same here, aejones.  I'm in my 56th season at Transylvania (Iba, DIII) and over 50 with three other teams. .  I've only been at Drew (Naismith) for 30 but have been in the same conference for 52 seasons.  My 'baby' is  Drury in Crum..only 15 seaons.    I have a mix of D2 and D3 teams.  I have no desire to go to D1.

Posted by aejones on 4/11/2012 3:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by patsrule755 on 4/10/2012 7:13:00 PM (view original):
aejones do you use fatiuge or target minutes 

always fatigue. i don't think yoiu can win with target minutes, but i scrapped it long ago.

Was this a typo?

You think you *can* win with target minutes, buy [you] scrapped it long ago?

FWIW, I use target minutes at D3 and have enjoyed some modest success.

He meant he scraped it a long time ago - therefore when he says "I don't think you can win with target minutes" he's saying that without having played target minutes himself in a long time.

I simply don't understand how the typical team can be better playing target minutes than playing fatigue. Not that it's impossible to have some success at target minutes, but simply switching to minutes by fatigue and setting everyone no less than getting tired should automatically make the team play more efficiently. Unless you are deathly afraid of your bench because everyone outside your starting lineup can't see the light of day on the court for a high school team, in which case you stink anyway, why ever play target minutes? (again, unless maybe promises need to be kept and can't be done efficiently on fatigue settings)

Ae, how much of your guide would you apply to the D1 level, in particular recruiting? Is there anything recruiting wise you do differently in D1 vs D2 or D3? I know the money is greater and the competition more fierce, but are the same principles applicable in D1?How possible is it for a low end D1 school to consistently make the NT with deep runs like the sweet 16 in your opinion? If it's even possible?

I will attempt to defend target minutes lol:

If a coach feels that he has a deep bench he might use target minutes to even out playing time whereas fatigue settings might not allow you to do so.  If you look at baseballer77's Bowie St team in D2 Iba (which I feel is one of the most competitive D2s out there) none of his players get much more than 20 minutes a game, with the majority getting between 13-20 minutes.  It seems to me that this would have to indicate that he uses target minutes and he has won 2 natty ships in the past 4 seasons with this system.  Also, I believe that giving a couple extra minutes to your younger players will help them progress faster right?  So maybe giving them 8-10 minutes instead of 3-4 would benefit their progression.  This in turn will lead to a deeper team

I don't have an IBA team so I can't look up your example, but you've just described any 11-12 man press team. Maybe 2 or 3 guys exceed 20 minutes, and barely. And press more than any other defense, no one should be using target minutes.

And if you have guys that can play multiple positions, even as a 3rd string guy on the depth chart, you should be able to get more than 3-4 minutes out of them, but I play press so that makes it pretty easy to go 11 deep with everyone playing over 10 minutes.

But I do respect your attempt.

You are definitely right, I just felt like playing counterpoint.  Personally I have messed around with both and typically use fatigue, although I think target minutes can be effective for some teams.

Then try my Hamline team as an example.

We play zone, and I (almost) always play uptempo (almost more to cover my *** than actually being able to remember the last time I changed that setting). I have played fatigue (everyone on fairly fresh) once this season - this game. The opponent was playing normal (not uptempo, not slowdown) motion/M2M and, with my playing uptempo/motion/zone, my bench is hardly used. Only one player off the bench was over 12 minutes, and the bench minutes were 17-12-11-11-9-2. Plus, that was with my starting center in foul trouble and fouling out in only 21 minutes. Going just by fatigue, his 83 stamina in zone/motion/uptempo gets him 30 minutes, so the bench would see even less play. 

But, you ask, why is that bad? Most people have the better players start, so why not maximize their minutes on the court at fairly fresh or better?

A few reasons:

1) Fatigue. As designed, if everyone on the bench is fully rested and no one is in foul trouble, fairly fresh - the most aggressive sub setting - kicks in at the first dead ball following the drop in fatigue level. So even a team of super stamina guys is going to have some portion of the minutes (what portion varies from game to game) played with guys below "fresh" under fatigue substitutions. If you tweak the target minutes properly, it is possible to have the entire game played by "fresh" players. For a team playing uptempo and pressing, you may not get everyone at "fresh" for the whole game, but you can still get more minutes at better fatigue than relying just on fatigue subs.

2) Promises. You admit this point, but seem to dismiss it as unimportant. It's not. The promise of a start can make a big difference in recruiting - especially at D3 where you are recruiting with a relatively limited budget. But if you promise a start and use fatigue substitutions, you are also committing to playing the recruit for a substantial portion of time right away. Now, you can limit the damage somewhat by scheduling the first half of OOC play relatively easy, but that has drawbacks of its own. Particularly with guards who haven't played your offense in high school, they can be turnover machines if they see much PT (especially against press, obviously).
So, against crappy teams who don't mind running a low-IQ freshman out there and taking losses, I have some prestige advantage from running a winning program.
Against other good teams who value wins, I still have a recruiting advantage in that I can be more liberal in my use of promises without running the same risk of game losses.

