would retract the scholarship from his backup options when signings began. I emulated that strategy and was able to improve my recruiting reach. 

Q: You seem to like changing jobs and rebuilding teams in just short turnaround times of 4-5 seasons, what do you look for when you do this and how are you so successful?

A: The idea when you take over a school is to get your players in there as quickly as possible. That means I will go for schools with lots of juniors and very few already signed scholarships during recruiting session 1. There is a glitch in the game that makes the already signed guys appear to be your signings, which makes them harder to cut, and lots of juniors means when the world rolls over you will have as many open spots as possible so your hand-picked recruits can come in and take over the school from the sim players. In addition, you should look at the benefits of the school itself. How many other schools are in the area? How populated is the area? If you can get a Colorado College or Palm Beach Atlantic at DIII, you can be in a great spot.

Q: What advice would you give a brand new player at Hoops Dynasty?

A:

1. Stick with it! The first season can be rough when you are using someone else's, players. Just stick with it. Find a friend who will join with you and then you can discuss strategies. 
2. Ask questions - the other coaches in your conference will want you to succeed. 

Upcoming Updates

I have personally realized that I have neglected some areas in some posts that I have made, also I have made some errors that I want to fix to help others. Look for updates in some sections relating to:

• Rebuild vs Successful - Rebuilding a Team or Taking over or having a successful one. 
• Offense and Defensive specific information and guidelines. 
• Scouting and Recruiting - Updates and Strategies
• Others that I have not thought of or you might see changes or updates needed. 

Upcoming Series - User Interviews - Information

I have been looking into doing monthly user interviews and have been thinking of some questions to ask the user during this interview. I have been thinking about either attempting to make it a podcast style where you can listen and I also have a transcript of the interview or just making it a text based interview for all of you to just read.

Interview Type

Podcast

This would be an audio based recording of the interviews with the users on Hoops Dynasty. If you would prefer this style please comment on this post. 

Text Based

This is fairly explanatory but again non-audio but just text with the questions and answers from the users. If you would like this style on this blog please comment with your response.

Questions

This is an area that I have some ideas for questions but I am asking you the users of Hoops Dynasty to assist in coming up with questions that you would like the answers to regarding Hoops Dynasty. Please comment the questions that you would like to see in the interviews. I am going to attempt to create a template of questions for all interviews. 

Sample Questions: 

• Why do you play Hoops Dynasty?
• What is your offense and defense style preference and why?
• What is MOST important for you when you are recruiting players to your team?
• How do you scout at your Division Level?
• Do you have any users that you really enjoy chatting with on WIS? Why?
• What is your favorite sport to play? (In real life)
• What position would you play if you were in Hoops Dynasty?
• What would your rating be for that position?
• What advice would you give to a brand new player at Hoops Dynasty?

Users to Interview

I have a few users that I would enjoy interviewing, but again that list is not very long and to be able to do this once a month I would like to hear from you on the users you think I should interview or if you would like to be one of the users to be interviewed. 

Qualifications for Interview

• Must have at least 10 seasons of HD under your belt - may include multiple usernames
• Willing to answer the questions that are asked to the best of your ability and within your understanding
• Have an overall winning record above .500 preference will go to those users that have a .750 record or better. (I want to make these interviews helpful for those reading)

Please post comments to this post so I can get a better idea of what you the reader want to hear and see on this series on my blog. I want to better assist you and help you become a better player. I want this series to be fun as well as informational for all involved. 

How To: Creating a Non-Conference Tourney

Non-Conference Tourney Creation

This is one of the most difficult aspects of all Hoops Dynasty, getting users together to schedule games against one another. It is fun to create and implement but it requires a lot of time and effort in regards to keeping track of those involved and ensuring that all games are scheduled properly because even the slightest mess up will destroy the conference tourney.

Number of Teams/Conferences

This will depend on the interest of the tourney. Who is interested in participating and what their commitment level. It is better to have slightly more conferences and teams available. I have personally done it with 4 conferences before with 5 teams from each conference. This worked okay when the members actually were interested enough in getting everything setup and the games set correctly. The LEG work for this as the person in charge is very difficult. 

Team Composition/Rating the teams that are invited

This is vital, you need to know which team is the best team available in the conference to give them a higher seed with easier games to win. In my template I had the following: 

• Senior Player Rating * 3
• Junior Player Rating * 2
• Sophomore Player Rating * 1

I took the number I received from adding all of these together by the total number of these players. This made the score even for all teams and gave me a great indication of those teams that were higher rated. Now, this system is not flawless, but it does give a semblance in terms of ranking the seeds. 

