Adventures from Division 2
 

So my last few FBCB dynasties have been false starts. Going to see if I can't do this concept and make it work. The basic premise behind the Island of Misfit Toys in FOF is taking a team and only signing undrafted free agents (UDFAs) to build your team.

With a long held fascination with empty cupboard teams in this game, for the fact that you get so many scholarships each year to play with. But I've never tried to competitive build a team with that methodology before.

So now I'm going to try and see if I can't do it. If you know me, you know I hate rules. So let's keep it simple:

1. Start with a fresh program that has no players.
2. Sign as many transfers as you can get in the first year.
3. When offering recruits, you can never sign anyone beyond a 1-star level recruit.

I felt like 1-star kids were the UDFAs of college basketball and we have no pedigree, no history to work from and I have to try to build a team using borrowed talent to start with, in the hopes that we can get it together.

There's no current restriction on transfers, but if I find that I'm fattening up too much on them, I'll start to put rules in place against them either. But I feel like that's the only way to have even an iota of success in this game, which unlikely a pro scenario has a rigid amount of talent flowing through.

For starters, I've loaded a custom D2 database. We're taking over Lindenwood University's Lions. They're moving to D2 from the NAIA where they were a perpetual national champion in the men's ranks.

There's no real blueprint to this. Just see what happens. The goal is to get the team to the NCAAs. I don't know how long it'll go on and if I'll even be able to do it. But we'll go fast-ish, mostly so that I can get some momentum. It's D2, so I doubt you care about the teams anyway. ;)

So you get an empty roster to start. I've already recruited eight transfers and the idea now is to use those four scholarships left to get some actual recruits in here. I'd consider keeping up with the transfer market, but I feel like our best bet is to try to get as best we can in the recruiting market.


Lindenwood plays in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, where one of the teams Nebraska-Omaha is leaving to go D1 actually. So after this year, there will be 12 teams.

We have 3 scholarships for this season. I intend to rely pretty heavily on stats to see if I can't figure out who to bring in.

So here we go.

Ok, so it seems like season recaps are going to be the soup de jour. I'll profile the one-star scrubs we're bringing in and then we'll see how they do. Going to fast-sim through the season, because I'm impatient. I'd show the schedule, but it's D2 and I don't think you care.

I went after high scoring HS kids, since evaluating one-star players is otherwise a crapshoot.

First season is complete for Lindenwood.

Not bad with a roster full of transfers and walk-on crap.

I made some cuts and we're down to two scholarships for walk-ons in this 2nd season situation. Will go shopping and see what we can bring in. The goal is to schedule weak again and see what we can do in-conference. In D2, only 32 teams make the tournament, so it's really about winning the conference tourney and we need some years before we'll be in a position to (ever?) do that.

A pretty good haul on the transfer market.

Here's our two new guys:



What's cool about the 2nd kid, that I didn't even notice when I was recruiting him (I had some other kids I preferred ahead of him, honestly..) is that he's from my real-life hometown. Sort of neat.

Here's the Year 2 roster:

Partially because I'm recruiting lazy, I've decided to push back my recruiting process to make it harder. So now, I get to start recruiting beginning in February, so it gives me less time to seal the deal, even though I'm only recruiting 1-star capped players anyway. But it'll make the process more realistic anyway and also, it gives me less time to pour over guys I want since they might not be there when I want them in the late winter.

I'm following along, especially since you're in my former conference.

Here's how season 2 went:

Here's our two recruits this period:

Where our current recruiting class stacks up:

I was wrong. There are 64 teams in the D2 tournament, the seeding is just fucked up and so I got confused. (And also apparently, didn't just count the bracket and see 16 teams in each even though there are 8 #1 seeds) but anyway...we'll be expanding next year's tournament to 64 teams as a result of this revelation.

Following as always.

But am I missing something? Why'd you recruit Clarke if he's 3-stars?

Shit, sorry. I didn't even notice. I was doing a lot of autopilot when I was at work today, came home and just wanted to get through it. I wasn't paying close enough attention. (Clearly, I posted it without even thinking about it.)

This question gave me an idea though. And I'll cut him.

