Swish! (FBCB)

Young Drachma · 11-24-2011, 01:37 AM

The year is 1980 and women's college basketball as we know it has been in existence since 1941. Leading programs and upstarts abound. As the most popular sport in the land, the game is one that attracts a ton of interest. We will chronicle the teams, coaches and players that make up this game as we simulate through the years.

Natalie Peden came back to Virginia after getting a bachelors at Indiana State. She thought she had the game of basketball out of her system. After four years on the squad at Indiana State, largely as what her called "the best practice player I've ever had," Coach Yesenia Warnock always told her before she retired herself that Natalie might make a good coach someday.

But Nat came home with a whole different set of things on her mind -- taking her of her parents. They were older when they had her, their own child born of a second marriage her parents called "a miracle that beget our biggest miracle" referring to her.

She loved them, they loved her. But sadness abounded. Mom was not doing well and Dad was already in full-time nursing care over an hour away. Growing up in rural Richmond County, Virginia, there wasn't a whole lot to do and that remains true right now.

A year had passed since her parents passed away. She was in town managing their affairs, selling the house and plotting her next move. Basketball was the furthest thing from her mind, when she got a call from Naomi McNair.

Like Natalie, Naomi was from Virginia, but Naomi grew up just over 90 minutes away in Woodbridge. Friends through mutual cousins who married each other, they always stayed in touch even as they went to far flung places to college -- Naomi went to Central Colorado.

After earning a masters and serving as a GA coach at Central Colorado, she went to Pennsylvania to coach a D2 program that was just starting up at Cosby University in Harrisburg, PA. After a year, the administration at Cosby announced they'd be moving to Division 1.

Having heard that Natalie was back in town, Naomi called her up. "So you want to get back into the game?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Naomi McNair. I'm coaching at this program in PA. It's not exactly big team. Heck, it's barely even small time. But it's a job. And I need someone I can trust on the bench and I think you're someone I can trust. So if you're interested, I can offer you a full-time job. It's not going to be the most money in the world, but..."

"I'll take it."

But two weeks on the job, another call came. This time from Oxford & Moore College, a small liberal arts school in Scranton. Their coach had resigned and this was the 1st year the school had started basketball at all. She'd come highly recommended upont he unsolicited research they did and wanted to know if she wanted to help start the program. She'd have to help in Admissions to earn a full salary and their admission standards are higher than average too.

She thought it was an odd request and knew there would be tough times bringing in a new D1 program from scratch.

But what are challenges for if not to be conquered?

Young Drachma · 11-24-2011, 11:50 AM

Oxford & Moore is a private liberal arts college with only 1,085 students. The move to D1 was born out of a desire to raise the college's profile. Problem is, there wasn't a league immediately interested in the upstarts and they're now bouncing in the independent ranks -- where Cosby also resides.

With the season several months away, there wasn't a lot of time to waste. Natalie had to hit the road and rely on whatever prospects she had coming in.

The first thing she did was put up flyers around campus asking girls who might have ever played to come to an open tryout that might yield her a few players capable of playing or at least practice players.

After the first practice, she wasn't convinced that this was the right job and almost wanted to go home. "This is just crazy. You don't start D1 programs from scratch! Who thought this was a good idea?" she thought to herself.

She put together her coaching staff and they dispatched to do what they could to assemble a ballclub in short order. On a Thursday afternoon, a girl from Whitehall, PA named Ava Serna showed up for a campus tour. Standing 5'10" she was noticable and despite this, no one had alerted the new coach of a potential basketball player on campus. She was only here because her mother insisted she visit the campus after she ws offered an academic scholarship by the school through a program targeting high achievers from the Lehigh Valley.

Still, Ava wasn't convinced. She wasn't getting any interest from programs and was pretty confident that if she just went to a JUCO out west, she'd get noticed and could get a D1 scholarship. She was convinced. But mom wasn't having it.

Coach saw the player from afar on a tour with one of the admissions reps on her way back to her office. She walked up to them and introduced herself. "Hello, so you're on a tour today?" she said smiling.

"Yes," said the student tour guide. "This is Ava. She's from Whitehall. She wants to major in math," he said beaming for some odd reason.

Ava thought the basketball program here had to be so low that even she could compete, but she wasn't interested. Hanging on the team of some D3 league isn't going to get her D1 looks. She had D1 talent, she believed. She could always come back to a place like this later if she wanted to play if it didn't work out.

"Well, here is my card. I would love to meet with you to speak about your plans. It's great that you are visiting. I don't know if you have ever considered playing a sport," Natalie said without giving away that she knew the girl must've played basketball before.

"But we have a basketball program that is starting it's first year in A1 this year, we are very excited."

Wait, did she just said they're an A1 program? Here? At this tiny school the size of her high school? That was the thought going through the mind of Ava as all of this happened.

A day later, Ava called the coach. She had her first player. Both coach and player knew something special was about to happen.

Young Drachma · 11-24-2011, 01:37 PM

The schedule was released and it's a bonafide Division 1 schedule. The deal here is this. Division 1 has four tournaments A1 through A4 in terms of prestige. 68 teams make the A1 tournament, 40 make the A2 and the A3 and A4 no one really cares about. But for a program like ours, just trying to get its footing in D1, any kind of tournament would be the long-term goal for a program like this.

That's the long-term goal. Right now? It's her job to get this ragtag band of characters into some kind of shape to win ballgames. Any kind of games, would be nice.

Here's the team for this first season of Natalie Peden's reign at Oxford & Moore.