This gave a pretty good indicator of which teams were going to be good the next season because let's be honest teams that have more juniors and seniors are going to do better each and every season. 

**Look for an update to this section when I am able to determine a different and better rating system**

Seeding/Scheduling Games

This relates to the composition of the teams and once you have the best team per conference and their seed in the tourney you will then need to schedule the games. This is what I did each time. I labeled each conference with a letter and each seed with a number. I followed the following schedule: 

As you can see from this picture I scheduled the highest seeds against each other from each conference to boost their RPI and also allow them to have an opportunity to win the games. Now again this is not perfect but as you can see by the rank, the sum of the seeds they play) this made the games fair for those that were lower on the totem pole in terms of rating of the team. Now to schedule this in terms of home and away games I used the following: (Note that this was for the last time I actually did a conference tourney)

As you can see above this gave away and home games for all involved and was connected to the participating teams seed sheet in the excel document. This allowed for all involved to be able to schedule their games and for me to determine who won and who lost as indicated in the sheet. The Draws were those that did not schedule the game correctly. 

Summary

In summary, it is a huge undertaking but can be beneficial for all involved as well as to see which conference is the best conference. I really actually enjoyed doing this and currently because of this post am thinking about doing it again this coming season in the Knight World DI, DII, and DIII because I can at least set it up for all involved or those that are interested. 

I hope that you enjoyed this post and if you would like any additional information I would be happy to update this post for the future. 

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. 

Looking to Start a Series

DIII Start to DI Series

Do you want to see a series of starting at Hoops Dynasty from DIII level all the way to the DI level with recruiting, game-planning and all the steps in between? 

What is it all about?

I will start from the DIII level in a world of my choice and post a video on the blog about it once a week providing all the information from the blog with my commentary and reasons for selecting certain areas. 

Why?

I personally feel that a lot of Hoops Dynasty rookies and veterans would benefit from something like this to give them something to assist them and learn. It also will be fun because you the readers of this blog will be able to help make decisions each and every week. You will be able to post a comment on each weeks video in order to have a chance to be featured every week with that specific decision. 

What do you need to make this happen?

Unfortunately I am not made of cash and money and Hoops Dynasty costs money to play each and every season so I would need some support in this endeavor related to seasons at Hoops Dynasty. If you would like to support this endeavor please let me know or send me some credits. Once I have enough credits to start a single season at Hoops Dynasty I will start this series and record live sections that follow the How To tutorial that I began on this site. Allowing you all to see first hand how this works within a real program.

Input

Want to be part of this series please comment on the video posts related to this series and I will be sure to include your comments in the next video along with ideas. 

How To: Gameplanning

How To: Game planning

Each game is slightly different because of the team dynamics, makeup, strengths and weaknesses for both your opponent and your own team. It is important to note that if you have not looked at the Depth Chart post I highly suggest taking a look as it relates to game planning. 

Player Distribution

This area is quite controversial depending on which coach you talk to in Hoops Dynasty. Some coaches and rather successful ones use the 0-3 system, which I will discuss a little later after this and other also successful coaches say that it is better to use a system that equals up to 100 total on the player distribution tab of the game. 

0-3 System

In this system, you determine which of your players are the scorers usually a Senior or Junior and set them at a distribution of 3. Then the backups or guys that could score but are not elite get a 2. Then the players that are backups at their position but are just average get a 1 and the guys that are complete trash get a 0. I will say that even a guy that has a 0 will attempt shots every once in awhile just not very often. 

100 System

In this system, you again determine your players in terms of elite, average, good, great or whatever you determine and then you give the highest number to that player taking into account all the players on your team to equal a distribution for all players combined to 100. This from what other coaches have told me allows them to control more of the outcome of the game in terms of possessions for that specific player when they take a shot and do not leave anything up to chance so to speak. 

Team Play Style - Per Game or Season Long

This section might get rather long but please do not disregard this section as this is probably the most important section you can read if you even read this post. It is important to note that relates to the Strengths and Weaknesses sections below. 

Every game you play you will end up changing something in terms of how you play. Let's say you look at the other team and they generally shoot a lot of 3 pointers and do rather well with that but do not take many inside shots in comparison, you will change your setting on defense to a + value generally do not go above +2 as that will allow too many inside shots and those are higher percentage shots. 

