01-25-2014, 02:33 PM | #1 | ||
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Band of Oogies (FBCB)
This is a continuation of my 50-year dynasty here.
The year is 2047 and I've been managing this universe since 1951. There are custom conferences, it's a D3 league primarily and I've been importing the players and teams into the pro game where there are vibrant international leagues and a domestic NBA as well. It's been a while since I started a new program completely from scratch and I'm ready to do that, install a coach and see if I can develop a history for the program in terms of following the players, etc. My idea was to install a coach and let him coach until he's 100. But after doing a 25 year coach, that's not as fun. I think instead, we'll go with a 100-years following one particular program and see how they do over that time, follow the coaches, the elite players and their history. It'd be a more interesting story if it were a successful program, but we'll see how that goes. I'm going to use this thing here to pick the location and this thing here to pick a name. I'm curious to see what the life cycle is like, whether there will be numbers to retire, history and so forth to look. We'll see if it's enough of a story to stay interested. Last edited by Young Drachma : 01-27-2014 at 03:47 PM. |
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01-26-2014, 01:30 AM | #2 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Savillmont University is going to be our new institution. To figure out where to put it, I'm going to look at all of the conferences in the league that have never had a team in the Final Four and put the team into one of those leagues.
Based on that, I'll find a geographically appropriate location and we'll go from there. |
01-26-2014, 01:47 AM | #3 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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These are the leagues that have never had a Final Four team. In most cases, they haven't had a team past the Sweet 16 if anything at all. Basically we're setting up our new program to potentially be the dominant program of an existing league if all works out well. That's a big if, though.
---------------- Commonwealth Coast Conference Empire 8 Great Rivers Athletic Conference Keystone State League MAC Freedom Conference Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association North Central Athletic Conference SUNY Athletic Conference St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Upper Midwest Athletic Conference ------------ In terms of where I'd like to put it, the SLIAC is probably my first choice. Otherwise, I'd go with the NCAC or the Empire 8. The rest aren't really of interest. The Empire 8 has teams from New York and Vermont, so I won't put a team there since I'm not interested in our new university being located in the Mid-Atlantic or New England. That leaves the NCAC or SLIAC, both are midwestern based leagues. The SLIAC has teams from Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. The NCAC has teams from Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. So we'd stick to those states or possibly an adjacent state for our possible location of the university which will be moving up from NAIA. That leaves us with those six states, plus Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota or Wisconsin. From that list, the best options appears to be Oklahoma or Tennessee, the former having no D3 schools even in my current dynasty and Tennessee which produces a lot of recruits but only has 3. |
01-26-2014, 01:44 PM | #4 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Savillmont University is going to be based in Oklahoma. Professors from Flipper Key Davis University in Tullahassee, OK upon its closing 1935 decided to open a new university in Miami, Oklahoma for colored and Indian youth during that time, a bold idea considered the segregated times and hostility from both sides.
Not to be deterred, the teachers began their program out of one building in Miami in 1937, graduating their first class in 1939. In 1939, the General Education Board made the largest contribution to any Colored school of learning, after a story ran in American newspapers about British benefactors who came to a tiny college outpost and offered to help finance the develop one of the "finest colleges in the nation for anyone -- Negro, Redman or otherwise," and with the backing of Sir Eric Savill and Patricia Marchant Grimes of Middlebury, Vermont acquired land from black homesteaders in nearby Vinita, OK to create the newly renamed Savillmont University based on the merging of Savill's name with the home state of Grimes after being specifically asked not to name her in the institution. With the boost to the institutions endowment and a university that was "the envy of many" there was a great deal of controversy and threats that the campus would be burned down in the night by outside agitators, but instead Savillmont quietly became integrated and co-educational without an official policy. Savillmont was ranked #33 in the latest college rankings. The enrollment is 4,030 student and endowment is $918,203,188 with an endowment per student placing it in the same class as institutions such as Oberlin, Colgate, and Lafayette. Today, Savillmont is growing its upstart USCAA athletic program that operated in recent years to become a full fledged NCAA athletic program after years of not having a program. |
01-26-2014, 01:50 PM | #5 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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In terms of a mascot (working on it) and a conference (working on it) it's a question of fit. The American Southwest Conference is the best geographic fit because it's full of schools from our region, but I'd prefer to stick to my idea of going to a league that's never had a final four team.