Code:

OXFORD & MOORE PATRIOTS General

 Player                #  Pos  Yr    Ht   Wt  Sch  Acd    Status                 Hometown
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jasmine Martin       22    C  Fr   6-1  245   No   22        OK     Geraldton, Australia
 Samantha Waddell     51   SF  Jr   6-1  227  Yes   20        OK          New Orleans, LA
 Ava Serna             6   SG  Fr  5-10  186   No   99        OK            Whitehall, PA
 Alexandra Loi        14   PG  Sr   5-7  184  Yes   68        OK        Wurzburg, Germany
 Jasmin Reyna         10   SF  Sr  5-11  206  Yes   17        OK        Napoleonville, LA
 Mary Walker      23    SF  So   6-0  229  Yes   34        OK              Pahrump, NV
 Hannah Stambaugh     30   PF  Fr   6-0  227   No   64        OK         Midhurst, Canada
 Ella Landis           4   PF  Sr   6-1  234  Yes   87        OK          Maria Stein, OH
 Vera Roberts         42   PF  So   6-0  245  Yes   74        OK           Jonesville, LA
 Dayana Martinez      43    C  Fr   6-1  221   No   62        OK              Ontario, CA
 Kendall Davis        32   SF  Fr   6-0  229   No   69  Redshirt              Marlton, NJ
 Rut Smid             13   SG  Fr   5-9  198   No   44  Redshirt    Louny, Czech Republic
 Stacy Jefferson      21   SG  Fr   5-8  186   No   98  Redshirt          Philipsburg, PA
 Zara Martin           2   PG  Fr   5-4  153   No   21  Redshirt   Broken Hill, Australia
 Savannah Jones       54   PG  Fr   5-7  159   No   55  Redshirt        Mineral Point, WI

Knowing it would be a difficult year for the program with a bunch of transfers and walk-ons, Coach Peden set a goal for the team at the beginning of the year. She told the girls that their goal was to be the best independent team in the country. This was a very lofty goal when you consider that there are independent teams that have more experience, better players and pedigree than an upstart. But by creating the idea that they had a conference and recruiting seniors to help steer this new program, she wanted to craft as close to a "team" environment that she could, even though they were all just getting together for the first time in the fall.

Her other secret weapon was a former 5-star recruit who simply didn't adjust well to college life at UC-Berkeley named Mary Walker. She was put into contact with the program at Oxford & Moore through a friend of her family who sits on the Board of Trustees. They thought the small college environment and the chance to start could help her find her way.

The team was surprisingly competitive during the first year, winning far more games than anyone believed they would. Heading into March, the team was 12-15 with three games left. An outside shot at .500 was absolutely unthinkable at the start of the year, but here it was a possibility.

With a home game against UW-Rhinelander and road games at Seattle and Charleston State, it would not be an easy road and ultimately, they wouldn't pull it off dropping two of three to end the season at 13-17.

Code:

OXFORD & MOORE PATRIOTS Schedule

  Date        Opponent                  Record  RPI  Result  Score  Record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  11/14/80    at Cosby                    9-21  377       W  57-37     1-0
  11/16/80    Southeastern Louisiana     13-16  117       L  58-52     1-1
  11/21/80    at USC Upstate              8-21  358       W  69-59     2-1
  11/23/80    Carnegie Mellon            14-13  235       L  60-50     2-2
  11/27/80    at Rochester               10-18  341       W  59-55     3-2
  11/29/80    Wagner                     11-18  333       W  55-50     4-2
  11/30/80    Brandeis                   10-17  352       W  59-50     5-2
  12/05/80    at Hampton                  9-20  370       W  57-48     6-2
  12/07/80    at Bantam                  13-16  218       L  67-57     6-3
  12/11/80    at Morehead State          12-17  334       L  74-52     6-4
  12/12/80    at Tennessee               22-10   43       L  57-39     6-5
  12/13/80    at Tennessee-Martin        15-14  189       L  60-24     6-6
  12/19/80    at Norfolk State           10-19  339       L  59-57     6-7
  12/27/80    at Keensberg State         14-15  209       L  52-31     6-8
  12/28/80    at Delaware State          19-10  149       W  47-45     7-8
  01/04/81    NJIT                       15-14  210       L  61-49     7-9
  01/10/81    Howard                     15-14  166       W  54-44     8-9
  01/12/81    North Las Vegas State      13-16  147       L  54-52    8-10
  01/17/81    at Longwood                10-19  323       L  73-55    8-11
  01/22/81    at Stephen F. Austin       13-16  267       L  66-59    8-12
  01/25/81    at Cal Tech                10-19  378       W  48-39    9-12
  01/29/81    Carolina State             18-12  142       L  70-43    9-13
  01/31/81    at Colorado State           7-22  375       L  66-52    9-14
  02/03/81    at Montana                  7-22  385       L  61-54    9-15
  02/05/81    at Scottsbluff State        9-20  374       W  71-61   10-15
  02/14/81    Northern Kentucky          12-17  365       W  64-61   11-15
  02/20/81    Blue Ridge                  5-25  386       W  74-42   12-15
  03/01/81    Rhinelander                13-16  287       L  47-38   12-16
  03/07/81    at Seattle                 16-13  217       W  63-62   13-16
  03/14/81    at Charleston State        15-14  245       L  58-48   13-17
                                                                          OXFORD & MOORE PATRIOTS Schedule