On the flip side, let's say they do not shoot outside at all or maybe up to 10 total a game, you would want to defend inside. In this case, you would put a - setting. Up to -5 now putting a -5 would defend inside consistently but this also creates an issue - FOULS. You will foul more when you defend on the interior which could be good or bad depending on the other team free throw shooting. This is more of a preference in terms of where you set the interior, I generally do not go higher than -3 but usually, go between -2 and +2 when I set my defence setting. 

There is more to go into in this section, but I ALWAYS set my preference of style Motion, Man to Man etc based on my practice plan setting or overall team ability in a certain area. So if you just took over a team but want to change the defence do not change the setting in the game plan until your team has developed the skills necessary to effectively use that Offence or Defence. This means utilise practice time for a full season prior to setting it as your offence or defence. Your assistance coach will get mad at you but it will help to not lose a ton of games right off the bat that season by changing everything right away. 

Find Strengths

Determine your team's strength. Is it stamina? Is it outside shooting? Is it taking high percentage shots and slowing the game down to decrease possessions? Whatever the strength you need to exploit it against the team you are playing. For most of my teams, it is going to vary each year and against each opponent, but generally speaking I usually plan one way for the entire season unless I see something or somewhere against a specific team that I can exploit. 

Find Weaknesses

Determine your opponents weaknesses. Is there a single player that they play that has low defence, speed, athleticism? Or something in between. Also, most coaches do not look at their own team often enough. Look at your team determine what you would do against your own team if you were the opposing coach to attempt to win. This way you can change your depth chart or adapt the player distribution to adapt to what they might try.

If you liked this post please check out the next post on practice plans!

How To: Practice Plan

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Every coach in their right mind would say practice makes perfect. This is no exception with Hoops Dynasty and the number of options may be daunting. Follow this guide for some great tips on how to maximize your practice effort and get the most out of players. 

Team Practice

As a team it is important to note that you must be proficient in your type of offense to be formidable or at least decent in a few to be able to keep up with other teams. This part, when I started Hoops Dynasty, had my frazzled a bit since when I watch teams on TV they tend to change it up based on who they are playing and do not play just one style of defense in particular. Their offense kind of stays the same, but is more fluid so this part of Hoops Dynasty I am not a fan of. However, you will need to pick your favorite Offense and Defense. Now the number of minutes put into each needs to be at a minimum of 20. I do know there are diminishing returns after this number but I am sure that 20 is the sweet spot. 

I actually put 24 minutes in my own teams no matter what, I personally feel that this gives me a slight advantage when changing types of offense or defense as well as increases my players ability a little earlier than another team. I do not have any data on this but this is just a personal preference. 

Individual Practice

This is vital for your players and your team. This past two seasons I have had the best improvements overall for 2 of my players almost 100 point increase for both. This is huge because it makes an impact on the team right away as well as with that player and increases your teams overall ability. 

Potentials Matter

You must look at your players ratings and colors. 

• Green = Very High Improvement
• Blue = High Improvement
• Black = Average Improvement
• Orange = Low Improvement
• Red = Very Low Improvement - Basically NO improvement in this area

This will dictate your practice plan ALWAYS!

Study Study Study!

Players year in school is important as study hall is part of the practice plan. Your players if you are in DI and DII need to maintain a specific GPA. It might also be true in DIII but I have not played in DIII in a long long time, so I cannot remember, but I think that DIII is much lower than DI so if you follow my rules to this you will be fine. So with study hall I follow these principles and I have never had a single player be ineligible in over 20 seasons at DI.

**Update** I received some feedback from this area and am updating my personal findings as I tested other's information and it worked perfectly and allowed for greater improvement in my players. 

Follow these rules!

1. All players set at 0 Study Hall Minutes
2. If a High School recruit has a GPA below 3.0 for every 0.1 point below 3.0 add 1 to their study hall minutes. 
3. Check Mid-Term Grades, if any are low update their Study Hall Minutes accordingly, meaning add a few to each 2 usually maybe 3 depending on how low they are.
4. Once final grades have been posted - Put all Study Hall minutes to 0. This allows for optimal growth after they have finished their year and will not change their GPA whatsoever. 