I'm curious to see the impact that good coaching & scouting can do for a program that doesn't have the otherwise resources to compete. Because I've simmed and played enough to know that just a team of 1-star players alone isn't really going to do much. FBCB isn't FOF and you don't get years to develop guys before they leave.

So what I'm going to do is essentially make sure the program always has top assistants, but otherwise prevent us from recruiting anyone -- even transfers that are higher than one star -- then we can see how much of an impact the coaching staff is having developing players, we won't be praying for someone magical to come through the door in the form of an awesome recruiting who falls to us and then we can build around; and instead we can just have a team of unheralded guys that we develop and see how they win.

That seems like a far more realistic basketball model.

So we're going to head into this next transfer phase with two scholarships, thanks to the cut 3-star kid that didn't qualify (that's our story and we're sticking to it.) and one other scholarship we didn't manage to give out.

It won't let me cut the 3-star kid, so I just made him draft eligible for the upcoming year and we'll redshirt him to boot. (That ought to help his draft stock, heh.)

Meanwhile, we had one transfer spot and I got no one, because the game crashed before I could save and on the 2nd go-round, I didn't get anyone because I had no scholie since I ended up trying to release the other kid late. We'll just go without for this year.

The good news is heading into this recruiting season we have FIVE scholarships to work with. Let's see what we can get in terms of one-star talent. My goal is still to maximize HS talent from good states and kids who played at a high level.

That's our team this year with potential for each guy.

It seems we've turned a corner. Good coaching coupled with a bit of talent goes a long way, it seems. Still, I like this precedent because it means we have to continue to be good and find ways to sustain the success. And since Lindenwood had been good at the NAIA level, this isn't completely insane.


So thanks to the expanded tournament, Lindenwood makes the field of 64 for the first time, entering as a #6 seed in the Atlantic Subregional after losing 52-52 to #2 Missouri Southern in the MIAA conference tourney semi-finals.

D2 does 8 top seeds in its tournament and then the Elite 8 is played in the same location, rather than just the last four. So we'll sim the same way. Our conference had 4 bids to the tournament this year.

We'll take on a #3 seed in C.W. Post who went 28-4 this year and won their conference title. They're a lot better than us and I don't see how we have a prayer of beating them. How's that for a confidence boost?

It went better than I anticipated, in a weird way:


Great experience for our kids to see what the NCAAs are like and now, we'll go out and try to replicate this experience.

We have our own fab five coming forward this year. I'm pretty pleased with them and looking forward to seeing what they can do for us.

What a bunch! A 6'9" jump-shooter, a 6'6" shot-blocker, a drive-and-dish point forward, a 5'11" post player, and a 5'10" shooting guard!

C Charles Wilson decided to transfer. We'll need to replace him this off-season I guess.

We do so with this guy:

Easily our most difficult schedule is forthcoming this year, but I wanted to challenge the team. Hope it pays off:

We have four scholarships for next year, so we can match the Fab 5 with a pretty awesome four if we play our cards right.

After reeling off 9-straight wins, we went in February excited that this would be a breakout year. It was not meant to be.



Here's our recruiting class for this year:

Here's our one transfer for this year. We lost two of our players last year (the two who never played and weren't redshirted.)

Where's Charlie in the box? :)

Who? :)

Another year of meltdowns in February, but we rebounded in the conference tournament before getting bounced by #1 Central Missouri. Wasn't enough to get us back into the tournament though.

Leroy Eastman is our only senior.



Doesn't look like we'll be able to sign anyone during this period, we'll need to look for a transfer to fill his spot.

Actually we did get a commitment from this young man here.

With five scholarships upcoming, it's up to this class of upperclassmen to really show their worth this year. We brought in a new coaching assistant who had been the head man at Illinois-Springfield.

I scored us an invite to the Disney Classic, the only D2 pre-season tournament. It'll be a good test for our kids.


Not sure what to expect. One of the things about D2 I find is other than not knowing the schools, there aren't the same kinds of annual expectations of "OH YOU JUST KNOW [INSERT HERE] IS GOING TO BE GOOD." Because I just have no clue.