3) Development. Using target minutes for (most of) my games, it is much easier for me to maximize development of my younger players. While there are drawbacks to it (primarily because margin of victory plays a role in rankings and I generally don't blow people out), I judge the other team and will put a combination of players out there that I believe maximizes the play of my developing players without risking (too much) a loss. I can also give (un-promised) starts to players with lower WE but high potential players to get that extra boost without necessarily playing them until they are tired. If you plan on trying to maintain a D3 team long-term (instead of using it to move up to a higher division) that can be useful.

4) Game-Planning. If you're using fatigue subs, the number of wrinkles you can incorporate into your game planning is relatively limited. If the skill sets provide for it, you can maybe switch up a SG/SF or PF/C to exploit a matchup, but that's close to the extent of it. If you have a dominant scorer, for exmaple, you can only do so much to "hide" him from a shut-down defender or two. It becomes something of a guessing game at times, trying to predict what the opposing coach will do. With target minutes though, I can have that scorer move seamlessly between multiple positions, and maximize the number of minutes he plays against opposing backups (over whom he often will enjoy a significant advantage in ATH/SPD or some other facet). It becomes very difficult for opponents to match players up, and when they do so they are generally trying to guess what I am going to do, instead of the other way around.
I think, because there are so many people who are of fatigue-sub-only mindset, this is a big reason why people sometimes think of Hoops Dynasty as Recruiting Dynasty. Get the better players and let then run (often literally, it seems, with the use/abuse of press as a base defense) is a dominant mindset. But that's not the way it has to be.

Overall: Really, it comes down to control. I'm just conceited enough to think that (more often than not) maximizing control over how my players are used will benefit the team in the long run.

I'm not saying there aren't times/teams where using fatigue subs makes sense.

I am saying that simply using fatigue subs and never making use of target minutes leaves a lot of control on the table and (overall) isn't the most efficient way to do it either.

Posted by rednation58 on 4/11/2012 11:56:00 AM (view original):
Ae, how much of your guide would you apply to the D1 level, in particular recruiting? Is there anything recruiting wise you do differently in D1 vs D2 or D3? I know the money is greater and the competition more fierce, but are the same principles applicable in D1?How possible is it for a low end D1 school to consistently make the NT with deep runs like the sweet 16 in your opinion? If it's even possible?

In D1, recruiting is much different. It's similar in the sense that player evaluation is important, seeing where people's final skillset will be is important, and being patient is important; but it's much different in battles. Battles are necessary at D1 because VORR is much more steep (Value Over Replacement Recruit). Nevertheless, if you tag a guy for being worth ~$20k, and someone else is willing to spend 40k on him, but you realize his FT shooting will hinder him, his work ethic will hinder him, etc. something like that would be the competitive edge. 

Overall though in just my 6th or so season I can already see how different it is in terms of battling. I was at a prestige disadvantage, with $120k, but a huge distance advantage and I thought I could get a guy for $75k last time around and a higher prestige school just kept coming. The recruit wasn't even that good (strong though for a B school like I was) and I was in the lead and I figured he would just back off, but he kept on him and eventually I spent too much money and random crappy recruits and ran out at the end. Never underestimate what other coaches will do-- they are not you, they will make decisions based on their own messed up criteria, don't take anything for granted, always save enough money to win winnable battles. That is my D1 advice.

Posted by alblack56 on 4/11/2012 6:13:00 AM (view original):
same here, aejones.  I'm in my 56th season at Transylvania (Iba, DIII) and over 50 with three other teams. .  I've only been at Drew (Naismith) for 30 but have been in the same conference for 52 seasons.  My 'baby' is  Drury in Crum..only 15 seaons.    I have a mix of D2 and D3 teams.  I have no desire to go to D1.

Only 56 at Transy, Al?  A mere rookie in the coaching business, ha ha.  I say that because I'm in the middle of season number 65 at Northeastern State in Tark (D2)!  Sometimes you can really get attached to these schools and coaching "jobs", huh?

Of course, real world time, you've been there longer, the two-a-day thing really speeds everything up.  Northeastern State was my first ever D2 school in HD which is why I've been there so long.  Don't have any intentions of leaving any time soon.  I'm slowly cutting teams, but that will be the last one to go.

I use target minutes on all my team...

Posted by tianyi7886 on 4/11/2012 3:23:00 PM (view original):
I use target minutes on all my team...

I keep good company, it seems. Any other benefits you can think of (and you are willing to share)?

EDIT: Actually, I think I'm going to start a new thread so this one doesn't get (even more) hijacked.

Target Minutes thread.

how much harder is d2 than d3

Not much harder if any. Usually there is more humans so it's a bit more competitive.