**Note** That if you have a player with a low GPA coming in from High School this might change a bit and it always has to be fluid especially if you get to mid terms and someone is lower than they should be. Now if they are close I have never change their practice plan and by the end they were fine. Basically I only worry if at mid-terms they are below the required 2.5 GPA. If they have a 2.7 they will generally end with a 2.7 or higher and still be able to play. For some data here are the current GPA's of my team at the start of season 103 in Knight. 

As you can see all my players have a 3.1 and above GPA. So I never have to worry about them not being eligible to play. 

Recruiting the RIGHT players.

Ensure that you are looking at your players you are recruiting for the colors stated above. It is important to find players with a lot of green as well as what you need as a team. This plays into the next section in terms of each players individual ratings in each area. 

Please note that in HD 3.0 they have an optimize button - I personally tried it once and thought their ideas of putting in minutes was complete CRAP. But if you want to make it quick and easy click the optimize button. 

For me personally I generally put a lot of effort into green areas with the exception of PER and LP. This will depend on if they are a Guard or Big Man. Basically I do not care if my big man can shoot three pointers. The only exception to this rule would be if your Big Man has orange or red in all other categories and a Green or Blue in PER. This I would then focus on to make him more dynamic and shoot three pointers against other Big Men that cannot guard him on the perimeter. 

Summary

In all it will depend on your personal preferences however it is important to increase your players ratings as best you can in order to be able to improve your team to make the NT and PI each and every season. Again I am not perfect at this but I have learned from some of the best players in HD history including chapelhillne, who just recently had a user interview with WhatIfSports.

How To: Depth Chart

Here we go again, another season and yet another time to determine which player you want to start. There is no right or wrong here, but there are some things you can do to determine who is your best player at a specific position as well what strategy you want to use on a regular basis.

Offensive Ability

This has it's own section because you need to score in order to win games. Now this is important but would you give up defensive ability for an offensive menace? Probably not if you are a smart Coach. Determining offensive ability needs to be specific to guards and big men, because what is good for a guard is not good for a big man. 

Important Skills Guard: 

Athleticism - This is not as important but definitely helps all players. Not as necessary for guards as big men. Basically low numbers here make the player a slasher. 

Speed - Vital component of ability to get around other players. 

Perimeter - This is how well they are able to shoot jump shots, the higher the number the better shooter the player will be.

Passing - Ability to pass the ball to other players on your team. The higher this is the better they can assist other players in scoring. 

Ball Handling - Are they able to dribble the ball down the court without losing the ball. 

Important Skills Big Men

Athleticism - Vital skill for being athletic, jumping, squeezing between defenders etc.

Speed - Not IMPORTANT at ALL. These players do not need to be fast, it helps but doesn't matter.

Perimeter - Not important because they are interior players, however having a guy that can hit a jumper can be beneficial depending on strategy. 

Low Post - EXTREMELY Important, are they able to layup, make dunks, etc Basically can they shoot while down low. 

Rebounding - You MUST have this ability in terms of offensive rebounds as well as defensive. 

So while these skills are important, I personally would never put a guy that was an offensive menace in that had a low rating in Defense. I would give up scoring for a player that has a higher rating in defense because along with scoring I need to keep the other team from scoring as well. So these skills are vital but if I have a guy with lower ratings in these categories but a high rating in defense I would put him in over the offensive menace due to the fact that the offensive menace would either foul out, or allow more points against him. I would put the offensive menace second on the depth chart because it would allow him to go against their number two's or when the other teams players are tired so he can score more points. 

Defensive Ability

The main ability to look at here would be Defense for obvious reasons. The higher the rating the better the player is at defense. However you also need to look at Athleticism and Speed. These ratings are important to be able to get in front of other players and the ability to not draw fouls. This helps mostly with the guards but can be beneficial for the big men as well. 

I am not going to talk much about blocking or rebounding as those are somewhat separate, but having abilities in those categories will only bolster the devensive abilities for rebounds as well as blocking shots, but are not a major part of what you should look for when determining defensive ability overall. 

Always start players with high defense, athleticism and speed. These guys will do the best at their respective positions when it comes to defending, now if the other team has a guy that you can exploit in terms of offensive ability I would exploit that and change my lineup to have a guy that has the better offensive ability knowing that I will not lose out on the lower defensive ability of the player that I am attempting to exploit. 

Determining Who to Start - Strategy Matters Here

This is one of those sections that is going to utilize your own personal strategy. There are ways in which you can do well without using the offensive and defensive abilities above. However it is important to note that if you cannot stop the other team from scoring, YOU WILL NOT WIN, that is the plain and simple fact of the matter. I would give up scoring production to keep the other team from scoring. 

