1. Introduction

When I first started playing this game, I read and re-read AEJones D2/D3 guide over and over again finding it to be an invaluable source of information that helped shape all of my teams going forward. AEJones guide was certainly not the only thing I used. The forums, the FAQs, chapels 3.0 guide, discord are all chalk full of useful information if you know where to look. Many have also been kind enough to answer my sitemails (Shoe, BillyG, Chapel and Cub to name a few) and I answered others sitemails which has helped me hone-in on my HD skills. With the changes in the job applications, coaches are flocking to D1 and while there are endless places of good information, we do not have a one-stop-shop of everything related to D1 (and specifically 3.0 D1 rebuilds). What I have attempted to do is to aggregate all of the information into one place that is hopefully easily readable. I have divided it into the below 15 sections to allow the reader to jump to the section they are looking for; however, I believe it is best read in order (at least the first time) as the information builds on the previous sections so if the reader skips a part of it, it may be less useful or less clear as I have attempted not to repeat myself to the extent possible. It’s written for a fairly new player but there may be a few items useful for a more experienced coach. A lot of the concepts can also be applied to D2/D3 but its really written from a low D1 prospective. I would also describe this as a very detailed “strategy” guide but assumes the reader has the basic mechanics of the game already down. Recommend the FAQs, chapels 3.0 guide and AEJones guide for understanding the basic fundamentals of how the game works and runs.

The AEJones guide famously opened with the declarative statement that he was the best D2/D3 coach at the time (a statement I would have agreed with). I certainly cannot make that statement about myself. I’m still D1 national title-less [UPDATE: after 6 losses in the NC game, i finally won! (UPDATE to the UPDATE: I won 4 of 5 D1 NC in Phelan and 5 of the last 10!)] and would not put myself in the top tier of coaches on this website. What I can say is that I have been able to consistently take D prestige teams and build them into A prestige programs in less than 15 seasons. I’ve included links to my rebuilt teams and you can decide if my advice is worth taking. Additionally, unlike AEJones, there are very few novel concepts in this post. Almost everything I have taken from a different source (forums, sitemails, watching the elite coaches) so you aren’t necessarily taking my advice, but rather the advice of many others. Finally, I want to stick 3 gigantic caveats at the beginning of this document and then I promise I will get into dispensing actual advice.

Caveat 1: D1 is an unbalanced game. Teams in D1 have a “baseline” built into prestige that gives the elite teams a significant advantage. On top of that, each prestige letter has a significantly higher recruiting advantage than a 1 letter difference in D2/D3. Because of that, quick turnarounds are essentially impossible. If you want to make the NT every season as soon as you start, play in D2 or D3. There is nothing wrong with that at all. D2 is an excellent game. It’s just a different game than D1. Your goal should be to improve your prestige around 2/3 a letter to a full letter every 4-5 seasons. If you follow the advance in this post, you should be able to do that. That does mean you will likely suck (less than 10 wins to start with) when you begin. That is OKAY. Smile, laugh and build for the future.

Caveat 2: Every bit of advice in this document should be viewed on a spectrum. If I say, “Don’t let players with less than 70 PER shoot threes”, I well aware that a 68/90/90 PER/SPD/BH is fine and better than a 72/65/65 player. Also, 68 PER may be your best 3-point shooter so you may have to let him. I avoided adding too many of these caveats within the document for readability but please understand all advice is on a spectrum and taken as a bright line will lessen its use.

Caveat 3: What is written here is what has worked for me. With the emphasis on the “for me” part. I once taught a training in Amsterdam and I said “there are many ways to skin a cat” which I learned makes you look like a serial killer if you aren’t from America. BUT the message remains the same. There are many, many ways to be successful at this game and I have simply written here what has worked for me but that doesn’t mean it is the only or even the best way to do it. If you have something else that is working for you, stick with it!

Sections

1. Introduction
2. Picking a team (Location, conference and O/D)
3. Scouting Efficiency
4. Recruit Evaluation
5. Roster Construction
6. Pre-Recruiting (identifying recruits and prep)
7. Cycle 1 and C2
8. Rest of Recruiting Session 1
9. Recruiting Session 2 strategies
10. Scheduling
11. Settings
12. Game-planning basics
13. Advanced game-planning
14. Early Entries
15. Closing + a tl;dr list

My rebuilds
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=14029
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=5254
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=13828
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=8131 (work in progress)
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=5375 (2.0)
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=5339 (not a rebuild, but hey success!)

2. Picking a team (Location, conference, and O/D)

*Disclaimer* Of everything contained in this write-up, this section will be by far the most opinion driven and there are many, many different thoughts/opinions on this topic. I don’t claim mine is right, it’s just my personal preference.

I personally do not prefer to play in completely empty conferences and generally find it difficult for the D prestige conferences to send multiple teams to NT consistently (there are certainly exceptions out there). Because of this, I prefer to start my D1 rebuilds in either the mid-majors (A10, MWC, CUSA or Horizon) or at a down-trodden big 6 school.

I find rebuild recruiting to be a bit easier away from the east coast bloodbath or California so a non-exhaustive list of great schools to consider: Anyone in the Big 12, SEC, CUSA, MW, the north of the PAC10, Iowa and Saint Louis. There are plenty of other good options, these are just my favorite.

I don’t spend too much time worrying about the current state of the roster. Like I said in caveat 1, I expect to suck at the beginning so Im just not that worried about it. Bonus points if the team has players that were recruited by a human (even the worst coaches are better at recruiting than simmy) and/or a high concentration of juniors. Juniors are especially valuable in that your first full season as a coach you get recruiting resources for them graduating. This is more valuable than seniors as you have already missed out on the first recruiting cycle. The Colorado rebuild I did had 7 freshman and everyone was recruited by SIMAI. I cut nearly the whole lot and we sucked. It was fine. Again, location and conference are the most important thing.

I didn’t have a perfect place in this document to discuss my opinions on the different offenses and defenses so I will do it here as coaches are often thinking about it when picking teams. I think selecting defenses is far more important to team building so Ill start with a breakdown of those. Each of the defenses are very different each have their own pros and cons that you should at least be slightly adjusting your recruiting and play style to suit. I’ve detailed my opinion of each option and how that would affect your team going forward. I do recommend deciding as soon as you take over a team what defense you want and switching at the beginning. You are going to suck to start (I’ll just keep beating that thought into your head) so you might as well take the licking for switching defenses at the beginning as well. The first season you switch your team will be noticeably worse than your team should be and its generally not until the end of the second season that the team gets back to net neutral. Therefore, it’s worth switching to get to the D you want, but you really should only do that once per team.

Man – Man is the most neutral defense. It’s neither the best or the worst at defense against the 2 or 3, causing turnovers or committing fouls. It’s ideal roster construction is a rotation of 10 but can be played with as few as 8 and as many as 12. It’s the best rebounding defense and you get to use the full spectrum of -5 to +5 and double teams. Because of these factors, I find it to be the most flexible choice from a roster construction standpoint and is probably the easiest to understand and manage and therefore is my default recommendation. The attributes DEF and ATH are more valued than with the other choices.

Press – Press creates the most turnovers which means more opportunities on offense. I think it is pretty clearly the best defense when you have the players for it. The problem is there is a strong emphasis on “when” in that previous sentence. Coaches need to have at least 11 players in the rotation and 12 is much better. All players should have stamina of at least 70 by the end of their freshman season with a target of 80+ after. I generally stick to a tighter spectrum of -2 to +3 and you can’t double team so your choices game to game are a bit more limited (but sometimes that’s better!). In summary, press has a very high ceiling but the need to keep a full roster gives it a lower floor (and let me tell you it is very frustrating to try and play with 9). The attributes STAM and SPD are more valued than other choices (as well as just making sure you have enough bodies).

