Front Office Football Central  

Go Back   Front Office Football Central > Main Forums > Dynasty Reports
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read Statistics

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 08-13-2014, 01:11 AM   #1
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Desmond Gunther (FBCB 2010)

The NBA offseason made me remember that it had been a long time since I'd fired up FBPB, which in turn made me want to first play FBCB so I could have some draft classes. The amount of time I spent playing the older version dwarfs my experience with the 2010 edition, so I started off with a level 0 coach and spent a dozen or so seasons jumping around at the mid-major level to get the hang of things without abusing stuff like dumping all my points into recruiting going too hard after foreign players.

In 2022, I'd come off back-to-back NCAA appearances with a young team at Pepperdine that was on the cusp of promoting from the WCC to the WAC (which would happen the following season) when I saw an interesting challenge at St. John's. Somehow, the team was still hanging on as a 52 prestige team in the loaded Big East (with 5 teams at 95 prestige or above - even local contemporaries Rutgers and Seton Hall had over 25 points on the Johnnies in the prestige department), so I knew this wasn't something that could get turned around in a single recruiting cycle.

The first five or so years were exhilarating as we clawed our way to being a mid-level conference team despite recruiting in an entirely different ecosystem than the Connecticut/Syracuse/West Virginia caliber teams stocked with 5-star All-Americans (being outgunned for recruits by CAA/MAAC teams was not altogether uncommon). With one fewer bottom-feeder in an already brutal conference, any 70-80+ prestige team that slipped for a year was likely to find a 4-14 conference record waiting for them.

Although prestige was now in the high 60s and we were coming off an NIT championship, making the next step proved elusive thanks to questionable draft departures, injuries, and potentially huge recruits falling just short of qualifying.

It was during this stretch when I really discovered the fun of JUCO recruits - the college equivalent of taking on an expiring NBA contract. The older, more developed players were further aided by the fact that my training facilities were still dead last in the conference by a long shot (side note: making requests to the AD is the thing I miss most from the first game. Even if the net results aren't that different, it's more fun to play the role of the diva coach that asks for improvements every year and says "Screw you" and leaves when the board of some small-time school has the nerve to get pissed at him.), but it was still a revelation to be able to plug some JUCO guys ranked outside the top 1,000 into the starting lineup and remain an NCAA bubble team/competitive in conference.

Anyways, we managed to avoid falling into the cellar those 3-4 seasons, and as our luck evened out we broke through with an Elite 8 appearance in 2032, the program's first NCAA appearance in this universe. While we lost some key seniors from that team, our caliber of recruits had improved to the point that we were now a consistent NCAA tournament team. In 2035, I had my best team in this career: some key freshman contributors from the Elite 8 run had stuck around, and with the #2 recruit in the nation - a stud SG from our backyard - joining us, we were ranked #8 in the preseason polls. Then, disaster struck.

Not with the team, mind you. We got off to a bit of a shaky start with our established players deferring too often to the hot shot recruit, but getting more involved by managing the depth charts, game planning, and even manually coaching the games had us on quite a tear. We had just finished up the regular season as outright Big East champions, and with the team #4 and rising in the polls, I knew we had as good a shot as anyone at winning the title. It was at that moment my computer crashed, leaving my most recent save at July of that season.

With how much time I'd invested into that dream season, I didn't want to immediately replay it, so in the effort of keeping my interest in this particular universe (and churning out some eventual draft classes for FBPB3), I'm starting from a fresh perspective. My coach at St. John's is no longer under human control, and this is where Desmond Gunther comes in.


Last edited by nol : 08-13-2014 at 05:04 AM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 02:44 AM   #2
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Desmond is currently a 24 year old first-year assistant coach at Boston College with a comfy three-year deal worth $122,381 per season. As you'd expect from a 24-year-old with a gig at an ACC school, his ambition is second to none, but as you'd also expect he's not the most well-rounded basketball coach: 13 of his 140 coaching points are distributed into recruiting and scouting (6 into recruiting and 7 into scouting, if you're interested in the exact breakdown). That single-minded focus on player development is what has him employed while some of his level 5 peers are still couch surfing, and he will do everything in his power to maintain that edge throughout his career.

Boston College has not been able to string together successful seasons with any sort of consistency. In fact, the Eagles are currently at a low point having gone 5-27 in the past two ACC campaigns. Unsurprisingly, this led to BC head coach Simon Motta being "encouraged" to retire at age 60, after just four seasons at the helm. Boston College's AD, having recently spearheaded a massive fundraising effort towards upgrading the training facilities to 20/20 (good for 3rd in the conference), is not in a patient mood.

New head coach David Holston (Desmond's boss) has done enough waiting as well. Holston is a coaching lifer who spent 16 seasons as the lead assistant at Mississippi State before being fired in 2027. After landing on his feet for a brief stint at Ohio State, he was hired by the FIU Panthers (demoted from the Sun Belt to the Southern Conference in 2009) and hit the ground running. In his five seasons there, he led FIU to 4 of the program's 7 20-win seasons since 2009 and its 1st NCAA bid since 2013.

David, another Xs and Os maniac who gets a much bigger kick out of coaching his players up than finding a diamond in the rough on the recruiting trail, is a perfect mentor for Desmond at this stage of his career. While Holston - whose reputation as a perfectionist precedes him - will likely be slow to fully turn over the reigns of his offense to his 24-year-old assistant, the professional benefits Desmond stands to gain will be undeniable. In fact, Desmond's position is open in the first place because 40-year-old Joshua Folse, Holston's only assistant coach during his 5 years at FIU, was hired as the head coach at Texas Tech while the rest of Holston's staff made the move to Chestnut Hill.