Utilizing a mixture of the above defensive and offensive abilities I would determine the best players at their respective positions edging on those that have better defense unless one players has huge offensive upside and is only slightly lower than the guy with better defensive stats. This also is based on position as well. 

If you like this post watch for the next post about game planning.

Wyoming Human Coaching History Tree

As many of you reading this blog know I have had a rough start at Hoops Dynasty taking longer than expected to make it to my dream job at Wyoming. I figure since I have been here for 20+ seasons if would be very neat to look at the History of the Coaching Tree and possibly make a ranking of the best coaches in Wyoming History leaving out the SIM. However I also want to see how well the SIM has done. I will be looking at the overall records of each coach total and in conference.

Coaches in Wyoming History

Listed from most recent to oldest: 

• obituaryconc - 21 Seasons and Counting -- 80 -104

• darthhoosier - 8 Seasons -- 65 - 72

• blapo21 - 13 seasons -- 41 - 53

• kari2you - 10 season -- 24 - 33

• brocktune310 - 5 seasons -- 11 - 15

Coaching Records at Wyoming

brocktune310: With a total of 5 seasons went 125-31 overall in those seasons with 3 NT trips one being a Sweet 16 bid. Win = .800 or 80% for his Wyoming Career. 

Conference Record: 72-8 Win = .9 or 90% in Conference Play

kari2you: With a total of 10 seasons went 160-115 overall in those seasons with 4 trips to the NT and one 2nd round bid. Win = .58 or 58% for his Wyoming Career. 

Conference Record: 106-54 Win = .66 or 66% in Conference Play

blapo21: With a total of 13 seasons went 281-104 overall in those seasons with 8 trips to the NT and a runner up in the PI.. Win = .72 or 72% for his Wyoming Career.

Conference Record: 170-38 Win = .82 or 82% in Conference Play

darthhoosier: With a total of 8 seasons went 99-124 overall in those seasons with only 2 trips to the PI. Win = .44 or 44% for his Wyoming Career

Conference Record: 51-77 Win = .39 or 39% in Conference Play

obituaryconc: With at total of 24 seasons and counting has gone 375-314 overall in those seasons with 6 trips to the NT and one Elite Eight Bid. Win = .54 or 54% for the current Wyoming Career. 

Conference Record: 234-150 Win = .61 or 61% in Conference Play

Rankings

Overall Win Percentage

1. brocktune310
2. blapo21
3. kari2you
4. obituaryconc
5. darthhoosier

Conference Win Percentage

1. brocktune310
2. blapo21
3. kari2you
4. obituaryconc
5. darthhoosier

It seems as though in terms of Wyoming Coaching History I have a long ways to go for win percentage. However I do have the advantage in years coached at Wyoming with almost double that f every single coach in the History of Wyoming Basketball in the Knight world at WhatIfSports.com. I also have the advantage of taking Wyoming to it's first ever Elite Eight Appearance having to beat the #1 seed and #1 ranked team in UCLA in order to get there. That was a great season!

How to: Scouting and Recruiting

If you just read the getting started guide you probably either just signed up or are overwhelmed by the new system in HD 3.0. If you are a veteran player you might just be somewhat curious. Recruiting and Scouting are extremely important in Hoops Dynasty. It will either make or break your team. There is no one great way to complete this process or to make the perfect team. Recruiting players comes down to a multitude of factors specific to your strategy as a coach. Do you want to have a team that will run the other team down to the point that you get fouled and win the game that way, or are you a team that slows the pace down to out shoot your opponent by getting great shot selections and limiting their opportunities. There is no right or wrong way to select your players, but there is a way to actually get players and know if you have a chance rather than spending the time, effort and money on them. It is also vital to get the best players you can and specifically role players.

Scouting

The new scouting system for HD 3.0 is very interesting and can lead to some quality recruits. As a small DIII school this is important to note that you really do not want to extend past 500 miles if you can help it, unless the recruits preference(I will get to this a little later) is in your favor. I generally do not utilize the public camps for everyone as I have used it without much effect positively on my team, as I can find the players just as easy using other methods. After you get the results from the camp you will have a better idea of the recruits that are interested slightly more along with their preferences. If you find enough guys from this point that have either Very High or Good Preference towards your team then you might just be ready for recruiting. There is only one other important thing to note, you do not want to settle here if the players are terrible. You might want to check the preferences and go ahead and scout those players all the way to level 4 to get all of the information for them to see if they fit into your scheme. It is very important to note that you DO NOT NEED to look at a specific position. You are allowed to change a players position before the season starts anyway. It is better to find a guy that fits into what you need in terms of their ratings rather than worry about their overall rating. 