  Date        Opponent                  Record  RPI  Result  Score  Record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  11/14/80    at Cosby                    9-21  377       W  57-37     1-0
  11/16/80    Southeastern Louisiana     13-16  117       L  58-52     1-1
  11/21/80    at USC Upstate              8-21  358       W  69-59     2-1
  11/23/80    Carnegie Mellon            14-13  235       L  60-50     2-2
  11/27/80    at Rochester               10-18  341       W  59-55     3-2
  11/29/80    Wagner                     11-18  333       W  55-50     4-2
  11/30/80    Brandeis                   10-17  352       W  59-50     5-2
  12/05/80    at Hampton                  9-20  370       W  57-48     6-2
  12/07/80    at Bantam                  13-16  218       L  67-57     6-3
  12/11/80    at Morehead State          12-17  334       L  74-52     6-4
  12/12/80    at Tennessee               22-10   43       L  57-39     6-5
  12/13/80    at Tennessee-Martin        15-14  189       L  60-24     6-6
  12/19/80    at Norfolk State           10-19  339       L  59-57     6-7
  12/27/80    at Keensberg State         14-15  209       L  52-31     6-8
  12/28/80    at Delaware State          19-10  149       W  47-45     7-8
  01/04/81    NJIT                       15-14  210       L  61-49     7-9
  01/10/81    Howard                     15-14  166       W  54-44     8-9
  01/12/81    North Las Vegas State      13-16  147       L  54-52    8-10
  01/17/81    at Longwood                10-19  323       L  73-55    8-11
  01/22/81    at Stephen F. Austin       13-16  267       L  66-59    8-12
  01/25/81    at Cal Tech                10-19  378       W  48-39    9-12
  01/29/81    Carolina State             18-12  142       L  70-43    9-13
  01/31/81    at Colorado State           7-22  375       L  66-52    9-14
  02/03/81    at Montana                  7-22  385       L  61-54    9-15
  02/05/81    at Scottsbluff State        9-20  374       W  71-61   10-15
  02/14/81    Northern Kentucky          12-17  365       W  64-61   11-15
  02/20/81    Blue Ridge                  5-25  386       W  74-42   12-15
  03/01/81    Rhinelander                13-16  287       L  47-38   12-16
  03/07/81    at Seattle                 16-13  217       W  63-62   13-16
  03/14/81    at Charleston State        15-14  245       L  58-48   13-17

Still, Coach Peden felt like she had something to work with. She felt like they were building something. More progress, she felt, wasn't too much further away despite the long odds.

Young Drachma · 11-26-2011, 05:49 PM

Looking forward to her second year on the job, Natalie Peden believed she could help mold the O&M program into a consistent winner.

The matter of her personal life had been one that she had largely put on the backburner, but when a young men's basketball assistant named Kirt Fallows at a nearby JUCO declared his interest, she couldn't resist. Kirt can talk for hours about game planning, enjoyed hearing her ideas and believed that she was brilliant and beautiful.

After about eight months of dating, things seemed to be getting serious and she thought about things she'd never thought about in the context of a relationship. Kirt seemed to be the sort of guy that reminded her of her dad in a lot of ways.

Until one day when it all came spiraling out of control. She received a call on her cell phone from a woman who said her name was "Tammy Kay" and that she knew that Natalie had been "sleeping with her husband." Natalie didn't understand what was going on, but quickly figured out that this woman was claiming Kirt to be her husband.

Except, it wasn't exactly true.

The truth was a bit more grey. She was an ex-girlfriend of Kirt's that he'd been seeing before he took the job at the local JUCO three years ago. She also was the mother of his child. How she got Natalie's cell number was a bit unusual, she called the college for it claiming to be the parent of a potential recruit and how she found out the two were dating is also not clear.

What is clear, is that Kirt told Natalie he "wasn't sure what he felt anymore," and asked for some time to "think about things." A month later, she read in the local paper that he'd left to take a job as a head coach at Elmira College, a D3 school in New York.

What she found out after he left, has left her reeling. Natalie was pregnant and it wasn't planned nor expected and with Kirt gone and out of the picture -- he hasn't returned her calls in months -- she wasn't exactly sure what to do, where to go and what her next move was.

She knew she'd end up having to take maternity leave early in the season, that the road would prevent her from nursing and really being there for this new child the way her parents were there for her. With no close family around and her parents gone, she plunged into a deep depression.

Before the start of her second season, Natalie resigned as the head coach at Oxford & Moore, her college dream ending before it could truly begin.

Young Drachma · 11-26-2011, 07:37 PM

For whatever reason, my game isn't generating enough elite class players, much less players in the 2-3 star range. I'd like to follow the careers of more players and see how they perform, by flooding the market with more talent and seeing where the players end up and how it affects the results over time.

There's no declaring early, so players spend all four years in college whether they transfer or otherwise. So there's a possibility to usher in a super competitive era by giving the stars the game generates some competition and some players of whom can help balance things out even more.

Rather than fly around with the hammer of Thor, we're just going to pick a school and follow their recruits through the process.

Young Drachma · 11-26-2011, 08:27 PM

Founded in 1904 as a school for girls, the Coldspring School still exists as a revolutionary academic model focusing on students who were otherwise underachievers and providing them with the tools and freedom to thrive. Part of this model included athletics prior to the time when letting women play sports was still controversial.

