That's a rap... Congrats to James on a PIT Title

School	Coach	Conf. W-L	Overall W-L	Home W-L	Road W-L	Top 25 W-L	Last 10	STRK	RPI	SOS
#8 Marshall	girt25	15-1	30-2	13-0	12-1	6-1	9-1	L1	2	5
UAB	options	11-5	22-7	6-2	15-3	2-4	5-5	L2	21	40
#22 Central Florida	dacj501	10-6	22-8	5-3	15-3	2-5	5-5	L2	19	19
Memphis	oldwarrior	9-7	19-10	7-3	11-5	3-4	5-5	L2	27	11
E. Carolina	zags27	9-7	18-11	6-4	11-5	3-6	7-3	L2	30	12
S. Mississippi	Weena	1-15	9-19	3-10	5-8	0-8	1-9	L1	127	22

Dan, I agree that I don't think that's what zags was saying per se - just that some people (and I sort of did too I guess) might read it that way.

Maybe I'm extremely unlucky, maybe I'm just no better than a upper 3rd tier coach - I haven't been at UCF very long, and we all haven't been at this terribly long - but my Alabama experience seems to indicate this is it for me. 17 seasons of recruiting seems like enough to see the writing on the wall. I try to find the diamonds in the rough that the bigger schools won't take. I try to land the biggest studs I can find. Occasionally hell gets chilly and we get one or two. Then they go EE after their soph season...it takes all my powers to find one stud every 2 or 3 seasons, and invariably they leave and it takes 3 yrs to get another. How the hell am I supposed to make that work? EEs are part of the game, I get it, like I said, this is my failing I suppose. But also as I said, if I can't manage to get over this hump with SEC cash I doubt it's gonna happen here. I tell you what though - I'm gonna have to figure it out soon though or I think I'll just let D I go to hell and go back to D2 where I occasionally seem to know what I'm doing. All the big time BCS schools that ***** about EEs **** me off - they have A and A+ prestige. They lose the EEs and then they have $100000 to recruit with and an A+ prestige. They just take whatever they want, and 90% of the time they go unchallenged at probably sign the kids for $3000, so they can use the bulk of it if/when a similar top school does actually take them on. Maybe I'm wrong (probably, I usually am) - and my tune sure would be different if I was one of the A+ schools lording over everyone else, but until I get to that point (yeah, right) I just don't know what to do. I actually think I'm a pretty good recruiter too...

Some kids I recruit on the cheap to be backups. I mean its hard enough to find a couple studs, I'm sure as hell not gonna find 9 or 10 of them (of course since seble nerfed fatigue onset and effects I guess I really only need 8 studs and 4 walkons to win right?) I hate that btw - A team with 8 800 players should still get tired and suffer fatigue effects when playing a solid team of 12 720 rated players, especially when faced with an uptempo...not in my experience though...

if this sim is trying to emulate real life, I'd take a team of 7 800+ rated players over a team that goes 12 deep full of 700+ rated guys.
it's HD that seemingly over emphasizes the effect of fatigue.

Most of the top teams only have 7 or 8 players seeing double digit minutes.  Kentucky won the title with basically a 6 man rotation with their 7th guy (Wiltjer) only averaging 6 minutes per game, in games decided by 10 or fewer points. 

My post was just to stir up some conversation from you guys and see where everyone thought we were.
I personally think, as Dan mentioned, we actually had a couple bad breaks and really are on the brink of becoming one of the top conferences in Rupp. I do agree however, we need to ramp it up a little in recruiting and work on the quality and not quantity of our recruits.
GL this season guys, it may be one of our best yet, since alot of us lose very little.
C-Fla is however going to have several openings... and a pretty good size bankroll. I'd say let the teams in Florida know you're there,

Seble's announcement that they will be amending prestige to more highly weigh on-court performance and lessen the impact of baseline will no doubt help us.

dac, not sure what you mean by "nerfed" fatigue ... that's not accurate. My suggestion on the backups -- sign a defensive stud who is offensively challenged rather than someone who is just kind of OK everywhere. Most of your thoughts re: recruiting in your last post seem overblown and overexaggerated to me.

You can become one of those A+ schools. Anyone can.

what's not accurate?

New engine came out 5/12/10. On 8/28/10 changelog shows a shift to a non linear effects of fatigue change. 2/3/11 changelog shows a "small reduction to fatigue rate". Maybe you didn't notice or you approve of the changes. I wasn't a fan.

I'm saying that the change to fatigue was not nearly as game-changing as you're suggesting.

I noticed a change in results of my teams. I suppose could be related to other things, but coincided with those changes.

I challenge your timeline. Your big success in Rupp at Shaw came after that change.