So that leaves the SLIAC or the HCAC. The SLIAC Code:
The NCAC Code:
In terms of similar academic fit, NCAC is a much better conference for us, even though it's further away. The SLIAC doesn't quite work as well in that regard and most of the schools in that area are regionally located around St. Louis and so, it might be less of a good fit for that reason too, but for the purposes of world domination, it might be an easier mark. I see us having more rivals in the NCAC though, as those are schools that I see us competing with for students. So I think we're going to go with the NCAC over the SLIAC, even though when I started this storyline I was pretty sure we'd be a SLIAC team. Then again, another possibility is going with the SLIAC to start off and then switching leagues down the road if we feel like that's a better idea. So let's just say that Savillmont wants to join the NCAC but wasn't voted in at the last minute and so, the SLIAC came clutch with a conference invite but for the first season they'll have to be an independent and then will join the SLIAC in the 2nd year of the program. Last edited by Young Drachma : 01-26-2014 at 04:41 PM. |
01-26-2014, 02:34 PM | #6 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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GO OOGIES.
Savillmont is home to the Oogies, a fictional blue monster. Students did a name-the-mascot contest and Blue Monsters was the selected winner, based on a legend of the Dark Cloud, a lake monster who inhabits Lake Oologah. The students started informally called the Blue Monster Oogie and before long, everyone referred to the team as "Oogies" rather than "Blue Monsters." For the first season, the Oogies will be an independent with seven other schools largely from the east. I set the prestige level at 75 intentionally to get the program started off well, but that won't last long if they don't start to win. The game doesn't really allow me to overcompensate for high spending and so, the high prestige is the only way to offset that. As for house rules, not really my style but I do want to implement a few from the outset just to keep this somewhat interesting. This first season will be moot because we'll just end up getting players to fill the roster, but then I'm going to set everyone on the roster to be eligible for the draft after this first year so we can get another clear roster for Year 2. We won't sign any transfers. - Roster must always contain at least 5 players from Oklahoma. - Roster must always contain at least 3 players from a border state (AR, MO, KS, CO, NM, TX) This will basically prevent me from loading up on players from Florida, California or foreigners to stock the roster and dominant. It'll make it harder to win and obviously Texas being there helps, but...it should be a good way to keep it interesting. I'll have 5 flex scholarships to get those kinds of guys, but...it'll make recruiting more interesting than it's been in my previous stories where I've started up programs early on and been able to load up on talent easily. |
01-26-2014, 02:55 PM | #7 |
Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Best name and mascot since the Banana Slugs.
__________________
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) |
01-26-2014, 04:54 PM | #8 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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I made a separate save that I can use to sim these years with this program without losing where I was in this particular part of the dynasty.
Anyway, as far as adding recruits to make sure there are enough Oklahoma recruits, I'm going to be adding a few each year. They won't all be good, because it takes a lot of effort to make really good recruits year after year, so a lot of them won't be that great. We have a list of seven recruits I made to add to whatever the game generates for this coming year. I imagine this first class will be slim pickings, I think we'll be able to get a few players to fall to our level, but given I have to fill at least 8 spots to start off -- if I don't want to fill the entire roster -- then we'll have to make sure we can get at least our regional quota. Texas makes it easy for us to do that, but getting five OK recruits will be tough. Anyway, here are the people I created: Code:
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01-26-2014, 05:28 PM | #9 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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HEAD COACH HIRING
So it's time to upgrade from our USCAA coach to a real college coach. I'm debating between hiring a retread coach and hiring a first-time head coach who has been an assistant. Not sure which route yet, but this remains the best job on the market right now, so we can find someone who is a good fit to start up a program from scratch. Then we'll have to hit the transfer market and find players who can fill out our first roster -- but remember, everyone will be released after this year so those scholarships will be released after this season and we'll start from scratch. |
01-26-2014, 06:17 PM | #10 | |||
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Glad someone approves! Here are the finalists for head coach at Savillmont University: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Lucas Murr was replaced by another Mt. Carroll alumnus that I found who was the coach at Ohio Wesleyan and had a winning record. In a different life, I pick Murr. His grandfather John Murr won six national titles and his father Brian won three as the guy who started up the Mt. Carroll basketball program and he's the reason he got the job in the first place. But he wasn't so good and they took the chance to get a better alum to coach them. So he could be a good guy to bring in, at least from a pedigree perspective. But I like that Spicer is an Oklahoma native. |
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01-26-2014, 06:28 PM | #11 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Lucas Murr went to Eastern Wyoming, a program that's been the sort of job that coaches have used as a platform to get to bigger jobs pretty much since forever. Murr hopes to do the same as others have in the past and the team has already established itself in the Intermountain Athletic Conference.
