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
- Basic Information all recruits start at this level
- Provides Preferences for recruits at this level
- Provides potentials along with letter grades for all areas.
- 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.