And why would it particularly impact you more significantly than others?

We've talked previously about strategy changes, game changes, etc. and how they may have effected you ... I'm thinking that you're pointing the finger at a relatively minor fatigue change that is not the culprit.

its entirely possible Dan... my memory is ****. I do know that when the fatigue changes came the coach at Arkansas in my Tark world always ran with 7 or 8 and 4 or 5 walkons. Before the changes I beat him 4 straight times running uptempo with my 12 man rotations. PBP showed him suffering lots of reds for fatigue, and his guys fouled me more and we took advantage. After the changes I haven't beat him since either at Arky or after he moved to Indiana and did the same thing there. I didn't really change the way I build a team or anything, and I ran uptempo at him again after. His guys never got worse than orange. Maybe its more realistic - I know  a lot of schools IRL only go 7 deep (hell, I'm a Syracuse fan, of course i know that...) but this isn't RL as is so often pointed out. When you can't land studs you try to build a team of pieces. I think that a team of high IQ seniors who maybe aren't all 99 across the board ought to be able to push a team of 7 all stars into fatigue issues and grab a win. I know sample size is small and yadda yadda, and I guess I have no real idea how things really work or I'd be better at this game overall, but that's my perception and my rationale.

My D 2 Rupp success was more about the ability to score without any offensive abilities. That didn't get affected by the fatigue nerf - it got beaten down when FG% were dropped by 3% across the board. My guys that were just effective enough before became offensive liabilities. Unfortunately my teams were full of those players, since they were working for me to that point. I guess leaving Shaw when I did was ok, since I would have probably dropped off due to this like I did at Valdosta St. at the same time.

some final numbers season #58

Rank	Conference	Prestige	Record	Strength of Schedule	RPI
1.	Conference USA	B-	210-140	.5841	.5922
2.	Big 12	B+	224-141	.5896	.5902
3.	SEC	B+	212-146	.5854	.5850
4.	PAC 10	B	196-156	.5707	.5633
5.	Big East	B	185-165	.5560	.5430
6.	Big Ten	B	184-164	.5482	.5422
7.	ACC	B	180-167	.5474	.5414
8.	Horizon	C	171-170	.5200	.5138
9.	Ivy League	C-	172-168	.5085	.5064
10.	Big West	D+	173-165	.4975	.5006
11.	Big Sky	C-	165-175	.5041	.4980
12.	MAC	D+	168-167	.4884	.4901
13.	Atlantic 10	C	156-182	.4959	.4851
14.	Patriot League	D+	163-173	.4807	.4789
15.	Big South	D	154-183	.4896	.4779

I think this is most of the relevant stuff I try to save.

	School	Players	A	SPD	REB	DE	BLK	LP	PE	BH	P	WE	ST	DU	FT	TOT
1.	Marshall	12	89	67	54	91	50	60	61	60	58	64	80	59	C+	794
2.	Memphis	12	75	59	58	79	52	58	57	56	56	65	78	67	C	786
3.	E. Carolina	12	79	57	52	76	50	64	62	52	59	64	77	62	C+	754
4.	Central Florida	12	72	58	55	75	40	59	54	55	52	66	76	64	C+	759
5.	SMU	12	58	61	46	57	40	56	62	55	57	69	79	62	C+	701
6.	UAB	12	66	59	48	66	40	43	57	59	52	62	77	69	B-	724
7.	UTEP	12	80	53	45	82	41	45	49	54	50	56	78	65	C+	699
8.	Tulsa	12	72	57	56	67	48	58	49	49	43	50	79	67	C+	693
9.	Tulane	12	72	55	49	80	44	41	53	48	45	62	77	64	C	713
10.	S. Mississippi	12	58	56	54	58	45	54	53	47	54	59	80	69	C+	686
11.	Houston	12	58	59	42	64	36	37	55	54	61	68	75	72	C+	718
12.	Rice	12	75	54	46	71	37	46	48	47	54	48	71	67	C+	683

the Bold are after the 7 W/O's in the conference are removed

To put some of this into perspective, 3-4 seasons ago we ended the season with 9 players over 800 rated. We began the season with no team rated over 700 and ended with 4.
This season we were #1 in conference RPI.
Ended with 8 teams over 700 overall rated.
and had 18 players rated 800 or higher.

There was some whispering going on at seasons end about paper-tigers and inflated rpi's etc due to some crash and burn injuries in the NT.
I think my memory is just too selective and short and I sometimes forget the extremely humble beginnings that were C-USA not that long ago.

All things considered... I think we are alive and well, and just starting to scrape the surface of what we are capable of doing in the next 4-5 seasons.
GIDDYUP!