Zone – Zone is the most underappreciated defense in my opinion. 3-2 is by far the best D against the 3 pointer and 2-3 is by far the best D against the 2 (but the inverse is also true, 3-2 is bad against the post and 2-3 is terrible against threes). Because of this, you have the most game-planning options and you can wreck teams that heavily rely on 1 type of scoring. You also get the full spectrum of -5 to +5 in both sets + double teams. The options can actually make it hard to decide how to game plan though. It is also the worst at creating turnovers and marginally worse at rebounding. You can run it rather efficiently with 8 or 9 meaning you can take bigger swings in recruiting because missing out on 1 or 2 players isn’t going to kill your rotation. Having a SF that is both fast and can rebound and shot-block is incredibly valuable so you can effectively bounce back and forth between 3-2 and 2-3 (or have two players that fit well for each set). The attributes REB and SB are more valuable for your frontcourt players and SPD is more valuable for your guards than in other sets.

HCP/Zone – The zone flexibility really allows you to game-plan against any team but zone remains deficient in creating turnovers. By adding a half-court press, you are significantly increasing your opponent’s turnovers without needing to have a full 12 man roster (10 works fine for HCP/Zone). The (major) downside of HCP/Zone is you have to practice two defenses which will take away your growth in other areas and it is unlikely you’ll get to A+ IQs which really are valuable in this game. When I ran it at Colorado, I used 22/22/15 for my flex/zone/press minutes. The other thing I did at Colorado which I liked was I layered on press. IE I started with zone, was able to chase slightly better recruits because I didn’t need a full roster, and added press over time when I got to around a B prestige. I thought this worked fairly well. The attributes REB and SB are more valuable for your frontcourt players and SPD is more valuable for your guards than in other sets.

HCP/Man – The only set I’ve never run. Seems to me that HCP and zone fit better so if I really wanted to run HCP, Id just do that.

I’ve also included my thoughts on the offenses although I generally wont change from flex/motion/triangle when I select a new team, I just stick with what the prior coach had. In my opinion, those three offenses are similar enough where simply chasing the best recruits is likely your best strategy. Fastbreak (“FB”) is about having the best and the most athletes. This means FB can be killer at D2/D3 or at the highest levels of D1 but you are never going to have that while rebuilding at D1. You might be able to wreck an empty conference with FB, but you’re going to get toasted in the NT so don’t play FB when rebuilding. I talk more about this in the gameplanning section, but one of the most common mistakes I see a team make is taking way too few threes or way to many, making them much more easy to gameplan against. The below paragraphs identify my “optimal” 3FGA (which is total team 3 attempts/ total team shots), but know that anything north of 40% or south of 20% you are asking for trouble. No matter what the paragraphs below say, balance is always important.

Flex – The Flex offense relies the most heavily on 3 point-shooting. Successful flex teams always have at least 2 3-point shooters on the court at all times meaning teams need 4 shooters on the team and likely a underclassman developing PER. Of the three non-FB sets, flex is the set Im most likely to have a guard at SF (with around 30-40 rebounding). It’s also the only set where you can consistently get 3’s from your PF. I don’t try for that, but sometimes I end up with one and it works okay. The flex offense helps shooters so you can let slightly lower PER players shoot, but having a rainmaker or two also helps. My optimal 3FGA for a flex team is ~35%. Speed is the attribute that is slightly more valuable relative to motion or triangle but have more shooters is the most important consideration.

Triangle – The best triangle teams concentrate scoring to fewer players so your distribution should be more lopsided between players. Because of this, opponents will hunt your scorers on defense so of the three sets, this is the one where you want to have elite weapons on offense (90+ PER/SPD/BH, 90+ LP/ATH, 40+BH and good FT or 85+ATH/SPD, 70 BH, 40+ LP and good FT). The flipside of needing elite scorers is that this is the best set to play guys that are worthless at putting the ball in the hoop. Make sure those guys are good at other things (defense, rebounding and distributing) but it’s fine to have one or two 0 distribution players on the court at a time. A decent choice is having a better defender wing and post that you can swap out with your scorers to get better match ups against the other team. My optimal 3FGA for a triangle team is ~30%. LP and Per are slightly more valuable relative to the other sets as well have a few elite scorers.

Motion – Motion keys on getting points in the paint either via post or via slashing guards and wings. Good motion teams still make sure to have 1 quality 3 point shooter on the court at a time (and 2 is also okay) but this is the best set for 2 point offense. Slashing guards are very useful. I’m also a fan of the tweener forward, i.e. and athletic (80+) forward but on the slower end (around 55), that is an average rebounder (65-70), that has good LP and BH. Playing that type of player in motion at SF gives teams an advantage on the boards and is a great way to get points in the motion offense. Slashing guards and tweener forwards are often cheaper in recruiting that other types of prospects give motion an advantage on that front. My optimal 3FGA for a motion team is ~25%. Ballhandling is the attribute that is slightly more valuable than other sets.

FB – Im on record as NOT recommending FB for rebuilding teams in D1 (I do like it in D2 and D3), but for completeness purposes here are my thoughts. Like press, the goal is to have the most athletes on the roster at all times. Slowdown tempo is not available in FB so teams need to have the stamina and bodies not fatigue to fast. STAM, ATH and SPD have outsized importance at all positions relative to the other offensive sets. LP is far less useful than all of the other sets to the point where I recommend just skipping it unless a LP scorer falls into your lap. Instead, FB offenses are built around transition points, tired defenders and 3s. Slashers are very valuable in this set. The most common mistake I do see made is not valuing the three pointer though. FB is probably the 2^nd most friendly perimeter offense (behind flex) so ideally should have multiple shooters on the court at a time. Its worthwhile to sacrifice a bit of PER (and definitely BH) for SPD in your shooters. Of all of the sets, this is the one that I least prefer to have highly concentrated distribution because I don’t want the offense slowing down to get the ball in certain players hands. Keeping a full 12 man roster (with athletes) is the most important thing to success running FB.

3.Scouting Efficiency
This section is completely bastardized from shoe’s post which I have linked at the bottom of this section. Shoe’s post is more detailed and has more options, so it is absolutely worth reading. I am going to summarize the parts I use here most and slightly tweaked for my purposes. I do not scout internationally (besides Canada if Im close to the border) but if you want to dabble in that, read Shoe’s advice in the link on how to do that. You will significantly decrease your local pool of players if you do that though (hence why I don’t).

Unless you want to spend hours scouting and re-scouting, follow these instructions to a tee and you will have your scouting done in 5 minutes with a player pool of somewhere between 250-325 level 4 scouted players depending on your number of open scholarships which is plenty. Order of operations is very important so make sure you follow what is written in the proper order as well as adjust for east coast v. not east coast.

Not East Coast Instructions

1. Calculate your total Total Scouting Budget / 200. Use this number for step 3.
2. Run a D1 private camp with for 200 players (the maximum allowed).
3. WAIT - 1 scouting cycle for the private camp to run
4. Use the scouting service to select the states closest to you until your pool of players roughly equals the number you calculated in step 1. If you are on the fence which state to pick (assuming roughly equal distance and number of recruits), default to the place that you think has fewer human coaches. I also recommend using the link I included below to draw circles around your schools. At least for me, it helped me visualize what states are actually closer (also where the major cities are).
5. Make sure only “Further scout discovered players” is checked and you have a maximum distance (I start with 300 and work my way out) in the assistant coach search, and then continue sending the assistant coach til you are left with around 3K. When I get to 10K, I will cut down on the positions so I have better control on how many players are scouted as Id rather have a few lvl 4 scouted players than many lvl 2-3 scouted players.
6. Leave about 3K(ish) untouched to the start of RS2, when it can be used on transfers.