SF Sadie Shecker has recruiters extremely familiar with the campus of the school, because for the first time Coldspring has itself a Top 100 recruit. The high school junior who stands at 5'7" and plays the wing will be a highly prized recruit by major programs when her senior year begins. She came to Coldspring in 7th grade and feels she's "grown up" here. She boasts a 3.15 GPA and a passing SAT score, as well. Signed with UConn

PG Mish Pointer is no slouch either. Her only real disadvantage is she's only 5'2" but schools have also been paying attention to her talent as well. Signed with Xavier

Rounding out the Coldspring Three is SG Rachael Palehunter who transferred to Coldspring during her sophomore year of high school when her mother took over as headmaster. A bonafide 2-star recruit, she gives Coldspring a lethal weapon from the field and makes them a favorite to repeat as state champions. Signed with Tennessee

bbgunn · 11-27-2011, 07:55 PM

Interesting premise here.

Young Drachma · 11-27-2011, 11:54 PM

It seems like my sweet spot is when I take over a program and run them to prominence over time. So like a show that gets cancelled six episodes into it, we're going to start over. But rather than clutter with a new thread, since the premise is the same, I'm just going to start over within this thread with a new set of episodes start from one and with a new storyline.

It'll still be women's basketball and the structure is the same, I just need to figure out what I'm going to do, where we'll start and go from there.

I'm kicking around the idea of starting a new school from scratch and creating an upstart program that slowly rises through the ranks convincingly.

Young Drachma · 11-28-2011, 10:39 PM

So far in my anecdotal research, seems when you create super stud players, the top programs absolutely nab them with swiftness. For instance, I created the top ten recruits of this current class and among them THREE went to Oklahoma State, two to UConn and Florida apiece and one to Tennessee, Georgetown and Rutgers each.

Florida has the lowest prestige of all of those schools at 97, the rest are all 100 programs. Seems the lowest prestige programs in the 90s or high 80s ought to have some ability to nab those players. It could just be a scholarship thing -- like those schools had scholarships to offer -- but I've noticed last year's superstud recruits didn't end up playing and were pissed to be redshirted in most cases. Will it cause them to transfer? We shall see, but...it's interesting to me that this point, really good players will go to the best schools and sit rather than going to the next tier of elite schools and actually start.

Now this has me curious enough to test it out over a decade. In each case, these are future recruits I've imported prior to the next recruit cycle rather than edited recruits already generated by the game. With those players, if you go and edit them to be better, they'll still be good, but their recruiting ranking won't change and so they tend to get passed over. I like the realism of this, of course, but it doesn't really fix this theory about top programs essentially hording elite talent.

We'll keep testing and see if there's something worth sharing with HR.

Young Drachma · 11-29-2011, 01:25 AM

Another year, more top recruit logic. Seems that I'm right about this and I'm going to have to take over a team and try to stock it with as many top recruits as possible to counter the top prestige lockdown on star players.

1985 TOP RECRUITS
#1 Alyssa Means (NC) Tennessee
#2 Kaylee Walking Horse (SD) Iowa State
#3 Addie Shaw (NY) Villanova
#4 Andrea Sorghum (NY) Rutgers
#5 Julie Rohne (NY) Connecticut
#6 Jessie Welch (NC) Georgetown
#7 Maggie Becker (CO) Oklahoma State

The lowest prestige team? Iowa State at 96. I'm curious to know whether a lower-prestige program can attract a top player if they pounce early and focus all of their money/energy into the player? Seems Iowa State benefitted from that with Walking Horse, who probably went to the best program closest to her location, ruling out all of the Mountain West -- which has no 90+ programs in my particular universe -- and going closest to home. Must be the case with Maggie Becker in Oklahoma, too.

So geography plays a part. So our next set of top star recruits will come from obscure, less competitive states without dominant programs nearby and we'll see where they end up and whether it benefits programs who are a player or two away from succeeding are able to nab more regionally competitive players.

A player I didn't create, PG Maliah Jones from Montana currently has four top schools -- Oregon State, Marquette, Georgia State, Duke -- but only Oregon State has made her an offer. She's the #9 player overall. Oregon State's prestige is 58, well lower than the other programs listed which range from 87-95. She hasn't signed yet, so I don't know what'll look like, but it's interesting that a higher prestige program in her region didn't make an offer. Perhaps this is where conference prestige also matters. All of those teams are in 5-prestige conferences.

So the trick to recruiting isn't even just money, it seems to be: 1) geography 2) conference prestige 3) team prestige and not necessarily in that order. But those factors help determine where a player demonstrates interest and where they're more likely to end up as a result. Interesting stuff, I think. I have lots of examples where it just seems the best talent go wherever regardless of these issues, but...I'm increasingly curious what it will take for a program on the cusp to attract who they need to rise into the upper echelon.

One side effect I am noticing is players who are not in that red elite trickling down to programs that otherwise wouldn't have gotten them, giving those programs a real boost in their conferences. But there's no kind of real parity, because the structure of my league is setup to where conference champs from the regular season essentially get into the D1 tourney unless there's a tie except for the Big East, SEC and ACC tournies which feature 6-8 teams. This means chalk rules the day. I might alter this at some point to make things more "interesting" but for right now, this gives a narrative that provides us with dominant programs and a bunch of second-tier ones. Much like real life.

Izulde · 11-29-2011, 01:48 AM

Why is it Montana is producing all the interesting college basketball stories these days?

Young Drachma · 11-29-2011, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

Why is it Montana is producing all the interesting college basketball stories these days?

I dunno, but it's pretty hilarious.