Scouting Service (Future Star Scouting, FSS)

This is another avenue that you can get the basic information about all recruits, getting to scouting level 2 very easily and cheaply. In HD 3.0 they separated the divisions out with this service so it is cheaper than it used to be. It is best to scout all states, possibly even the internationals at your division level or if you are in DIII it would be a good idea to go one level higher as you are able to recruit really any player including DI, but there is a chance you will not get the DI or DII player. 

Assistant Search

You are able to have your assistant coach find players within a certain range, division and number of players as well as positions if you really want to look at a specific position. I generally do not use this often, but it can be helpful at the lower levels to find players within the 500 mile range that I stated before. The only way I would go further out of that range is if you find an inelligible player that fits what you need in a division higher then yours. But generally you will be looking at a division higher for recruiting anyway as that will make you more competitive. 

Camps

I would ALWAYS host your own camp. From the developers that created the new system stated in the Beta that these players had a slightly increased interest in attending your school. I have not actually scouted or recruited at the DIII level in the new HD. But at the DI level it is really the only thing that I utilize on a consistent basis. I would not really at the lower levels go to the public camps as those will not always get you the recruits that you will necessarily even care about. 

Scouting Levels

1. Basic Information all recruits start at this level
2. Provides Preferences for recruits at this level
3. Provides potentials along with letter grades for all areas.
4. Provides exact numbers as well a potential colors of Green!

The cost of scouting for each level is determined by the distance from your school. So international students are vastly more expensive than those in your school's hometown etc. 

It is important to note that you do not want to scout any players past level 2 if you do not have a preference match as it will become vastly more difficult to recruit that player. Unless that player has no other schools attempting to recruit them, this is the only exception. With recruiting battles you do not want to get into one where you have a bad match preference wise. This would be where you would be completely wasting your time, effort and recruiting/scouting cash, which are separate and important to remember. You can easily spend all of your recruiting budget before you spend your scouting budget. I do that every season.

Preferences

You want to maximize your recruiting efforts as much as possible because it is difficult to get the exact players you want because there is probably someone else that wants that same recruit. You want to match the preferences of your team to the player as best as you can. You will always have the following preferences:

• Playing Time - Do they want to play - Providing a start or playing time helps here!
• Distance - Do they want to be close to home or far away from home or no preference
• Success - Do they want to play for a program that WINS or do they want to be part of a rebuild.
• Play Style - Strong D, Pereimeter, ETC. Will change based on teams performance throughout the year. 
• Offense - Type of offense they want to play in if they care. 
• Defense - Type of defense they want to play in if they care. 
• Conference Strength - Do they want to play for a strong conference or not.
• Coach Longevity - Do they want a coach who has been at the school for a long time or not. 
• Signing Preference - Tells what period they are looking to sign in, this dictates when they actually sign. Specifically early, by end of period 1, whenever, or late, they will always have a preference for you to understand when they will sign. 

Who to Scout

It is important to note that there is no specific player to scout. You want to get players that fit into roles on your team. The roles will vary based on your needs or your team composition. 

Elite: This player is the guy that you want to do something and do it GREAT. You want this player to be the best player on your team. This does not necessarily mean a PG, SG, or whatever. This could be a guy that has the best ratings on your team for their position or whatever. This guy could be a stellar rebounder and be elite at that area but does not score all the points. 

Scorer: Well you have to have someone that will score all the points. Generally a Highly Athletic guy, since speed does not matter for big men he does not have to be speedy unless he is a guard then you want a faster guy. Big Men should have high LP skills with athleticism for them to be classified as a scorer. Guards need good ball handling and passing skills as well as speed. This will allow them to score a lot of points. This guy does not need to be a starter. He could come off the bench and score a ton of points, it really does not matter. 

Rebounder: You NEED to be able to get rebounds. This player does not need to score but generally you need at least 2 to be able to out rebound the other team. 

Now there could be other positions that you might want to have on your team but I will go in detail about this in another post, stay tuned for that post.