East Coast Instructions
The above plan doesn’t work perfectly because there will be more players within 500 miles than you can scout. Therefore, you need to adjust the number is step 1 down a fair amount. I cant tell you an exact number because it will vary by location but I can tell you its about 100 in North Carolina (IE if step one calculates 235, I will try to scout about 135 in step three). I assume this is higher in the NY area but Im not certain. Best recommendation is to write it down the first few times to help you find the adjusting number. The other thing here is be VERY careful with your filters in your assistant coach search or else you may not get the desired results.

Original Shoe post - https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=509170
Map Tool - https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php

4. Recruit Evaluation
If you followed the steps in section 3, you now have a player pool of somewhere between 225-325 players depending on your number of open scholarships. The next step is to identify which players you want to consider recruiting. My golden rule is I almost never to sign anyone that doesn’t project to 80 ATH/DEF. Anything less than that will be a massive liability on defense and will make you non-competitive in D1. Occasionally, I will dip into the 70s for a bench scorer but more than a couple of these are a major risk to your team. You will certainly have players below the 80 mark as they grow into their potential but stacking up growing players plus upper classman than are maxed out sub 80 ATH/DEF is a recipe for disaster.

If 80 ATH/DEF is the floor, you are going to have to be pretty accepting of players that lack significant other skill sets when you start out. Below I’ve outlined what are the other key areas I look for to pair with ATH/DEF. The minimums listed in the below paragraphs are written from a true rebuild prospective (lets say C- prestige) but as your prestige grows, your floors should grow as well. A decent rule of thumb is for each letter grade, I’d increase the listed minimum (including ATH/DEF) by about 5, although it becomes less of a true floor and more of a guideline (example: I would obviously prefer a PG with 77/96 BH/pass to a PG with 82/83 BH/pass). Also, if you sign players that are exactly at the listed minimum, the player isn’t going to be very good. The minimums are exactly that, a minimum. Try to find some upside in there.

With that in mind, I think about players generally as three archetype positions: point guard, wing (SG-SF), post (PF-C). When I evaluate players, I think about what position they are best suited for not what their listed position is. Fairly often will play a recruit listed as a “PG” at SF or a “PF” at SF or any number of other combinations so to the best extent possible try to disconnect the listed position from your evaluation. Lastly, coaches need to completely ignore the positional "rankings" and mostly overall rating too. The assigned “rankings” are really, really, really terrible and will lead you down the wrong path. Even my best teams commonly have players wayyyyyy down the rankings (or unranked). Scout the player not their assigned rank, position or overall rating.

Archetypal PG
Minimum cores: DEF: 80, ATH/Speed/BH/Pass: 70
The point guard position is the most important in the game. You simply cannot compete without someone competent at the 1. That’s also tricky because it is the position with the most cores (five) and any deficiency will leave the player exposed (although it is the one spot where I might let the ATH dip down to as low at 70 to get the other cores). Because I view it as the most important role, my recruiting plan will always start with ensuring I have an appropriate succession plan at this position. My roster construction will be focused that I always have at least 1 player above these minimums and 1 approaching them which means I have 2-3 roster spots committed to the PG slot at all times. Playing a freshman at PG is usually a disaster, but I don’t hesitate to offer a promise to start to get better point guards. It’s just likely that promise will end with them playing all SG-SF in year 1 (typically flipping between the teams worst offensive player). Since minimums are also so important to this position, I also love redshirts when I can get them.

As far as other skills, FT ability, PER (70+) or LP (40+) and stamina are the next on the “nice to have” list but realistically when starting, focus on ATH/SPD/DEF/BH/Pass and consider anything else a bonus.

Archetypal Wing
Minimum cores* SG: ATH/DEF:80, Speed: 65, BH/pass: 60
Minimum cores* SF: ATH/DEF:80, Speed: 50, BH/pass: 40, REB: 30
What’s not listed in the minimum cores above is actually the most important attribute* to the wing, which is PER. I almost never see a successful D1 team that doesn’t have at least two players in the rotation with 80+ PER. Anything less and teams can play way under or double your one 3-point shooter. The wing is the most logical place to get your 3-point shooting given the difficulty of finding a PG that also shoots 3 early on (although its ideal when you get a PG that hits 3s at a nice clip). Therefore, what you should be mostly targeting at the wing is players with the above cores + upside at PER. Certainly not every wing needs to have 80+ PER upside, but I would say two out of every three you sign should probably be green in PER or already be able to shoot. Players that are or will land in the 50-65 PER range are actually a negative because the game code encourages them to take longer shots. So will you get a bad percentage on long 2s and 3s which is not ideal.

For the wings that can’t shoot, sign guys that are particularly good at something. Good options are 1) 60+ REB, 2) speed 80, BH 70, LP 40+ or 3) BH and pass 75+. I try hard not to sign wings that hover around or just above the cores I listed that don’t have a defining skill, they just aren’t that useful. Although, I would sign one of those to avoid a forced scholarship. Shot-blocking is useful for a SF in a zone, otherwise I don’t consider it.

Archetypal Post
Minimum Core: ATH/DEF:80, Reb: 70
Yup, that’s right. There really are only 3 main cores for a post (ATH/DEF/REB). While PER is a major focus in recruiting, LP really isn't for me. I think low post scoring is about 65% based on LP and 35% based on ATH. So why isnt LP a focus for me then? Well, when Im constructing my roster I have to have: PGs that can ball-handle and pass, wings that can hit threes and do an number of other things okay (reb/ball-handle) and I want posts that can rebound. I want basically everyone on the roster to play decent defense (DEF/ATH/SPD). Therefore, I have to skimp somewhere and low-post offense is generally where I do it when I am rebuilding. I find that I can get bigs that are 80/80/80 ATH/DEF/REB for very little so I commonly snag those guys and spend my money/AP points at PG and wings. If the 80/80/80 post has a green (but low base of) LP, even better. I find that generally on offense I can get by with high ATH posts, PGs that can drive (SPD, FT and 20-30 LP) and put-backs for the whole team. To be clear, I will ALWAYS take a high LP player, but I would put it more in the "want" category than "need". Unless I’m playing zone, shot-blocking is also not a core. Happy when a recruit has it but Im not chasing it. FT, BH and speed also fall into this category to an even lessor extent.

5. Roster Construction
“Roster Construction” is somewhat of an ambiguous term so Ill define it understanding how your current roster and potential recruits fit into the next few seasons depth chart with an emphasis on the coming season but also the 2-3 seasons to come. Before I start my recruit evaluation, I take a look at what I have and think what I absolutely need, what would be a useful addition and (occasionally) what do I not want. I will cover each of these in a paragraph below but first I’d like to hit on the concept that it’s fairly rare you are going to have the “ideal” roster construction. When I first started, I would spend a lot of time trying to get perfectly balanced classes by both position and age and what I found was I was focusing to intently on a single task (i.e. get a point guard that can start by year two) and that caused me to skip over a useful PF that I could have gotten for cheap. Additionally, if you are only focused on the “ideal” roster, losing a roll can CRUSH your spirits. All that is to say, its important to have a goal going into recruiting of what you want, but it’s rare recruiting will go perfectly so the primary goal should be to acquire good players not execute an exact plan.

The “ideal” number of players to me is largely driven by the defense you are running. I went into this a bit more in section 2, so I’ll just quickly state my “ideal” roster by defense here.