In other news, I looked at this same file but from an earlier iteration that I have on my work machine and I realized the problem is just my current league. That file is generating a nice diaspora of players from 1-5 stars. Still, similar situation where recruits go closer to home. I looked at the ESPN Girls Top 100 and it seems they commit that way too. Girls go closer-ish to home way more than guys it seems.

So in that way, my story here is actually very true to life from what we're seeing.

My goal now is to bolster the 2nd tier and to also inject some life into a school from scratch that will burst onto the scene and spend the next 20 years trying to win titles.

I guess I could turn on conference tournaments again, because that seems to help parity far more than anything else. The last year of conference tournies was 1970. There are tiebreakers in case of regular season ties and the Big East, SEC and ACC have small tournies, but that's it.

Plans to follow.

Young Drachma · 11-30-2011, 10:19 PM

Upon the death of the last of the Shakers, the Friends of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village (SLSV) in Maine needed to figure out what to do with their property.

After some decisions made by consulting with the last of the group's members, it was decided that they would create an endowment to found a Shaker-inspired university. This private university would be completely free to all who were accepted and the idea would be to create a new generation of Shakers, while also providing them with a foundation to move the religious order forward after the demise of the last Shakers.

This university would be funded through an endowment left by the SLSV and students would work on campus in jobs (a la other work colleges around the country) but unlike those institutions, athletics would be a big part of the school's mission.

Originally named Sabbathday College, the school renamed itself after the founder of the Shakers to Anne Lee University and were invited to join the Big East Conference after the departure of UConn (ACC) and Rutgers (B1G) Their nickname are the Believers. My vision here is the BYU of the East Coast.

Young Drachma · 11-30-2011, 11:45 PM

I had a post written out and lost it. But the basic crux of it, is I put ALU in the Big East to see how an upstart program would get money to compete compared to a smaller league as an upstart. I won't edit any of their current recruits, they can compete for the studs I create naturally for everyone, and we'll see who ends up where.

With them in Maine, none will necessarily be in their natural regional area, which should make it harder.

The other thing I said is that I'm going to boost a few programs specifically ones that have made the most Final Fours without winning a title, to see if we can diversify the talent base in recruiting over the next 10-15 years.

The four programs with the most Final Fours and no title are USC (8), Iowa State (4), UNC (3), Purdue, TCU, Georgia and Marquette all have (2), so instead we'll go with the 4th program as the one with the most Elite 8s and no title. After USC (13), it's Iowa State and LSU (6)

So we'll boost, USC, Iowa State, UNC and LSU to the level of the upper echelon programs and see what it yields them if anything. The idea being that if they can recruit better, they'll compete and break up what seems to be a vice grip the Top 3-4 programs have on recruiting.

Young Drachma · 11-30-2011, 11:53 PM

PAST CHAMPIONS

Code:

A1 Champs

 Season   Team                               Record Opponent                            Score
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1984     Villanova Wildcats                   33-4 Connecticut Huskies                 73-67
 1983     Villanova Wildcats                   33-6 Tennessee Lady Vols                 89-63
 1982     Xavier Musketeers                   22-13 California Golden Bears             67-59
 1981     Georgetown Hoyas                     29-7 Iowa State Cyclones                 71-58
 1980     Rutgers Scarlet Knights              34-6 Iowa State Cyclones                 66-56
 1979     Stanford Cardinal                    29-7 Villanova Wildcats                  66-57
 1978     Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs      32-5 Florida Gators                      80-70
 1977     Villanova Wildcats                   33-4 Columbia Lions                      83-59
 1976     Florida Gators                       37-3 Rutgers Scarlet Knights             67-60
 1975     Georgetown Hoyas                     32-4 Arizona State Sun Devils            64-55
 1974     Connecticut Huskies                  29-7 Southern California Trojans         58-36
 1973     Houston Cougars                      31-4 Florida Gators                      69-60
 1972     Tennessee Lady Vols                  34-3 Villanova Wildcats                  78-59
 1971     Oklahoma State Cowgirls              30-5 Washington Huskies                  79-69
 1970     Arizona State Sun Devils             32-6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish           76-59
 1969     Notre Dame Fighting Irish            29-7 Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs     91-85
 1968     Connecticut Huskies                  38-1 Florida Gators                      81-61
 1967     Connecticut Huskies                  38-0 Arizona State Sun Devils            89-77
 1966     Stanford Cardinal                    35-3 Oklahoma State Cowgirls             95-85
 1965     Connecticut Huskies                  36-2 Tennessee Lady Vols                 76-68
 1964     Houston Cougars                      34-4 Georgia Lady Bulldogs               75-66
 1963     Stanford Cardinal                   25-11 Florida Gators                      79-69
 1962     Texas Longhorns                      30-9 Oklahoma State Cowgirls             82-63
 1961     Duke Blue Devils                     36-2 Western Michigan Broncos            73-66
 1960     Duke Blue Devils                     30-6 Southern California Trojans         72-66
 1959     Virginia Cavaliers                   32-4 Houston Cougars                     76-73
 1958     Texas A&M Aggies                     31-6 Southern California Trojans         89-74
 1957     Baylor Lady Bears                    35-3 Arizona State Sun Devils            73-67
 1956     Ohio State Buckeyes                  33-4 Baylor Lady Bears                   81-73
 1955     Houston Cougars                      29-9 Purdue Boilermakers                 64-62
 1954     California Golden Bears              35-3 Arizona State Sun Devils            74-61
 1953     Tennessee Lady Vols                  33-4 Southern California Trojans         84-43
 1952     California Golden Bears              34-4 Tennessee Lady Vols                105-82
 1951     Duke Blue Devils                     33-6 Connecticut Huskies                 64-59
 1950     Tennessee Lady Vols                  37-1 Arizona State Sun Devils            79-58
 1949     California Golden Bears              32-6 Tennessee Lady Vols                 74-68
 1948     Michigan State Spartans              34-4 Southern California Trojans         78-75
 1947     Stanford Cardinal                    34-5 Purdue Boilermakers                 89-84
 1946     Virginia Cavaliers                   30-8 Pepperdine Waves                    58-50