Sorting Recruits Saving For Later

While scouting you are able to label recruits with various colors of Blue, Green, Yellow, Red and No Color. This sorting allows you to set your preference on the main recruiting page. A recruit labeled with Blue will show up higher on the list. Then Green, Yellow and Red. No Color will not show up on the main recruiting page. This sorting allows you to not have to search every single time for that recruit and puts them on a page for you to easily see them and then do the specific recruiting actions that you want to do. 

Recruiting

Attention Points

In the old system you had to actually contact athletes with phone calls, assistant calls etc to build up interest in your school. Now you assign a certain number of points based on the number of openings that you have at your school. 20 per opening + 20 additional. This allows you to use 20 on each recruit if you would like or pour more into one specific recruit the options are endless. 

Unlocking Recruiting Options

You must utilize the Attention Points in order to unlock various aspects for recruiting. You cannot just offer a scholarship to a recruit. You must unlock that option by providing attention points to that recruit. The nice thing is that you will receive a message in the message system when a recruit is ready for a certain recruiting action and you may also see the progress under the recruit tab when looking at the specific recruit page.

Recruiting Options

Strategy

There is some strategy to grabbing recruits. You want to hit the elite or best player that you are interested in hard early to get on their radar/get ahead of everyone else. I generally put 40 attention points into this recruit and 20 into the others. NOTE that you can only send a total of 20 home visits and 1 campus visit per recruit. I also think that you can only send 5 total campus visits for all recruits. This limits your chances as well as will force you to select recruits carefully. ALWAYS have a backup recruit for every position that you have open, this is just in case your main guys falls through and you need to hit another guy to be able to fill the spot. 

Pull Downs and Ineligibles

Since at the DIII level there are no requirements in regards to eligibility to play in the game you can recruit any player including DI and they can play right away. Use this to your advantage late in the recruiting say two days left to possibly snag a DI ineligible recruit. These DI inelligibiles might be your ELITE player on your team that you need who has the ability to play straight out of the gate and does not need to sit out a season similar to if they were recruited at the DI, DII level.

This is a fairly basic overview, if you feel that I have left anything out please post a comment. Please look for the next post coming soon about depth charts.

Season 101-102 Recruiting Class

As you have undoubtedly heard the changes to the scouting and recruiting system were major and completely changed the dynamic for recruiting.

As you also probably know my feelings are extremely positive when it comes to the new recruiting system. I think it was much needed and provides a way for the lower tier teams to at least have a fighting chance if not the option to be able to land some elite players instead of having to settle for the lower tier players.

For the past few seasons after the change I have seen much better talent coming to my program at the University of Wyoming. Just look at my roster:

Now with this new and improved system and the quality of players improving you would imagine that my team would be performing better right?! Not necessarily, my team has been improving however I am still learning how to make best use of my players. This season I made a run into the 2nd round of the national tournament which is a boost for my program. With the latest signing of the #7 Overall and #1 PG to the University of Wyoming team in Hoops Dynasty this might be a turning point in the history of the history of the program.

At the time of signing of this recruit Wyoming had the #2 recruiting class in the game world, currently Wyoming is sitting at #5 recruiting class with the signing of #52 Overall and #13 SF. With these two players it looks like the Wyoming team will be fairly balanced with 2 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 3 Sophomores and currently 2 Freshman incoming, with another signing yet to occur.

Will Wyoming continue to have a stellar recruiting class? Stay tuned for an update to this post!

Update: I did not land any other high quality players, but managed the two from this post. This season will be fairly stellar after losing by 8 to #15 Tennessee in the Exhibition rounds I feel confident that this season will only improve as the Freshman grow this season.

2/9/2017 - Update: After last season's epic recruiting class came into the scene at the University of Wyoming. We made the Elite Eight by way of routing the #1 team in the country. What a game, to be honest, I should not have won the game. However I did win and then went on to have an unspectacular recruiting class and my very first Early Entry (EE) which means that I had a guy go to the NBA draft. It is a bummer that he went, because if he would have stayed it would have increased my odds this season and his draft stock. But to each their own. It did help my reputation which happy to report was flawless prior. 

How to: Get Started at Hoops Dynasty

Are you considering starting a career at WhatIfSports Hoops Dynasty? Do you know someone that has already joined? Are you just a college basketball fan and want to see if you can do better than the real life coach. Well there are a few things to consider first and foremost...