Man: 2.5 PGs, 3.5 wings, 4 posts + 1 RS/Ineligible (if possible)
Press: 3 PGs, 4 wings, 5 posts
Zone: 2.5 PGs, 3.5 wings (including a SF that can play 3-2 AND 2-3), 3.5 post + RS/Ineligible (always)
HCP/Zone: 2.5 PGs, 3.5 wings (must have SF that can play 3-2), 4 posts + 1 RS/Ineligible (if possible)

.5 denotes that I don’t care exactly what that where that player fits in, but I’d like to have that body somewhere. It’s also often a younger player that I am building into something (generally a future PG but can really be anything).

I generally like more balanced classes by year but I don’t get bent out of shape if I end with somewhat of an unbalanced cycles. Unbalanced cycles can also help propel you forward as you will be better in some seasons which allow you to recruit with a higher prestige. Basically, I don’t worry too much about the “years” in my roster construction.

Based on the above templates, the first thing is to identify anything I absolutely “need”. That generally means next years roster is missing greater than 1 (not greater or equal to) of the 3 position archetypes. These “needs” will receive extra attention in my recruiting plan and I will quickly dip into my pool of back-ups to ensure I have this spot filled next season.

The next group is players I “want” which stretches a fairly large gambit from a player that gets me back to my “ideal” total number all the way to basically any player I deem would be useful to my team over his career even if he doesn’t perfectly fit into my roster construction. My recruiting strategy will lean toward that first group but will happily incorporate the latter.

The last group is players I “don’t want”. My view after talking to coaches is that people put too much stock in “I have 2 or 3 PFs already on my roster, I don’t want more”. In general, I try to only scope-out players that I truly think are well below the talent of my roster. Fairly commonly a player can still be 85-90% as good at a secondary position (SF or C in the PF example) so better to take another PF than a crappy player. There are extremes here (i.e. you cant have a roster with 8 posts or I already have 3 wings that aren’t fast enough to play SG or rebound well enough to be passible at PF so I need to take a year off from the slow wing), but in-general I recommend being more inclusive to have a more full roster. Most seasons my definition of who I don’t want is limited to “bad players”.

Unless I am playing press, I really like both ineligibles and redshirts for rebuilding teams. I think people tend to gloss over ineligibles because they are too focused on too big of a definition of what they “need” and they let these slip through the cracks. Ineligibles become eligible fairly frequently (especially when their GPA is above 2.5) and even if not, often times you can get a better player because others are afraid of inels. They very rarely go to JUCO at D1. It’s a similar concept with redshirts. When doing recruit evaluation, Id always rather roll the dice on a player with a lot of greens than a player that is currently above my “minimums” but doesn’t have much room for growth. Section 8 discusses offers to start/minutes which I am a fan of using but remember that for high upside/low overall players, its fairly common to get that player to take a redshirt as a sophomore.

One final thought on roster construction. Your team is not going to be entirely built on the archetypal players. The archetypal players likely fill your “need” slots but generally about every 3^rd player I sign I don’t expect to ever start but will be a useful rotation guy. These players are typically deficient in one key area that will prevent them from being a good starter but hopefully make them a lot cheaper to recruit. What I look for in these types of players is for them to be good at something, just not everything. What I don’t want is someone that is slightly-below average in everything. A non-exhaustive list of players that can fit in this bucket are: Unathletic/slow guards that play PG or shoot threes, the elite guard/wing defender than is terrible with the ball in his hands, a slashing guard (SPD/BH/LP), the rainmaker SG (90+ PER) but passes worse than Chad Pennington, a SF that can play great D and rebound but cant shoot, a post that lacks rebounding (58-70 REB) but can score (80+ ATH/LP), or a center that rebounds and blocks shots but has a lower DEF than I’d like. If you are playing press, you should recruit one player every season that does nothing but play fast, athletic defense.

With all of the above understood, I should be going into my recruit identification and recruiting with a plan that can fit into a sentence or two. If I have 5 open scholarships on a man team, it might be something like “I need a guard that can play PG as sophomore and a post. I want a wing that can hit 3s or another post”. I’ll use this basic example throughout the remaining sections that cover recruiting.

6. Pre-Recruiting (identifying recruits and prep)

At this stage, coaches should have completed their scouting and have a concise plan in terms of players and roster construction on how to approach recruiting this season. If you need help doing that, refer to the previous sections. My next step is to identify the players that I will consider recruiting. To do this, I go to the recruiting pool, filter by scouting level 4, ATH and DEF: minimum:45 and generally I go by positions too just to make it a more manageable list. Like I discussed in the player evaluation section, I don’t skimp on defense on ANY player. Therefore, as I go down the list, I look solely at the defense and the ATH column. If they aren’t going to get to 70 defense based on potential, I skip over that recruit. If they meet my defensive minimums (both ath and def), I evaluate the whole player and place them into one of three color coded buckets. I use “yellow” for players that I simply think are too good for me to recruit. I do flag all of these players just in-case one slips through the cracks. I use “blue” for the top players I think I have a chance at, and “green” for back-up options that are at least close to my minimums and seem useful in some manner. Sometimes, Ill add “red” for players that are better than taking a walk-on but since I rarely dip into this bucket, I’ve gotten away from flagging them.

I shoot for around 20-25 players in my “blue” and “green” buckets. What changes the most is the number of players in the “yellow” bucket, which is more of a function of my current prestige. At a C/D prestige, my yellow bucket probably has 35-45 players and their “yellow” color is largely a function of their skill-set. As my prestige rises, the “yellow” bucket shrinks and at around B+, the recruits in that section is more based on preferences/distance/roster construction than it is on the skill set of the player. As I move from C to B+, those factors become more important to my evaluation.

I’ll be more inclusive to the “blue” bucket based on my recruiting plan but I’ll never exclude a player that fits my overall team skill level. In my example of “I need a post and a guard that can play PG as sophomore, I want a wing that can hit 3s or another post”, my “blue” grouping probably has something like 7 guys that could play PG, 10 posts and 5 wings. You have to recruit the players in your pool so you’ll never be able to set this group exactly the way you want. Generally, I complete my bucketing of the whole pool and then click on the summary tab and make sure Im around my 20-25 blue category goal. If I’m significantly off, Ill click around the green and yellow bucket and see if there are a few natural shuffles.

The final prep step I do is the only part that I find somewhat tedious and is skippable but really really makes my life easier for the rest of recruiting. I write a very short “Note” of each player in the blue bucket. The note appears prominently on the recruiting home page. This allows me very quickly to understand the prospect during recruiting and not have to re-click on so many players each single cycle. Here is the mechanics of my note and then a breakdown of each item:

Letter grade of player skillset – Ive created a very basic grading system for myself that I use at all levels. B would be the D1 minimums I listed previous, B+ is a decent starter or good rotational on a rebuild, A- is a quality starter on a rebuild or a good rotational on a good team and so on for there. I don’t think the actual grading system is that important. What is important is giving myself/yourself something to quickly understand their skill set.

Position – I use the positions they will play NOT the system generated positions. These are the positions I use to help me understand if they can fill multiple roles: PG/G/SG/wing/SF/F/PF/post/C.
Distance and state – Self-explanatory. I include the state because it helps me quickly size up other teams. Also, if Im in Colorado, a 700 ID is likely more appealing than a 700 TX given the concentration of other coaches in the world.
INEL or juco – If either, Ill add that note. For inels I generally include GPA so I know if I have a decent shot of them becoming eligible.
signing pref – self explanatory

Once I’m done, everyone in the blue category should have a note that reads something like “B+ wing, 375 LA, inel 2.7, late” or “A PF, 710 KS, end1”. I’ll give the group a one last once-over to make sure it generally aligns with my strategy (making minor adjustments as I see needed) and then Im ready to rock and roll.