It helps in a way. But in a way, not. Our tournament hopes in the future might be helped by me recruiting better. I haven't really come up with a new tactic yet, though for this next massive class, I have an idea that might help us. Another possibility is moving to a weaker conference, because I think the problem with doing the one-star thing when you're playing with good teams that don't have those restrictions is how comparably overmatched we are.

There are nine other independents at the moment. We could become #10. I'm exploring other possibilities too.

Additions for 1996-97
 

There are some conference moves at the D2 level that I'm going to reflect starting next season:

The following schools are moving up to D2:


These schools are forming a new conference called the Great Midwest Athletic Conference or G-MAC.


So all but Kentucky Wesleyan will be newly created. The G-MAC won't get an auto-bid for five years. I'm considering adding some existing D2 schools to the league though or forming an entirely new conference where Lindenwood would play with more regional rivals.

Here's the Bubble Watch (tm) for our conference brought to you by Joe Crandall AutoDealers. When you need a good deal, give Joe a call.


We basically need to win the conference tourney to have a shot at the dance this year. Another February swoon left us on the outside looking in. There's some talk of a possible conference shuffle starting as early as next year, but there's a fear of leaving a league with an auto-bid for one without one even if it might be better for us competitively.

In the meantime, we'll see how the conference tourney goes.

Another bubble team, Northwest Missouri took us out and with it, a likely chance at a bid to the tourney -- especially since #1 Central Missouri had lost in their game against 9th seeded Fort Hays.

Lindenwood to join Great Midwest Athletic Conference next season
 

Lindenwood has been invited to join the Great Midwest Athletic Conference and has accepted the invitation beginning next season. The fledgling league is comprised of schools from Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia and added a western division of six schools from the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

According to NCAA rules, there is no two-year waiting period for an automatic bid if six of the teams forming the new conference have played together in a previous auto-bid league. The addition of the GLVC schools clinched it for the newer schools, who have petitioned for a separate eastern/western division setup in the league.

"We're excited about this new opportunity to compete with schools within our geographic footprint. We'll create and sustain new rivalries, establish relationships and renew the spirit of Lions basketball," said Athletic Director Cole Hamelsson.

The G-MAC alignment will look like this:


The MIAA, the current conference of Lindenwood has invited the University of Nebraska-Scottsbluff to replace Lindenwood for next season. UNS currently plays as an independent.

The move is a good competitive decision and it's also a good financial one as the schools in our division are way closer than the ones in our old league and I think schools we can establish a relationship with. I toyed with the idea of a separate conference for all six (with a few other schools considering joining us) but opted against it, mostly because it seemed there's power in numbers and having schools who are transitioning, new or at our level will make it easier for scheduling purposes.

We lost two players to transfer (Thad Major and Garth Latham) and we got three commits for next year at the end of April. So things are a bit of an empty cupboard and we're going to have to push hard to get transfers to fill the gap.


I didn't get this kid, but he's the first Freshman 1-star I'd ever seen who had a blue potential after we scouted him. The coaches in his current program aren't going to be able to tease that out of him, but...it was still quite a sight to see.

Here's the status of things after six years.


Before you howl at the 100s, I reminded you in the beginning that there was really no other way to do a one-star dynasty, so your coaches have to be good so they can uncover talent and the theory is to see whether you can overcome the lack of talent with great coaching. Which is essentially what real life teams have to do. So far, weak scheduling and a tough conference schedule hasn't really led to much in that regard. My guy would've probably been fired by now had I had that on, because they've been expecting a Sweet 16 appearance for a few years and as you can see, save for our fluke season in the Dance, we've never sniffed it save for a few years on the bubble.

This coming season will be no better in that regard, either. We've got too many spaces to fill and I'm sort of loathe to fill the team with a bunch of transfers who aren't any good. On the flipside, I'd love to usher in a new era in our new conference by just bringing in a team that wins. But I think we're just going to have to postpone that ascent for a year.

At least now we can win division titles. Here's the overview of the new conference in the flesh.


I used random.org to figure out the prestige levels for the new programs. It's really just to establish their budgets anyway, since their entire 1st year teams are all going to be walk-ons and transfers.