So with Murr off of our list as a possibility, we had to go with someone else. In a fit of hilarity, Eastern Wyoming's former coach is 47-year old Harold McNeely, who is a native of Oologah, OK which is just 45 minutes from campus. We end up hiring him as the first coach in Savillmont program history. He's a strong recruiter, has a background at top programs Stony Point and Colorado College and has head coaching experience which will be good for us. Finally, he's a local so he knows the area well and that'll serve us good since we need someone who can dig deep and recruit locally. Code:
Last edited by Young Drachma : 01-26-2014 at 06:29 PM. |
01-26-2014, 09:33 PM | #12 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Recruiting update:
Code:
In terms of making sure we've met our requirements: Code:
Three more scholarships to go, but I've met my requirements for both Oklahoma players and border state players, because the team has two other Oklahoma players that the game signed when I started and I kept them because I wanted to make sure that we'd have at least two OK guys before I got started. Last edited by Young Drachma : 01-26-2014 at 10:53 PM. |
01-26-2014, 11:04 PM | #13 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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2048 SEASON: The first season of Savillmont Oogies basketball in the NCAA ended with a 9-21 regular season. A lot more wins in the first year than I expected despite the growing pains that included a 13-game losing streak from December through late January.
Spoiler
I think I'm going to leave one scholarship available out of the 12 I had this year, because I can't fill it and I don't want to have a bottleneck of players I have to fill all at once. |
01-26-2014, 11:39 PM | #14 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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2048 (SEASON 2) ROSTER
Code:
So we've met our requirements for geography. I imagine this year's team will be a lot better than last year's team, but I'm not exactly getting my hopes up for anything. A winning record would be awesome, though. The team moves from the Independent ranks to the SLIAC, which should be good in the sense that we won't face a swarm of tough games in January-February, but if we lose those games it'll be bad for us for other reasons. We fully expect to be a competitive team in-league from the outset though. One of the recruiting complications I forgot is when I moved Versallies University from Vermont and out of the Big Nine conference and moved them to the Sunset Conference and turned them into Crystal Bridges University out of Arkansas is it put a really strong team right in the recruiting territory we're hoping to capitalize on; so really good Oklahoma players would always opt for that program over us. In a way, it's an unintentionally blessing as it'll make this more difficult. But it'll also be good once this team actually starts to compete, because they give us a strong rival to work up to. |
01-27-2014, 03:06 PM | #15 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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I freed up one scholarship for this coming season, because this isn't all that fun as a completely passive storyline. So our goal is to get someone who can help us. I think we're a little weak at SF, so we're going to look for a tweener forward who might be a useful player as a sparkplug scorer type guy. Alternatively, it'd be good to get a point guard since we didn't focus on that before.
I'll see what's out there. |
01-27-2014, 03:43 PM | #16 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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2048 RECAP
I intentionally scheduled easy for the non-conference and we went 5-7, which isn't bad for a 2nd year team where there are positions missing and we're not quite fleshed out. Conference play was harder this year, but we're a brand new team with all new personnel this year and so, the results weren't completely unpredictable. We matched last year's win total against much better teams, which probably shows at least no signs of regression, but building a team from scratch is difficult and I think I might opt to let go of some of our lesser freshman in the hopes of picking up some stronger transfer players. Maybe with a bit more balance, we can field a team that's got more depth and players who can go toe-to-toe with better teams or at least, our own conference where I feel like we should be more competitive going forward.
Spoiler
We finish the regular season 9-21 for Year 2. We managed to get a kid who I intend to play at point guard. Not my first choice, but he should still be a decent fit and given our lack of depth at the position, we needed him. Code:
I think I've decided that after two years, there needs to be some chirping about Men's Basketball coach Harold McNeeley. He's a nice enough guy, but there was a ho-hum about hiring a guy who got fired from his last job because he wasn't that great a coach and who has only had one winning season in his career. So here's McNeeley's record up through now, including two 9-win seasons with us. If you're the AD, do you give him another year to show some turnaround knowing it'll largely be the same cast of characters? Or do you show him the door and find someone else realizing this is a new program and you need to show momentum? I liked the idea of a local coming home to coach, but...there's no energy around this time and looking at what we've got coming, it might be more of the same. On the flip side, if we don't hit a home run on the next hire, it could set the program back even further and have more of a revolving door around the program.
Spoiler
Last edited by Young Drachma : 01-27-2014 at 03:47 PM. |
01-27-2014, 07:17 PM | #17 |
Pro Starter
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Madison, WI
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Given that he can't coach kids up that well, I say let him go.