 Season   Team                               Record Opponent                            Score
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1945     Tennessee Lady Vols                  33-5 California Golden Bears             86-55
 1944     West Virginia Mountaineers           28-8 St. John's Red Storm                76-45
 1943     Tennessee Lady Vols                  30-7 Virginia Cavaliers                  76-60
 1942     Maryland Terrapins                   37-1 North Carolina Tar Heels            87-76
 1941     Oklahoma Sooners                    25-11 Stanford Cardinal                   85-80

Young Drachma · 12-01-2011, 12:01 AM

So I was right about starting cash for an upstart program. By putting ALU in the Big East -- the top conference in my game -- and giving them top prestige, they started off with a budget of $780k. Only Georgetown and Villanova have larger budgets and their facilities are tops.

So now they have the infrastructure to be a top program from the start, even if I move them out of the Big East and put them in a lesser prestige conference, where they'd be the Gonzaga of that particular league to maintain their prestige rather than languishing in the Big East.

Their roster is all walk-ons, no transfers though. But this year boasted no stud transfers anyway. We'll sim the 1985-86 season to see how it flops out and then I'll take over with the narrative storyline again. I guess at some point, I could let you all create your own future recruits, too.

Young Drachma · 12-01-2011, 08:31 PM

1985-86 Season:
Final Four (Rutgers, UConn, Oklahoma State, Tennessee)

Oklahoma State (37-0) beat Tennessee (36-1) 105-77 in the D1 National Championship game.

ALU went 8-21 in their first season of basketball. They'll be moving to the all-fictional school conference I have in-game called the Super North Conference. for next season.

11-27-2011, 11:54 PM	#8
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Reboot It seems like my sweet spot is when I take over a program and run them to prominence over time. So like a show that gets cancelled six episodes into it, we're going to start over. But rather than clutter with a new thread, since the premise is the same, I'm just going to start over within this thread with a new set of episodes start from one and with a new storyline. It'll still be women's basketball and the structure is the same, I just need to figure out what I'm going to do, where we'll start and go from there. I'm kicking around the idea of starting a new school from scratch and creating an upstart program that slowly rises through the ranks convincingly.

11-29-2011, 01:25 AM	#10
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Another year, more top recruit logic. Seems that I'm right about this and I'm going to have to take over a team and try to stock it with as many top recruits as possible to counter the top prestige lockdown on star players. 1985 TOP RECRUITS #1 Alyssa Means (NC) Tennessee #2 Kaylee Walking Horse (SD) Iowa State #3 Addie Shaw (NY) Villanova #4 Andrea Sorghum (NY) Rutgers #5 Julie Rohne (NY) Connecticut #6 Jessie Welch (NC) Georgetown #7 Maggie Becker (CO) Oklahoma State The lowest prestige team? Iowa State at 96. I'm curious to know whether a lower-prestige program can attract a top player if they pounce early and focus all of their money/energy into the player? Seems Iowa State benefitted from that with Walking Horse, who probably went to the best program closest to her location, ruling out all of the Mountain West -- which has no 90+ programs in my particular universe -- and going closest to home. Must be the case with Maggie Becker in Oklahoma, too. So geography plays a part. So our next set of top star recruits will come from obscure, less competitive states without dominant programs nearby and we'll see where they end up and whether it benefits programs who are a player or two away from succeeding are able to nab more regionally competitive players. A player I didn't create, PG Maliah Jones from Montana currently has four top schools -- Oregon State, Marquette, Georgia State, Duke -- but only Oregon State has made her an offer. She's the #9 player overall. Oregon State's prestige is 58, well lower than the other programs listed which range from 87-95. She hasn't signed yet, so I don't know what'll look like, but it's interesting that a higher prestige program in her region didn't make an offer. Perhaps this is where conference prestige also matters. All of those teams are in 5-prestige conferences. So the trick to recruiting isn't even just money, it seems to be: 1) geography 2) conference prestige 3) team prestige and not necessarily in that order. But those factors help determine where a player demonstrates interest and where they're more likely to end up as a result. Interesting stuff, I think. I have lots of examples where it just seems the best talent go wherever regardless of these issues, but...I'm increasingly curious what it will take for a program on the cusp to attract who they need to rise into the upper echelon. One side effect I am noticing is players who are not in that red elite trickling down to programs that otherwise wouldn't have gotten them, giving those programs a real boost in their conferences. But there's no kind of real parity, because the structure of my league is setup to where conference champs from the regular season essentially get into the D1 tourney unless there's a tie except for the Big East, SEC and ACC tournies which feature 6-8 teams. This means chalk rules the day. I might alter this at some point to make things more "interesting" but for right now, this gives a narrative that provides us with dominant programs and a bunch of second-tier ones. Much like real life. Last edited by Young Drachma : 11-29-2011 at 01:36 AM.