7. Recruiting cycle 1 and cycle 2

I believe the first and second cycle of session 1 are the two most important cycles so I’m giving them their own section here. If you are following this guide, you should have 20-25 primary target players marked with the “blue” color, a similar number of back-ups marked with the “green” color and a non-descript number of players you think are out of your reach in the “yellow” category. You should also have a clear plan on what you want. My example I am carrying forward is I have 5 open scholarships on a man team, so “I need a guard that can play PG as sophomore and a post. I want a wing that can hit 3s or another post”.

I used to spend a substantial amount of time trying to “guess” who the best player(s) was I could get without getting curb-stomped by a significantly higher prestige coach. I would then stack all my AP points in those couple players and pray that the first cycle didn’t end with a number of other coaches on that player. I think this is the most common strategy and frankly, I think there is a better way to do it. Instead of employing the targeted approach, I’ve moved to the shotgun approach for cycle 1. That is to say, I spread my AP points across everyone in my “blue” bucket. This gives me a much higher chance of landing on a prospect that either no one or no one besides SIMAI lands on. Getting a player with no one on it is really helpful and a lot harder to accomplish after the first cycle as other coaches will flock to unrecruited players. If you are the only human coach on a player, there’s still a very high likelihood that any decent recruit will eventually attract human coaches. BUT teams with a prestige around yours will be discouraged from jumping on that player, so you will have somewhat of a first mover advantage.

How to spread out my AP points on that first cycle is an in-exact science but I generally put around 8 on my favorite players at positions of need, 3-5 on the next couple options at the positions or need or the best options at a ‘want’ position and 1 AP on the remainder of the players in the blue bucket. I may also sprinkle 1 AP on a fringe player in the green or yellow bucket but generally I don’t. In my example, Id probably have 8 APs on 4 PGs and 5 posts, 3-5APs on 3 PGs, 3 wings and 4 posts and probably 8ish players with 1 AP. Again, this is a very in-exact science, I don’t spend that much time trying to decide exactly how to move around a few AP points. Also, favorite is a balance of “best” and “who I expect I can get”. I got better at determining the second part with practice.

The other reason I like this strategy is I tend to fall less into a sunk cost fallacy. It used to be that I would drop all my AP points onto player A who I liked slightly more than player B. After cycle 1, player A has a coach with a better prestige by about a letter and player B has little to no competition. Id always debate with myself if it was worth staying on A since I already had a lot of AP points into them. With the shotgun approach, I’m honing in on player B (or C or D).

That leads to the cycle 2 strategy, where Im going to return back to a targeted approach. The first thing I want to do is unlock the scholarship(s) on the positions of “need”. I’ll do this by clicking through all of the players that fit that need description, dropping APs for any player that has a human coach with a letter grade or more and listed as “low” or “moderate”. You should also glance at the “yellow” players and just see if anyone was entirely overlooked. Whomever is remaining, I look through and consider who is my new “high-priority”. Again, Im balancing skill set with the other coaches on that player and leaning toward player I’m solely on or at least don’t have a prestige disadvantage. If my player evaluation is close, I might add a “watch” or “back-up plan” note to the player note of the players I don’t pick, so I remember who to check back in on. Rinse and repeat for anymore positions of “need”.

My first goal is to unlock the all recruiting actions on my selected “high-priority” players. If I’m the only human on a player that is in a position of “want”, I generally leave 1 AP on them so I remember, and I will circle back once I’ve got my “need” players fully unlocked. Carrying forward my example, I probably now have consolidated 59-60 points onto a PG and a post with potentially 1 or 2 points used as a marker on another player or two that looks promising.

8. Rest of Recruiting Session 1

The very first advice I got when I jumped to D1 was “let the big dogs eat first”. This is a silly sentence but truly is the mantra that drives my D1 strategy. By “big dogs”, the advice refers to the teams that you are never going to compete with. Defining who are the “big dogs” depends your team. As a base, I would not try to get into a recruiting battle with a team that has a prestige a full letter grade better than my team. A full letter grade is a MUCH larger difference at D1 than in the D2/D3. To beat a full letter grade (prefs being about equal) means you need to put in about 3x the effort which, while not impossible, is a lot. There are times where it’s worth breaking this advice, but those situations are rare and should be done with extreme planning and caution. When you are starting out, it’s best to just simply not battle with teams that are more than a letter grade ahead and you will slowly learn when you take your shots.

Once you put in effort that costs cash, you are always at risk of a bigger fish moving in on your recruit and you can’t get that money back. That’s why I prefer not to put in effort until the first signing cycle (so the afternoon cycle of the 3rd day). That way I have the picture of who will completing for that recruit and have a much lower likelihood of putting in cash on a recruit I will never sign. Even if it’s a team that is around my prestige, putting in cash effort early often just causes the other coach to do more. It’s also harder to see how much effort they put in so you actually LOSE information by putting cash in.

Once I get to b- prestige, I might consider pushing off a c- team early but you are still at risk of an A+ coming in at the last moment so even then I think critically about the value of doing that. The one exception to the guiding principle is if the completing team is run by SIMAI. Since they will continue to add a marginal amount of effort (think 1 HV) every cycle they are not at “very low” it’s better to spend the CV and 3-4 HVs it takes to push them to “very low” early on or else it will take a fair amount more to get them out of the picture later.

I work on the expectation that a quality recruit will cost be a CV, 20 HVs, a start and 25 minutes (20 minutes in press or with a sub 60 stam). That doesn’t mean I put that much into every recruit but if another team joins the recruiting trail, I expect them to put in a full commitment of cash activity and promises. Therefore, my first priority will be to have the cash to put in on a recruit as of the first signing that they could sign (so either the afternoon cycle of day 3 RS1 or the first cycle of RS2). By that signing cycle, I should have a good idea of what other coaches are in on any recruit. You will occasionally get surprised, but generally any coach in the hunt will have at least appeared as “low” prior to that first signing cycle assuming you haven’t yet dumped in any cash.
Letting the “big dogs eat” persists throughout the recruiting session. If more than another letter grade prestige jumps on my recruit (especially once they get to moderate), it’s time for me to start exploring plan B (this is easier the earlier it is in the recruiting process).

I like to think of a full effort (CV, 20 HVs, a start and 25 minutes) as a bullet. Depending on my number of open scholarships and distance relative to my recruits. I should have between 2-3 “bullets” per season so I need to use them wisely. I really try to only use them for jump-balls where I expect to be ahead in the percentages. Since the outcomes are “stretched” it worth making sure you get to the higher end, even at the expense of getting into more jump-balls.

What’s not accounted for in the “bullet” analogy above is attention points (APs). The first two steps are clear on how to spend them 1) cycle 1 shotgun approach described in previous section 2) unlock all recruiting actions for my “high-priority player” at positions of need. From there, it becomes either unlock the recruiting actions for a ‘want’ player I think I can get cheaply or start building the AP moat around my “high-priority” players. Sometimes it’s a bit of both, although I rarely work on a “moat” for “want” players until I have the high-priority spots clearly locked in. If a big dog moves in on one of my high-priority recruits and I don’t have a very large AP moat (hard to define but lets say 500 APs for every letter, preferences being equal), I will cut bait quickly and Im solely focused on unlocking my next high-priority alternate and starting a moat there.