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01-27-2014, 08:38 PM | #18 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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I'd seen enough. Harold McNeeley was relieved of his duties as head coach at Savillmont today. He's heading to SUNY-Martime to be their new head coach, as a former military veteran, maybe they'll respond to his coaching style better.
Here are our candidates for the head coaching job now. I'm actually conducting a "national search" in the form of reviewing all of the assistants throughout the network of 460 teams in this universe to see if there's a guy who is the right fit. I'm looking at head coaches too, but given where the program is, it'd be difficult to hire someone except an upstart at a very low prestige program and I'm not aware of anyone that fits the bill. But let's take a look: Damion Grulule, who I hired specifically for this purpose. Unfortunately, he's very similar to the guy we just got rid of in terms of his ability to coach offense/defense. He does, however, have a better history of coaching successful teams. But Wyandanch isn't much different than us, in terms of composition and he did nothing with them. So that's no big incentive for me to give him the head job.
Spoiler
Jay Yost Not as much experience, but he can coach Xs and Os and that's important. I do need a strong recruiting coach, but I think after sacrificing that in the last one, it's going to be important to hire a guy who can bring that to us. Hillman is a perennial Top 25 program so they're a top pedigree program and bringing a guy from there would be a good PR move.
Spoiler
Hugh Daniels strikes me as a guy that has the experience of working with a few solid programs and has the Xs and Os credentials to steer a solid ship. He's never been a head coach and he's 50, but...if it worked out well, I think it'd be a solid fit and unlike a young guy, he's less likely to leave us for something else.
Spoiler
Kevin Brien is the first guy I've found in my search with strong defensive coaching skills who can also recruit. His teams might not score a lot, but they'll defend and he won't hurt us on the road. I like that. Oswego is a decent team, but Western Wyoming has actually won a title before and are one of the best teams in the west for sure.
Spoiler
Jack Houston is another strong recruiter who has some coaching ability.
Spoiler
Roland Gordon is a dark horse who I've found later in my search for a head coach. He's a head coach which gives him a leg up on the others, obviously. Husson is not an easy place to win and because I've turned off auto-bids for leagues, the NIT is usually as high as they can shoot for. Their last NCAA appearance was in 1988 back when we still had autobids. Anyway, he's done a lot with a little (they're a 23 prestige program) and he's been there a long time. Can't recruit, but gets a lot out of the kids who do show up.
Spoiler
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01-27-2014, 08:40 PM | #19 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Looking at that list, I did a solid job of looking at coaches between Level 4-7 without consciously doing so. I was mostly looking at records/pedigree to get the right kind of look and I think while there were all sorts of pie in the sky candidates I'd have liked more or whatever, this is a solid list of guys that I think fit where the program is and where it'd like to be.
Each time I wrote one down, they were the favorite but now I actually have to sift through them and figure out among our finalists which will be the actual head coach in the end. They all have their pros and cons and I like them all for different reasons to varying degrees. |
01-29-2014, 07:49 PM | #20 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Grulule took a head coaching job with Hendrix College, so he's no longer a candidate.
Bill Turner, our other assistant also took a head coaching job with Transylvania, so he's not an option. I basically narrowed my search down to Jack Houston, Kevin Brien and Roland Gordon. I like Gordon except for his woeful recruiting prowess. I feel like what he did with nothing at Husson and felt like we could benefit from that. As for Jack Houston, I like his ability to recruit and that he's strong on defense. I think in either case, we might be okay. I like the idea of a coach starting with us and cutting his teeth with the program rather than a riser who has been elsewhere, but Gordon is a guy that probably won't get as many shots to leave where he is going down the road and I think he's got the legs to be a really strong coach for a really long time and he's already been a head coach, so I worry less. Plus we can get a recruiter in here and after my last guy being a recruiter, I'm less inclined to necessarily need a head coach who is amazing at that sacrificing the other stuff. I think I like the idea of promoting a guy who has served as a head coach before. So we offer the job to Roland Gordon to become Savillmont's 2nd head coach in men's basketball in history. |
01-30-2014, 05:11 PM | #21 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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I was trying to sim past the assistant hiring stage and ended up simming a whole season by accident.