Here's the transfers we managed to bring in this year. I intentionally got a few older ones, because I didn't want anyone clogging up scholarships for several years when there just weren't as many good transfers out there with so many new programs coming on board and needing players.

Except the point guard, because he seemed to have some value.


I cut two walk-ons, so we'll be running a skeleton crew this year. My hope is we can recruit some quality talent though in the place of all of it and bring in our best freshman class yet. It's hard when you don't officially start recruiting until February, though, as a lot of better players are gone. What works nicely about it though from a competitiveness standpoint is that it's when those smaller programs start really hitting those 1-star guys hard and attempt to bring them in and so, we find ourselves in real competitions then.

I might relax my rule on recruiting a bit since its putting us at such a huge disadvantage. Instead of not being able to do any recruiting until February, I think the rule will be to allow me to recruit players before February. I just won't be able to make any scholarship offers until February as has been the case.

So at least we can start talking to guys and initiating interest, rather than being behind the ball on guys who we could probably get and then being too late to get to them. Especially since 1-star talent quality isn't exactly great to begin with.


SCHEDULING

In the past it seems that our problem was a weak SOS and not scheduling better teams, so our record has always been inflated by poor scheduling. I'm not entirely sure I want to mess with that this year. But I'm going to go out and see if we can't get a few games that are better than we have in the past, especially since a lot of teams that I used to schedule regularly (McKendree, et. al.) are now in our conference.

I mostly let the computer do our scheduling this year, because there were some issues that kept causing things to crash when I did it and I just wanted to get past it.

So with the conference tournament upcoming, that stronger schedule didn't really result in a high SOS because we didn't win much. Still the league is a two-bid league and so, at least we didn't take a nose-dive in terms of competitiveness though I feel like if we can start to build a competitive team we'll be right in the thick of things.

1997 G-MAC Conference Tournament
-------------------------------------------
We come into the conference tournament as the 9th seed and face Urbana in the 1st round.


Now onto the 2nd round where we face #1 seed Illinois-Springfield who won the Western Division title.


Look at the upset special!


Now in the semis, we get another test in the form of Kentucky Wesleyan.


Seems our boys are firing on all cylinders!

Now in the final, with a chance to return to the Big Dance for the 2nd time in school history, we get to face off against Western division rivals UM-St. Louis.

At 22-9, UMSL is on the bubble outside and aren't certain if they'll manage to snag an at-large bid. So they'd much prefer to just blow out of the gym and ensure their spot in the tournament for the first time since 1986.

We've played UMSL six times and we've only beaten them once.


Make that twice. Lindenwood is going dancing!

3-pointers were the difference maker in that game, we shot 55% from the arc, while they went 6 of 24 from 3-pt range. That coupled with shooting 80% from the line (to their 71%) and forcing more turnovers, ended up being the difference maker in this one.

These are the kids from my first big recruiting haul, so it's good to see them finish out like this.

We claim the first-ever G-MAC Conference Tournament title in dominating fashion. Now it's off to see what sort of seed we get (I imagine low) in the NCAAs.

We've been given a 16-seed (I'm just going to stick to the format you all know...) in the East Region. We'll be given the task of facing off against 1-seed Chaminade in the 1st round.

One and done for us against the top-seeded club from Hawai'i.


Still, you can't argue with a surprise trip to the Big Dance. We end the year at 19-16 with a trophy to put in the case and now we need to see what the recruiting season brings us.

Here's the incoming freshman class. We've kept one of the five schollies aside for a transfer.





I intentionally (over)recruited on size this time. I felt like it would help us down the stretch, though I wish this year's class had more raw talent we could develop. Those guys as in real life can be very hard to find though.

Here's our one transfer for this season:

1997-98 SCHEDULING
 

Scheduling has obviously been a bit of an issue for us over the years, because I've opted for cheap-o wins over challenging our team. I don't see changing this in the upcoming year, though I try to get us a game or two like that. The low SOS is bad for business, but we need wins when you're in a conference where there aren't going to be more than 2-3 bids.

So until I feel like we've reached past that hump -- I doubt we'll get there in this dynasty -- I'm going to opt for games that we can win. Of course, if we lose winnable games, it doesn't do anyone any good.