11-29-2011, 01:48 AM	#11
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	Why is it Montana is producing all the interesting college basketball stories these days? __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

11-30-2011, 10:19 PM	#13
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Anne Lee University Believers Upon the death of the last of the Shakers, the Friends of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village (SLSV) in Maine needed to figure out what to do with their property. After some decisions made by consulting with the last of the group's members, it was decided that they would create an endowment to found a Shaker-inspired university. This private university would be completely free to all who were accepted and the idea would be to create a new generation of Shakers, while also providing them with a foundation to move the religious order forward after the demise of the last Shakers. This university would be funded through an endowment left by the SLSV and students would work on campus in jobs (a la other work colleges around the country) but unlike those institutions, athletics would be a big part of the school's mission. Originally named Sabbathday College, the school renamed itself after the founder of the Shakers to Anne Lee University and were invited to join the Big East Conference after the departure of UConn (ACC) and Rutgers (B1G) Their nickname are the Believers. My vision here is the BYU of the East Coast. Last edited by Young Drachma : 11-30-2011 at 11:45 PM.

11-30-2011, 11:45 PM	#14
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	I had a post written out and lost it. But the basic crux of it, is I put ALU in the Big East to see how an upstart program would get money to compete compared to a smaller league as an upstart. I won't edit any of their current recruits, they can compete for the studs I create naturally for everyone, and we'll see who ends up where. With them in Maine, none will necessarily be in their natural regional area, which should make it harder. The other thing I said is that I'm going to boost a few programs specifically ones that have made the most Final Fours without winning a title, to see if we can diversify the talent base in recruiting over the next 10-15 years. The four programs with the most Final Fours and no title are USC (8), Iowa State (4), UNC (3), Purdue, TCU, Georgia and Marquette all have (2), so instead we'll go with the 4th program as the one with the most Elite 8s and no title. After USC (13), it's Iowa State and LSU (6) So we'll boost, USC, Iowa State, UNC and LSU to the level of the upper echelon programs and see what it yields them if anything. The idea being that if they can recruit better, they'll compete and break up what seems to be a vice grip the Top 3-4 programs have on recruiting. __________________ Current Dynasty:The Zenith of Professional Basketball Careers (FBPB/FBCB) FBCB / FPB3 Mods

11-24-2011, 11:50 AM	#2
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Episode 2. The First Recruit Oxford & Moore is a private liberal arts college with only 1,085 students. The move to D1 was born out of a desire to raise the college's profile. Problem is, there wasn't a league immediately interested in the upstarts and they're now bouncing in the independent ranks -- where Cosby also resides. With the season several months away, there wasn't a lot of time to waste. Natalie had to hit the road and rely on whatever prospects she had coming in. The first thing she did was put up flyers around campus asking girls who might have ever played to come to an open tryout that might yield her a few players capable of playing or at least practice players. After the first practice, she wasn't convinced that this was the right job and almost wanted to go home. "This is just crazy. You don't start D1 programs from scratch! Who thought this was a good idea?" she thought to herself. She put together her coaching staff and they dispatched to do what they could to assemble a ballclub in short order. On a Thursday afternoon, a girl from Whitehall, PA named Ava Serna showed up for a campus tour. Standing 5'10" she was noticable and despite this, no one had alerted the new coach of a potential basketball player on campus. She was only here because her mother insisted she visit the campus after she ws offered an academic scholarship by the school through a program targeting high achievers from the Lehigh Valley. Still, Ava wasn't convinced. She wasn't getting any interest from programs and was pretty confident that if she just went to a JUCO out west, she'd get noticed and could get a D1 scholarship. She was convinced. But mom wasn't having it. Coach saw the player from afar on a tour with one of the admissions reps on her way back to her office. She walked up to them and introduced herself. "Hello, so you're on a tour today?" she said smiling. "Yes," said the student tour guide. "This is Ava. She's from Whitehall. She wants to major in math," he said beaming for some odd reason. Ava thought the basketball program here had to be so low that even she could compete, but she wasn't interested. Hanging on the team of some D3 league isn't going to get her D1 looks. She had D1 talent, she believed. She could always come back to a place like this later if she wanted to play if it didn't work out. "Well, here is my card. I would love to meet with you to speak about your plans. It's great that you are visiting. I don't know if you have ever considered playing a sport," Natalie said without giving away that she knew the girl must've played basketball before. "But we have a basketball program that is starting it's first year in A1 this year, we are very excited." Wait, did she just said they're an A1 program? Here? At this tiny school the size of her high school? That was the thought going through the mind of Ava as all of this happened. A day later, Ava called the coach. She had her first player. Both coach and player knew something special was about to happen.

11-26-2011, 05:49 PM	#4
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Episode 4: A Door Closes Looking forward to her second year on the job, Natalie Peden believed she could help mold the O&M program into a consistent winner. The matter of her personal life had been one that she had largely put on the backburner, but when a young men's basketball assistant named Kirt Fallows at a nearby JUCO declared his interest, she couldn't resist. Kirt can talk for hours about game planning, enjoyed hearing her ideas and believed that she was brilliant and beautiful. After about eight months of dating, things seemed to be getting serious and she thought about things she'd never thought about in the context of a relationship. Kirt seemed to be the sort of guy that reminded her of her dad in a lot of ways. Until one day when it all came spiraling out of control. She received a call on her cell phone from a woman who said her name was "Tammy Kay" and that she knew that Natalie had been "sleeping with her husband." Natalie didn't understand what was going on, but quickly figured out that this woman was claiming Kirt to be her husband. Except, it wasn't exactly true. The truth was a bit more grey. She was an ex-girlfriend of Kirt's that he'd been seeing before he took the job at the local JUCO three years ago. She also was the mother of his child. How she got Natalie's cell number was a bit unusual, she called the college for it claiming to be the parent of a potential recruit and how she found out the two were dating is also not clear. What is clear, is that Kirt told Natalie he "wasn't sure what he felt anymore," and asked for some time to "think about things." A month later, she read in the local paper that he'd left to take a job as a head coach at Elmira College, a D3 school in New York. What she found out after he left, has left her reeling. Natalie was pregnant and it wasn't planned nor expected and with Kirt gone and out of the picture -- he hasn't returned her calls in months -- she wasn't exactly sure what to do, where to go and what her next move was. She knew she'd end up having to take maternity leave early in the season, that the road would prevent her from nursing and really being there for this new child the way her parents were there for her. With no close family around and her parents gone, she plunged into a deep depression. Before the start of her second season, Natalie resigned as the head coach at Oxford & Moore, her college dream ending before it could truly begin.