I was right about hiring Gordon, though. In our 3rd season, Savillmont finished 19-14, going 12-4 in the SLIAC and winning the conference tournament. That earned the team a CIT berth, losing in the 2nd round. Still, a huge upgrade over back to back 9-win seasons. I'm going to release two of the three freshman the game recruited. Two are from Missouri and one is from Louisiana. We're short an Oklahoman at the moment, which hopefully I can fix during transfer period. I think the penalty for not having the required number of in-state players or regional players, will mean we run short a scholarship the following year. This isn't my fault because I didn't recruit for last year at all -- or add anyone from Oklahoma to the pool -- but it'll be the rule for the future. |
01-31-2014, 11:15 PM | #22 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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New class of recruits:
C Devin Applegate (*) Kansas SF Shonn Camm (5*) Oklahoma SG Majuan Jeffers (5*) Colorado PF Leon Tadrick III (5*) Oklahoma PG Trae Trager (3*) Kansas |
01-31-2014, 11:16 PM | #23 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Feel free to offer up recruits for me to create during the off-season and I'll add them, so you have folks to follow.
I create them every year anyway, might as well add more to the fray. Please use this name generator if you can't think of a good name. Name, Position, High School, City/State and one of three categories (Blue Chip, Blue Collar or Scrappy Underdog) |
02-02-2014, 05:38 PM | #24 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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C Devin Applegate (*) Kansas (UW-Oshkosh)
SF Shonn Camm (5*) Oklahoma (Monmouth) SG Majuan Jeffers (5*) Colorado (Casper State) PF Leon Tadrick III (5*) Oklahoma (Augustana) PG Trae Trager (3*) Kansas (Colorado College) Going into this recruiting season, we have 6 scholarships by cutting three spots and letting two of my blue chip players go pro early. I don't have it turned on for every team in the game -- though I'm about to consider it, because I'd like to see what the parity does to my upper echelon teams going forward into the future. So let's go ahead and do that for this upcoming year. Starting this coming year, everyone can go pro early including HS recruits. I'd like to see the impact over the next ten years of whether the teams are able to recover and also, to see more 2 and 3 star players able to gel on better teams rather than teams just going out and signing the best players ever year as right now because it's a D3 dynasty, I have lots of good players who never see the floor because the best teams don't have spots for them. Plus, it'll stop me from always going after the best players and has the intended side effect of giving me good players in my NBA sim a lot earlier than right now, because the talent push isn't as free flowing as I'd like. We finished November 4-3 and ranked in the mid-major poll. I think the anticipation this year is for an NCAA bid, though that should be a tall order. I've intentionally given us a pretty tough OOC schedule to prepare us for what I hope will be a very successful SLIAC season. We went 6-7 during the OOC part of the schedule, winning most of the games I expected us to win and losing one or two with teams that I think I thought were worse than they are in reality. Ultimately, going into Year 4, it's apparent we need a bit more depth for this team to really be able to get anywhere. Recruiting is tough right now because our area is being dominated by Illinois schools and Crystal Bridges in Arkansas, so there's no real chance -- at least right now -- of getting our hands on any real blue chip prospects. Meanwhile, on the administrative end of things, there's talk of a conference switch on the horizon. Administration always saw the SLIAC as a temporary move, with a desire to align the program with a league of schools that were more representative of our academic standing. The North Coast Athletic Conference, which was the original object of administration's affections has happily invited the team given we'd be one of the best teams in their league now, but..administration have set their sights on the Midwest Conference, which experienced a split a few years ago with half of its league leaving to start the Midwest Athletic Association -- now one of the power leagues -- and another target is the Southern Athletic Association, another once-top league that has suffered from the advent of the Sunset Conference. Unlike some of my other created schools, Savillmont has to play in a real-life league against primarily real-life schools. So that leaves a few conference options that work geographically for the Oklahoma-based school. Last edited by Young Drachma : 02-02-2014 at 06:36 PM. |
02-02-2014, 06:04 PM | #25 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Starting next year, Savillmont is moving to the Midwest Conference as that league's 10th team.
Code:
Last edited by Young Drachma : 02-02-2014 at 06:04 PM. |
02-02-2014, 06:18 PM | #26 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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SEASON 4
Savillmont finishes the year with a winning record, but no post-season tournament unfortunately. Still, a solid year and a tough year by the team. Code:
Spoiler
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02-02-2014, 07:15 PM | #27 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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We're losing our coach Roland Gordon, who is taking the Hillman job after just two years with us. I suppose it's better than losing a guy who sucks, but...now we've got to find a new head coach again.
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02-03-2014, 10:52 AM | #28 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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I'm gonna just play at my own pace for a while and post semi-regular updates of progress over time. I'm more curious how this turns out than I am playing slowly.
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02-08-2014, 11:11 AM | #29 |
Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Now that I have NBA2K14 for PC, going to work to import players from FBCB to an NBA that I can actually visualize.
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