I am fairly liberal with my promises. The game only makes you start them as a freshman and in the 80% of the regular season and not the post season which I find to be a fairly silly-game flaw, but I play within the rules of the game. If it costs me little, I might as well use it. Remember that for players tagged as “want to play”, every effort you give after you make a minutes (not start) promise gets “multiplied”. There’s no definition of the multiplying effect but sufficive to say, it really does matter. Therefore, if one of your targets has the “want to play” tag, its worth offering the minutes and soon as you can. This can include before you offer the scholarship but that can backfire quickly if there are other coaches in the mix. If the recruit doesn’t have that tag, I wait to give the promises till the first signing cycle for that recruit.

At the early stages of a rebuild, I don’t spend that much time looking at preferences. Recruits are largely replaceable and Im more worried about the big dog dropping in than a comparable prestige with better preferences. It’s, of course, worth considering on the margins, IE if I have two similar recruits, I might use it as a tie breaker to determine who to make my “high-priority”. Also, once another coach has entered the ring on my recruit (or vise versa) Im going to see how the preferences stack up relative to them. In my experience, a recruit with one preference (or 2) weighs a lot more than a recruit with many preferences. Not sure that is a great sentence but for an example Id much rather have a 1/1 vs 0/1 preference advantage than a 3/5 vs 1/5. As my prestige grows, I spend more time considering preferences because recruits are less replaceable and I am more concerned about coaches with similar prestiges joining the fray.

One other thing I like doing is if I can get both a "high priority" need and a "want" at the same position built into my plan. That is to say, I really like recruiting two posts at once (or two point guards). I like to do this with a stretch player (ie someone on the high end of what I can get) and someone Im fairly certain I can lock in. This provides additional safety if a big dog moves in on my high priority player late.

I’ll finish this section with a reminder that everyone loses battles and its very frustrating when it happens multiple times in a row. You will win or lose exactly as often as the odds state. As such, the best thing you can do is to have no odds (get the other coach to moderate or less) and, after that, follow the steps outlined above to ensure that your true needs are filled by saving the “bullets” for what you need them. Where practical, always pick up the extra body for free/cheap even if that recruit doesn’t fit perfectly into your plan. I try very hard to laugh it off and then congratulate the other coach when I lose. If not, I get frustrated at what my wife calls my “fantasy, fantasy” sports team which if I step back and think about it, is just silly.

9. Recruiting Session 2 strategies

Recruiting in the section session is hard and I wish I had some golden ideas to share but this session happens fast and there will be a lot of coaches that are newly flush with cash (from early entries and from coaches at new schools). Therefore, the single best thing you can do is, if you are relying on a “late” signee for one of your high-priority spots, get that AP moat is a big as possible in RS1 and have a full bullet in the chamber (if those crappy analogies mean nothing to you, go back and read the previous section). I’ve seen coaches lose players with 1,200+ AP advantage and, man, that’s tough to swallow. Therefore, its better to take care of the high-priority needs in RS1 or have max one very well defended need for RS2.

There are a few things I have had success with-in this session. First, if you followed my advice in the scouting session, you should still have about 3K to check in on transfers. There is a bit of a cheat-code (IMO) in scouting these players which is, if you click on the players old team and go to a game from the previous season, you can see what their current ratings are which is two levels of information (often around $600 dollars’ worth of scouting effort). I use this as a screener to see if I want to get more information (and this is the one situation where I don’t get all my recruits to lvl 4, sometimes 3 here is enough). Players in this pool are either in it because the previous coach didn’t meet their promises or because the coach cut them. The former is generally much better so it can be worth noting what was the circumstance that led them into the pool. Buyer beware with this whole group of players though. MANY coaches will be looking at these guys, so if you want them, best to go all in as fast as possible and the good ones are generally scooped up by the A prestige teams. I think its better to chase the semi-crappy players to plug emergency holes or prevent you from taking the dreaded-4^th walk on.

At the early stages of the rebuild, also be wary of the recruit with an RS1 signing pref that only has D2 teams on them. They will ALWAYS sign after the first cycle so if you don’t have your scholarship offer out already, you can go ahead and wipe them off your list.

There are two unicorn situations that occur rarely (especially the 2^nd one) but are worth monitoring. When a coach leaves a school, any effort they have put in is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced (almost to net-zero). So, if you see a coach change schools, its worth checking in if there were players considering but not signed with the former school. If the new coach has a brain, they will likely try to defend them but sometimes they don’t so it’s a worthwhile place to take a shot. The last one is the situation in which a coach with a full roster next season (or a full-roster + signed recruits) expected an early entry that didn’t come. This is most common with an elite press teams due to the need to keep a full roster. Those recruits may appear “very high” with a top team, but that team has no ability to sign them unless they cut someone. These situations are rare and can’t be counted on but are worth monitoring every RS2.

10. Scheduling
Scheduling is, to me, the easiest thing to get right, the best way to make a quick fix to a rebuilding team and a place I consistently see coaches getting wrong. To get scheduling right, you should understand how many games you expect to win in your conference.

6 wins or less - This means you are probably a bottom of the barrel team in a power conference. You want to win every game on the road on your non-conference schedule. To do that, after the season is about midway through, sort by RPI and then coach name. Click on the best RPI Simai team, sort it YR, and look for teams with 5 or more upperclassman next season (jrs and sophomores). Fill all 10 non-conference slots with the best simai teams you are at least 85% confident you will beat. Better to schedule a worse team that you will beat than take a loss to an average school. Schedule all games on the road. Don’t play human coaches. Period.

7-12 wins - If you are in this bucket, you are probably a slightly above average team in a major conference or slightly below-average team in a mid major (both of those comparisons are to D1 as a whole not your conference). Your goal remains win as many games as possible but you also need to be aiming for top100 RPI wins. Wins against teams with RPIs above 150 really do nothing for you. I would recommend scheduling about half your non-conference with SIMAI teams using the method described above and half with human teams. The SIMAI teams look for schools that will have some human signed upperclassman (and the human has now left). For the games verse human coaches, I would look for teams with an RPI between 50-150. You can start build home and home scheduling with teams with a similar skill level to you. I would target teams you think you are better than (but not considerably better). Do not accept invitations that you think you have a less than 25% chance of winning (even if you played in the previous season) and you should schedule no more than 2 games that you think you will be an underdog.

13+ wins - Your team is either the upper echelon of a mid-major or you are in empty conference. I would still schedule your first 2-3 games against the best Simai teams you can find. The rest of the games you should be chasing the best wins you can get. Ideally this is top 50/ top 100 rpi wins. I still don’t recommend any team that you will have more than 1 season of less than a 25% chance of winning. Avoid any team that won’t finish in the top 150 rpi.

The above is written as if there are 3 clear distinct buckets but like all things in this game should be viewed more as a spectrum. If you think you are close to two buckets, try to split the difference on the advice. Most important thing for all, don’t schedule games you have little chance of winning.

11. Settings
Tempo, positioning, and double team I change every game. Very occasionally I adjust my depth chart and distribution. The rest I set once and don’t think about again. While it’s not exciting, let’s run through them so you don’t make an unforced error.

Setting your 3-point shooting and distribution – I start by setting my distribution/3s against the press. Step 1 is to sort by PER. 90+ PER players gets a +2, 80+ get a plus +1 70+ get a zero everyone else gets a -2. I want to have at least 2 people shooting 3s (ideally 3) and no more than 5 shooting 3s even if I need to break the previous recommendations. My highest player(s) in PER/LP get an 8-10 in distro, my next 3-5(ish) options get around a 4-6. Anyone left with high IQ and ath (post) or spd (guard) get a 1 or 2. If I have a really elite scorer (90/90/90 per/bh/spd, 90/90/30 lp/ath/bh, 90/80/70/40/B+ spd/bh/ath/lp/ft) I might move up to 11 or 12 in distro. Based on these guidelines, Im shooting for a total distro between 42-55ish. I change everyone’s foul trouble to “Leave in longer” and save to all offenses. I then make the following minor tweaks to each D. For man, if I have one player with more than 3 distribution above everyone else, I bring him down a few notches. For 3-2 zone, I subtract 2 distribution from everyone that’s a per player and add 2 for LPs. I may also knock down their 3 pt assignment for players on the margin. Do the exact reverse for 2-3.