11-26-2011, 07:37 PM	#5
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Director's Clip - On Season One's direction For whatever reason, my game isn't generating enough elite class players, much less players in the 2-3 star range. I'd like to follow the careers of more players and see how they perform, by flooding the market with more talent and seeing where the players end up and how it affects the results over time. There's no declaring early, so players spend all four years in college whether they transfer or otherwise. So there's a possibility to usher in a super competitive era by giving the stars the game generates some competition and some players of whom can help balance things out even more. Rather than fly around with the hammer of Thor, we're just going to pick a school and follow their recruits through the process.

11-26-2011, 08:27 PM	#6
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Episode 5: The Fantastic Trio Founded in 1904 as a school for girls, the Coldspring School still exists as a revolutionary academic model focusing on students who were otherwise underachievers and providing them with the tools and freedom to thrive. Part of this model included athletics prior to the time when letting women play sports was still controversial. SF Sadie Shecker has recruiters extremely familiar with the campus of the school, because for the first time Coldspring has itself a Top 100 recruit. The high school junior who stands at 5'7" and plays the wing will be a highly prized recruit by major programs when her senior year begins. She came to Coldspring in 7th grade and feels she's "grown up" here. She boasts a 3.15 GPA and a passing SAT score, as well. Signed with UConn PG Mish Pointer is no slouch either. Her only real disadvantage is she's only 5'2" but schools have also been paying attention to her talent as well. Signed with Xavier Rounding out the Coldspring Three is SG Rachael Palehunter who transferred to Coldspring during her sophomore year of high school when her mother took over as headmaster. A bonafide 2-star recruit, she gives Coldspring a lethal weapon from the field and makes them a favorite to repeat as state champions. Signed with Tennessee Last edited by Young Drachma : 11-27-2011 at 03:27 AM.

11-27-2011, 07:55 PM	#7
bbgunn College Benchwarmer Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Osaka, Japan via Honolulu, Hawaii via Birmingham, Alabama	Interesting premise here. __________________ U of Hawaii \| U of Alabama \| Montreal Impact \| Montreal Canadiens \| West Ham \| West Indies cricket \| Portland Trail Blazers

11-28-2011, 10:39 PM	#9
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	So far in my anecdotal research, seems when you create super stud players, the top programs absolutely nab them with swiftness. For instance, I created the top ten recruits of this current class and among them THREE went to Oklahoma State, two to UConn and Florida apiece and one to Tennessee, Georgetown and Rutgers each. Florida has the lowest prestige of all of those schools at 97, the rest are all 100 programs. Seems the lowest prestige programs in the 90s or high 80s ought to have some ability to nab those players. It could just be a scholarship thing -- like those schools had scholarships to offer -- but I've noticed last year's superstud recruits didn't end up playing and were pissed to be redshirted in most cases. Will it cause them to transfer? We shall see, but...it's interesting to me that this point, really good players will go to the best schools and sit rather than going to the next tier of elite schools and actually start. Now this has me curious enough to test it out over a decade. In each case, these are future recruits I've imported prior to the next recruit cycle rather than edited recruits already generated by the game. With those players, if you go and edit them to be better, they'll still be good, but their recruiting ranking won't change and so they tend to get passed over. I like the realism of this, of course, but it doesn't really fix this theory about top programs essentially hording elite talent. We'll keep testing and see if there's something worth sharing with HR.

12-01-2011, 12:01 AM	#16
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	So I was right about starting cash for an upstart program. By putting ALU in the Big East -- the top conference in my game -- and giving them top prestige, they started off with a budget of $780k. Only Georgetown and Villanova have larger budgets and their facilities are tops. So now they have the infrastructure to be a top program from the start, even if I move them out of the Big East and put them in a lesser prestige conference, where they'd be the Gonzaga of that particular league to maintain their prestige rather than languishing in the Big East. Their roster is all walk-ons, no transfers though. But this year boasted no stud transfers anyway. We'll sim the 1985-86 season to see how it flops out and then I'll take over with the narrative storyline again. I guess at some point, I could let you all create your own future recruits, too. Last edited by Young Drachma : 12-01-2011 at 12:02 AM.

12-01-2011, 08:31 PM	#17
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	1985-86 Season: Final Four (Rutgers, UConn, Oklahoma State, Tennessee) Oklahoma State (37-0) beat Tennessee (36-1) 105-77 in the D1 National Championship game. ALU went 8-21 in their first season of basketball. They'll be moving to the all-fictional school conference I have in-game called the Super North Conference. for next season.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)