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: 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!

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!

Hoops Dynasty Update

As many of the users of Hoops Dynasty (HD) know there was a major overhaul of the system a month of so back. I was part of the Beta Testing which was only part of the reason that I was away from this blog for that recent amount of time, for that I am sorry.

The new update to hoops dynasty brought in visually appealing update to make everything look cleaner and user friendliness. This update came with a ton of feedback most of which I felt was negative towards the update.

Changes:

Improved look
Updated recruiting - major overhaul

My thoughts:

To sum up my personal feelings on this update - MUCH NEEDED. Prior to the update recruiting was simple but so much to the point that long term teams with high prestige and lots of cash would dominate and get all of the high quality recruits. Then once they had those or didn't get those recruits they would be able to grab the recruits coaches like myself had put in days worth of effort in recruiting and would take them in just a single cycle or two. Now the system allows teams such as a D3 team to recruit a top 100 recruit, which actually happened in real life which is what makes the update really awesome. Let's take for example before the update as a cusp mid-major program I would never go for top recruits. This last season I went after the #7 overall recruit, #1 PG in the nation. I battled UNC for the recruit and won! That would never have happened previously. It is going to change the team forever and bring them into the big picture for once. I also have been able to get better recruits than ever before. Currently looking at the #5 recruiting class in the country which is very nice.

The visuals of the game make it much easier to use on a mobile device and basically on any device. This allows users/coaches to be able to play anywhere they desire. Overall I would say that this is a huge undertaking and has been a positive improvement.

I am happy that the people over at WhatIfSports are willing to make changes even if not everyone likes them. I understand that many coaches left after the changes because they were stuck in their ways. Looking forward I would love to have more people join Hoops Dynasty and really any of the dynasty games that they have.

I might be trying to get myself some extra dollars to utilize on hoops dynasty however if you are interested in trying Hoops Dynasty of any of WhatIfSports games follow this link:

If you would like to see the exact changes at WhatIfSports and Hoops Dynasty click here.

Starting at Hoops Dynasty

I stumbled upon Hoops Dynasty the other day, because of the lack of video games that are based on college football and basketball. I will confess that I was very surprised to of found something so amazing on the internet.

Hoops Dynasty is one of many options from What If Sports. They have Football, Professional, Baseball, and a few others. They have seasons in each setup specifically for each and are always updating. I looked at reviews, other blog sites and a bunch of different things before signing up. Which is one of my reservations about the game, you have to pay to use it even to test. But again I signed up for one season just to see if I liked it or not.

They have a ton of different worlds with various numbers of games played in each. These worlds can host upwards of 1000 human players from DIII to DI level college basketball levels. You always start at DIII which kind of sucks but is probably a good thing so you can get the hang of everything before you get up to the big boys. My Alma Mater is Wyoming, which I know is not the greatest school but this year they almost beat 'The Ohio State" during non-conference. Not saying Wyoming is great, but that is hopefully going to be my future home in what I have found already, in the limited amount of time that I have played, to be a fantastic College Basketball Coaching Simulation.

When you start out you pick a world and a team. I ended up choosing Fisk University, probably not the greatest idea because I picked them due to their high prestige, which I found online and in forums was a good thing to have for recruiting. Fisk was returning only 7 players and 4 of them were Point Guards, which is not a big deal because anyone can play any position, which we all know. Look at the NBA and College Game some guys play multiple positions, so this did not worry me until I looked at the team further. Most of the guys on the team eve if they were in their sophomore year were basically capped out, what this means is that they have potential in certain skill areas, in these areas most of the guys had Red which means that they have a low potential. This does not mean that they will not grow, but to me means that I needed a lot of new talent. I ended up taking away one of the players scholarships opening up 6 total scholarships, which in hindsight might of been a bad idea. On the other hand I had another opening to put in a better player in that position.

So I started recruiting following a forum post and a email from another player. The community is great and all you have to do is post in the forums for any help that you may need. Everyone is great. I started out rocky, going after some players that would never play for me because of my school and they wanted to go to a better place anyway. This was my first mistake, which I recovered.

Every once in awhile during recruiting some athletes will contact you, this is where I found a DI transfer from Florida A&M who was a 7'0" Center in which I had 0 players in that position. When I saw that he was interested I jumped all over him, because even with only having 2 years of eligibility left in this career he would be an instant starter for me and fill a huge void that I was missing. He may not be my best player that I have or even the best player ever, but he will fit into my defensive system, basically he will be my rebounder and force in the middle. I still have not determined what offense and defense that I am going to run, because I took over for a Motion Offense and a Press Defense team and I am unsure if I have the depth or the skill set with the players that I have for either of these sets. I would prefer to play Man Defense, however again not sure if I have the team to defend at certain positions such as the player I recruited at the Center spot who seems like a great all around player, he is lacking in a few areas that I think are crucial to this game. Again he will probably start for me but be subbed out often in order to keep the other team off balance with another transfer player at center that I found as well.

The recruiting portion has gotten me into this game and I look to improve on the record set by the human coach at Fisk last year of 24-7 and a National Tournament 2nd round along with a conference championship. That is a huge change from where I am starting off. It is going to be a rebuild but I hope to do well enough in my conference and out of conference to show that it is more than just the skill set of players but  the coaching strategy and how you adapt to certain situations.

From when I started a few days ago I have found this game to be mildly entertaining but definitely complicated, because it is easy to use and quick to get the hang of, however there is so much depth to it that you have to put in the time and effort to be really good. Hopefully I will be able to move up the ranks quickly, however I have no idea where this will lead. Feel free to post comments as I will check back and update on my daily schedule of games and how I am faring throughout the season. Also when the season is over if you like what you have read or are interested in Hoops Dynasty join the world Knight with 2 games per day during the regular season. Great human coaches and lots of help to be had. I would even be happy to have you join me or play exhibition games against anyone who wishes to challenge my teams. Again I am not great yet, but with the help that I have received I feel confident with some patience and good recruiting I could put a great team together.