Here are the base settings I click one a season and don’t change.
Team Game plan – Primary section: Auto-adjust tempo: losing. Winning late – by 8 or more points, with 4 minutes to go, -2 and slowdown. Losing late: 6 points or more with 6 minutes to go, +1 fast-paced. Intentionally foul when losing by 4 or more points with 1 minute to go. The “give more time to the back-up” section, I will base on my promises and if the starters or bench needs more development time. Tempo and defensive positioning are adjusted game to game.

Practice plan – I default to 25 minutes in O/D. I use the study hall method of 37-(HS GPA*10) to start and subtract for 4 every season (ie 33 for soph...). That is conservative, but you’ll never lose anyone or worry about missing an email. Yellow/red categories in core attributes get 3. I divide what is left across the core attributes at the position (refer to the player eval section for listing of cores) till those attributes are yellow. I generally don’t put anything in a non-core attribute until the player is really slowing down on their growth in the core areas. I use the GPA emails as reminder to re-glance at this allocation 3 times a season. Otherwise, I don’t try to optimize it. Refer to the early entry section for players that might fit in that category.

Depth Chart – Most seasons I have a promised start or two so I get them in the lineup first. Typically, I “hide” them at SG, SF or PF. I try to make sure I have a decent distributor at PG, have at least 1 3-point shooter in the starting line-up and my REB of my SF-PF-C adds up to at least 200 (for a C/D prestige team). Nothing earth shattering here. Everyone stays on “fairly fresh” for except for two situations. The obvious one is a minute’s promise Im worried about. The 2^nd situation is when Im trying to cover 2 positions primarily with a single backup (so three players total). What I like to do here is set the starter with better stamina to “getting tired”. This changes the sub-out logic so its not pulling both starters out of the game around the same time resulting in a 4^th player entering the rotation. This doesn’t work perfectly, but its better than the alternatives. Lastly, if you have a starts promise, choose the 4 games to sub out the freshman that you think would be most advantageous to your RPI. Yes, I know its 5 games you can get away with but accidently forgetting to change your depth chart to sub that player back in after 5 causes you to lose the player, which is never worth it for a regular season win.

12. Game-planning basics
95% of my games I set the plan in less than 3 minutes every morning. Refer to the previous section for settings that should go basically untouched all season and the next section if you really want to get into the nitty gritty for any particular game. This section covers what can be done in few minutes.

Positioning - I primarily set my positioning based the number of 3s taken by the opposing team relative to their total field goals (I’ll refer to that stat as “3FGA”). The below table is loosely based on something I took from the message board (sorry I don’t remember who created it!) that triangulates your defense with your opponent’s 3FGAs and recommends a positioning. The below table works (for me) on the following assumptions 1) no more than 75% of the 3s come from 1 player 2) the team is shooting around .375 from 3. For point 1, see the double team section for what that changes. For point 2, about every .025% increase/decrease in 3-point FG percentage, I’d increase/decrease my positioning by 1. For end of game situations, I increase my positioning by 1 when Im winning and decrease by 1 when Im losing.

3FGA	Man	Press	3-2	2-3
50%+	+5	+3	+3	+5
43-50%	+4	+3	+3	+4
37-42%	+3	+2	+2	+3
33-36%	+2	+1	+1	+2
30-32%	+1	+0	+0	+1
28-31%	+0	+0	-1	+0
26-27%	-1	+0	-2	-1
22-25%	-2	-1	-2	-2
19-22%	-3	-1	-3	-2
10-18%	-4	-2	-4	-3
10%-	-5	-2	-5	-3

Note that zone teams that have the SF to play both 3-2 and 2-3 should switch back and forth depending on where the scoring is coming from. If the opposing teams’ guards are the primary scorers, use 3-2. If the posts are the primary scorer, use 2-3. HCP/Zone teams are generally more suited to a 3-2 but can bounce back and forth if you have the players.

Double team - A team with a very high percentage (around 75%) of their 3s from one player OR from one starter and one bench player get an auto-double on that/those players and then I play WAY under (at least -3). This defense is as close to a cheat code as there is in this game. Outside of that situation, I’ll generally start to consider a double when a player is accounting for about 25% of their team’s shots. The larger the disparity is between that player and the next highest distribution as well as how good my defender that I expect to be covering that person is will also influence my decision. I rarely double two players, but I will if they account for about 60%+ of a team’s shots. Occasionally you will also see a team who is letting a bench player take nearly all of the 2nd unit’s shots. I like the “double if leading scorer” button in that situation.

Tempo – From a pure game strategy standpoint, Slowdown should be the default when you are not favored and all the way up through being slightly favored. If you are fairly confident you will win, I like average. I only ever use fast-paced, when I have 3 more players in my rotation than my opponent and even then Im hesitant to break it out. There are non-game reasons why you might not want to use slowdown though. Specifically, if you are trying to get more minutes to your bench players (which I often am). Id say I play about even number of games in slowdown and average tempos over the course of a re-build and only will use fast-paced a handful of times.

13.Advanced game-planning

This section is for those that really want to optimize their gameplan game to game. Like I said in the previous section, I generally stick to what I can do very quickly. However, there are a few games a season (or post-season) where I want to do a bit more. The tips in this section will make you slightly better but are not worth the incremental effort for me every-day. What I’ve done is listed this from easiest to “break out the spreadsheet” so you can layer on however much effort you want.

One thing that’s fairly easy to do is glance at your opponent’s schedules and look at games they lost or were very close against what you think is an inferior team. I look at the positioning to give myself a sanity check on what I have set it at. Its worth looking at both halves box score and see if the team changed at half time and, if so, what worked better.

Using recent box scores, you can also go through your opponents starting line-ups and look for strengths and weaknesses. Remember that your opponent may be doing the same thing. If they make the opposite adjustment, it’s frustrating that you have changed your lineup to make it (hopefully only slightly) worse so I try to not go overboard. I mostly just want to play my optimal lineup. A non-exhaustive list of things to consider are:

• Do they start a defender that is noticeably worse than their other starters? If so, try to see if you can adjust your depth chart to roll your best/a better offensive player into that spot. Its also worth upping that players distribution for the single game.
• Is their best defender likely cued up against your best offensive player? You may want to move your offensive weapon to a different position or shift your distribution a bit.
• Is their best offensive player also their worst defender? If so, try to attack with someone that scores in the paint (ie a slashing guard or a LP post) to get the fouls up on that player.
• Do they have a very slow player at 2 or 3? If so, shift a fast-offensive player into that corresponding spot.
• Do they have a very tight rotation at either guard or post? You may want to up your tempo in this situation.
• Are they an overall weak rebounding team? If so, can you slide in a better rebounder at SF or PF to get a better advantage? The reverse might also be true, you could accept a lessor rebounder into your line-up to get a different offensive or defensive advantage and it may hurt you less than normal.

The most nitty-gritty I ever get is to break out cubcub’s spreadsheet. Ive included the link as to where to find that and how to use it below. It takes some effort to get the excel up and running and you have to go through your opponents’ team in detail. What you get for that is the ability to optimize your rotation against your opponents’ team and a FAR improved overall ranking for each player. It will also give you a much more realistic line and likelihood of winning. It doesn’t have a tempo or distribution adjustment and I think it works best for man teams, then zone then press but it’s a really incredible file that he hands out for free. For me, its alittle overkill so I only generally use it for a close NT game but it’s a wonderful resource.