In Hoops Dynasty you are REQUIRED to start at the DIII level no matter what you do. What?! You mean to say that I cannot coach at the school I want to coach at right away, that sucks I don't want to do this anymore......before you go on and get upset about this think about the real life coach that your team has right now! Did he/she just get that job right out the gates or did they have to actually move up the rankings or start as an assistance somewhere? In Hoops Dynasty starting at DIII is much like being an assistance coach at the DI level. So to ensure your success early on, so that you can get to the DI level quicker I am creating this Getting Started Guide and BE SUCCESSFUL!

Not to go off on a tangent here I WISH I would have known what I am telling you now. Selecting your team at Hoops Dynasty is not just a click I have a team, well it is but to improve yourself as a coach and move up it takes getting the RIGHT team early on to boost yourself up to the upper levels quicker and not moving on too early either.

Selecting a Team

All of the information below will help you, but if there is a school that you REALLY want to coach at go for it. Do not consider the information below if you do not want to.....it is only information to assist you in becoming a winner and having the ability to move up or obtain rewards for the teams performance to continue your career without paying more money.

Prestige 

All schools are given a grade A+ - D-. These give the school a boost when it comes to recruiting players. It is important for you to find the highest prestige of school you can that also follows the rules below.

Class Structure

When looking at a team to start at Hoops Dynasty you want to ensure that you are not selecting a team that has 5+ Seniors on the team and you have to recruit all those players with little to no experience in recruiting....with the exception of reading this post of course. I started with a team like this and got every lucky in recruiting but made crucial mistakes very early with my DIII team in which I could have had a better DII team if I would have looked into the class structure.

It is best to find a team that has returning players, preferably a 3-3-3-3 structure or a 4-2-4-2. What these numbers mean is the following:

3-3-3-3
3- Seniors
3 - Juniors
3 - Sophomores
3- Freshman

4-2-4-2
4 - Freshman
2 - Sophomores
4 - Juniors
2 - Seniors

These are all currently on the roster, which can be seen during sign up if you click on the team name. A new popup will appear allowing you to see the current players on the team with a ton of additional information. The most important piece of information would be in the History tab. This is where you find out if the team had a coach right before you or not, if it says Sim AI then the team did not have a coach in the previous season, anything else means that there was a human there before.

If you find a team with this makeup or with an overload of Juniors say 5+ Juniors on the team this will ensure a good initial coaching season.


Location: 


I am going to quote the Hoops Dynasty site below: This information relates to recruits which is vital for your team's future:

"To generate recruits, we first determine the total number to create, which is based on the projected openings in that world.  As we generate the necessary number of players, they are assigned to a particular state. The odds for each state are based on the number of schools in that state. Once a state is selected, a high school from that state is randomly assigned, which determines the player's geographical location.  From season to season, there will be variance in quantity and quality in a particular area due to these factors."

This basically means that places that have more colleges for example New York, California, Texas, etc... will have more recruits to choose from than places like Wyoming! Hey don't jab at me my school is the only DI school with no DII or DIII schools in the state making it fairly prime but still very difficult to recruit in this state. But I don't personally mind it since it is my alma mater. That aside this will help you recruit players closer to home since at the DIII level you have less budget, less scouting less everything than teams in DII and DIII. However there is the possibility to get recruits out of states such as Wyoming since there is no competition for the DII or DIII recruits.

Conference 

This is an important concept because my recommendation will change based on your personal needs, wants and or dedication to the game. There are two types of conferences:

Open: These conferences have a few to no human coaches in them. These ones are ideal for starting out because you generally can beat all the Sim teams just by recruiting. This will hurt your Strength of Schedule(SOS) but will help you rack up wins and increase your school prestige as well as coach prestige rather quickly.

Full: These conferences have mostly human coaches with 1-3 Sim teams. Each conference has 12 teams total, which means that these ones are more competitive, have a better conference prestige, attract better recruits etc. This also gives you more of a challenge since you will probably take over the team in the conference that is terrible, meaning you will have to work your butt off to make them better prolonging your move to a better school. On the flip side if you are able to pull off the rebuild and turn the school around better coaching jobs will open up for you in the long run...this is where one of my mistakes occurred.

It is also important to check out the following links for various division to determine what school you might want to start your career!

Division I                 Division II                      Division III

Finally I have to say that this is the important aspects to beginning at Hoops Dynasty. If this perks your interest please use the link on the right or below to sign up for a team.

If you liked this post see the next post on recruiting and scouting!