One other plug on the cubcub spreadsheet that I think worth looking at is the “ranking factors” tab. What’s included in there is how one of the best coaches in HD evaluates offense, defense, rebounding and ballhandling/facilitating. I highly recommend looking at it. It’s too much information to repurpose here but, for example, what you would see is that he believes (and I agree with him) rebounding is 60% REB, 30% ATH and 10% IQ. For most people, that probably more heavily weights ATH than they originally think. Im just including one example because its easy to write here but there’s a lot of interesting information there that might change the way you evaluate players.

Cubcub link - https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=516057

14. Early Entries
Early entries (“EEs”) are unlikely to affect you in the beginning of your rebuild but around the time you get to “B” prestige you likely have recruited a player or two that has sniffed the big board. Losing your best player(s) can be really killer to a franchise and trash your roster construction plan for seasons to come. All that said, I like the early entry game process (which I know is an unpopular opinion). I say that because I like variability in the game. I think its less fun when everyone knows exactly how it will play out (like recruiting in 2.0). It also prevents the top teams from have 10 ELITE ELITE players on their roster at one time. Lastly, I think it can be managed and which gives smart coaches an advantage.

For me, I think it is almost always worth working to retain a player even of at the expense of their growth over entire seasons. Id rather have 3 decent to good seasons and one elite season than 2/3 years of a star. If your player is potentially an early entry player, they are likely very useful even without growth. So how do you keep them? I highly recommend the link I’ve included below. BillyG’s responses really changed the way I coached EE type players. Like most of his posts, its long, winding and chalk full of useful information. Below is my summary and how I have applied it.

As freshman (and even when scouting recruits), you should be estimating if a player has a chance of getting drafted. As a (very basic) rule of thumb, I assume that any player that crosses 800 OVR (or 770 for fast PGs) has a chance of getting drafted. OVR is a fairly terrible guide for anything in this game but gives me any easy framework to think about. I want to tailor my practice plan to manage when that player crosses that threshold. If he’s going to max out as a senior around that level, it’s fine to run your practice plan as you normally would. Overwise, you should start tailoring your plan as a freshman.

It’s important to understand to what extent you can control players on the big board. In my experience, players outside of 110 on the big board are rarely drafted (it happens I know but rarely), so I want to keep my players outside of 110 to the extent I can. Generally, with a 0 across the practice plan you can drop a player from about 65 to 110 in one season. The following season that player will likely start too high on the big board to coach him back out of the draft again. Therefore, if I see a player at 65 or higher, I try to coach them down the board and then expect from a roster construct standpoint they will be gone after the following season. Being lower than 40 also seems to increase the odds they will leave. Based on those critical points (40 and 110), my general rule is players starting on the big board at 65 or higher, I will not let them develop at all until they are safely above 110. Players starting between 20 to 65 I will try to grow them/stop growth to get them to finish around 45 on the big board. For players starting on the big board at 20 or lower, Im just trying to make the best player I can (same for seniors obviously). Lastly, if I have a freshman or sophomore that starts on the big board about 130 or higher, I will also drop their practice minutes to zero in an attempt to try to get 2 more seasons out of them.

The key message in BillyG’s post is “grow what you need” which I whole-heartly agree with. With potential EE players, you should be surgical in what areas you are putting minutes into their practice plan. 80 PER makes for a fine 3-point shooter. Do I really need to get that player to 95? I like to have a SG that can pass, but he’s probably not hurting the team if that hovers in the 70s and bringing that to 92 might not be that incrementally important. Same concept with rebounding for posts. The big board is heavily influenced by LP/PER so if they aren’t going to go past 70 (the point where I see that skill set as useful), it’s a 0 in that category for the lifetime of that player (and NEVER grow LP AND PER for an EE player). I think about this as soon as my player lands on campus. If I recruit a 750 OVR player, its fairly likely Im putting all his minutes into study hall as a freshman. For guards, the categories that most heavily influence the big board are SPD, PER and pass. For posts, its ATH, LP and REB so be careful what you put into those categories. FT seems to have almost no effect for anyone so I am pretty much always working on that for my EE players.

There will be times when it’s worthwhile to throw your chips in. I just had a guard that started at about 75 on the big board and I could have gotten off the board if I wanted. I decided my team was good enough and next year’s team wouldn’t be better than this year’s team, so I tried to max him out. He finished in the 30s on the big board, we lost the natty and he went to the NBA. That was worth it to me. That said, I am very careful when to make those decisions because I effect multiple seasons going forward and cause a recruiting headache if/when I decide to break my guidelines listed above.

Hopefully, you get to the point where you have a handful of these players on your roster at a time. If you’ve gotten there, first, congratulations, you can likely say you “completed” your rebuild. Second, if you have more than a couple players that you are scaling back the practice minutes for EE reasons + close to maxed out upperclassman, consider increasing your team O/D minutes. I don’t think O/D IQ effect the big board and I have a long believed that A+ IQ can actually turn into A++ or A+++ with more practice.

Random thought that doesnt fit perfectly anywhere is this section BUT: When recruiting elite prospects, I strongly prefer players with low work ethics (20-35). This allows you to build them into exactly what you want without random growth in other categories in the regular season/offseason. Early entry management is nearly impossible with players that start with a 60+ WE. Your only option is basically to put 0 in their practice plan and take whatever growth you get in the offseason which means you cant manage what category its in. I also strongly prefer elite recruits that are already 70+ in stam. The guys that are great elsewhere but have low stam arent nearly as useful as they appear (because they get tired quickly and that effects EVERYTHING) and to fix that, you have to grow a number of other categories (ATH/SPD/DUR/DEF/SB) so managing their growth is difficult/impossible.

BillyG link: https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=524079&page=2&TopicsPage=0

15. Closing

I hope this guide provides some useful information to players that are getting their feet wet in D1. I know it’s long, but I wanted to be a comprehensive as I could. If people find it useful, Im happy to keep it as a living document and will consider edits/suggestions/fixes as we deem necessary. If they don’t, well, at least I can copy and paste when people ask me questions via sitemail. I also feel like Ive gotten a lot out of this community previously so this is at least my attempt to give back.

While there is a lot written here, it’s not a replacement for a mentor which everyone should have. This marks a good point to again thank all the people that have helped me along the way (notably but not limited to Shoe, Chapel, BillyG, Cub). I also hope my conference mates/competition don’t use me sharing my strategies to their advantage (yes, Im talking to you CJok, Basketts and Garbage :) ). I know the lack of brevity is going to keep many from reading this whole document so I going to close with list of my most key takeaways for those of you that looked at this and thought "tl;dr". Each of these points in described in greater detail above if you are looking for more of a description.

Thanks for reading and hope this helps some of yall!

1. It’s okay and normal to stink when you start in D1.
2. Don’t let sh*tty defenders on your roster. Period.
3. Try to always have three 3-point shooters on your roster at any given time.
4. Follow the “shoe” method for efficient recruit scouting.
5. Go into recruiting with a clear plan but be willing to deviate to add useful players
6. Let the big dogs eat in recruiting. Very, very rarely is it a good idea to battle a team with more than a letter grade prestige higher than you.
7. Get your scheduling right. This includes, but is not limited to, never schedule someone you have less than a 25% chance of beating.
8. Adjust your positioning and tempo every game. Any other gameplanning is a bonus.
9. Only grow what you need on early entry type players
10. Get a mentor and ask them questions frequently