(Programming note: I'm going to be playing in "assistant coach mode" with Holston also a human head coach so BC can be set up for the CPU to handle everything but training and game strategy until Desmond takes a head coaching job of his own)

Last edited by nol : 08-14-2014 at 01:21 AM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 04:00 AM   #3
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Summer 2035

While coach Holston and head recruiter Kenneth Reed (14/20 Rec) hit the recruiting trail, Desmond is overseeing the Eagles' offseason workouts and formulating their return to prominence in the ACC. If BC doesn't live up to the AD's expectations of making the NCAAs this season, it won't be due to a cream puff schedule; the non-conference slate includes road dates with Connecticut (100 prestige), Texas (98), Providence (92), and Pittsburgh (83). However, a quick look at the rest of the ACC shows that BC is closer to a berth in the Big Dance than its record the past two years would indicate.

Despite back-to-back ACC campaigns of 2-14 and 3-13, Boston College did not finish in last place in either of those years thanks to Maryland and Clemson. Those two, along with Wake Forest, all have lower prestige than BC's 66. Even Duke (78) and UNC (80) have fallen upon relatively hard times of late. Virginia Tech (99) and Georgia Tech (95) have stepped into that power vacuum and become the bullies of the league with NC State (86) currently laying claim to Triangle supremacy; those three teams have won 7 of the past 8 ACC regular season titles*

BC returns 4 starters, and while that's not necessarily a good thing when a team went 3-13 in ACC play, the returners should have the team poised to take a step forward and be in the running for a .500 or better conference record:

Senior PG Beau Duley is a classic example of a player who would look much better on a winning team. Between the former New Hampshire Mr. Basketball's 20 HND, 17 JPS and above average athleticism (19 QCK, 14 JMP, 20 STA), he can get his shot off almost whenever he wants, and unfortunately for Beau his team's been bad enough to force him to test the limits of how often that is (11.8 PPG on 36.7 FG% last year).

Senior SG Nathaniel Doss started from Day 1 as a 2* juco transfer from Maine. Doss is a large-bodied wing with the athleticism of a PF whose uncanny gifts tend to be offset by baffling deficiencies. He hardly needs any space to can a midrange jumper over someone (20/20 JPS) but can't throw it in the ocean from three-point range (26.1 3P%); he has nose for the offensive glass that can't be taught (14/A) but over half of his boards come from that end; and his propensity to come up with steals is miles ahead of his perimeter defense.

Redshirt junior SF Lindsey Jones is the most highly-touted recruit on this year's squad. The high school All-American SF transferred to BC after being glued to the bench his freshman year at UCLA. Jones, as is the theme so far, is an outstanding mid-range shooter who experiences difficulty creating his own shot and hitting threes. His vision and ballhandling (12/11 HND/PAS) are outstanding for his position, and there are no gaping holes in his game other than defensive rebounding (4).

Last year's staring PF, JR John Kratzer is a good finisher (16 INS) and can make big plays on the defensive end (15 STL, 16 BLK). The less said about his other attributes, the better. With the only center on the roster redshirting UL-Lafayette transfer Charles Enriquez (6'6 with A potential in PSD and BLK), Desmond will be tasked with toughening Kratzer (4.6 RPG in 31.9 MPG) on the boards as much as is humanly possible.

The two newcomers worth mentioning are juco SF William Quesada (who, from the way coach Holston talks about him, may end up unseating Jones from as the starting SF) and FR SG Loyd Hintz who fits the general BC profile of a mid-range specialist who's mediocre at everything else.

*just rolling with the conferences that were set up when I started this career, so we're looking at a 12 team ACC whose members have remained constant since 2009.

Last edited by nol : 08-13-2014 at 04:02 AM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 04:40 AM   #4
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
October 2035

Knock on wood, but Holston and Reed are close to acquiring a couple of good prospects. BC's in the lead for the #64 player in the country, Stewart Robbins. The 6'7 PF from Massachusetts can be a turnover machine at times, but 15/A INS and 11/JPS more than make up for it, and 11/A DRB and 8/B PSD mean he's not a schmuck on the other end of the floor. Obviously Holston's scouting evaluations are to be taken with an entire shaker of salt, but Robbins's 61.3 FG% seems to corroborate the offensive prowess. BC's currently the only school in the running for 6'2 Chinese SG Gong An, who's putting up the gaudy stat line of 23.9 PPG, 9.9 RPG, 5.6 APG and just 1.6 TPG on 51/75/39 shooting. Regardless of the level of competition, those numbers are indicative of a diverse skill set I can work with.

With Midnight Madness and training camp just around the corner, our staff is still trying to hammer down our strategy for the season. I've started to come around on coach Holston's idea of starting Quesada (but only as a nominal starter while giving us the flexibility to bring Jones off the bench as a backup at any one of three back-court positions. This team has the talent to put up some points as long as everyone's sharing the ball, but I'm more worried about the other side of things.

We have no quickness outside the point guard position and are horribly thin in the frontcourt, and somehow this is making Dave believe a 1-3-1 will be the best defense for us. I can see how that, combined with lots of doubling, can force opponents into rushed shots and turnovers, but I'm trying to convince him that we need to be able to switch between multiple defenses to make it more difficult for conference opponents to prepare for us.

Last edited by nol : 08-13-2014 at 01:50 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 12:26 PM   #5
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
November 2035

Well, I managed to convince Dave to also implement a man-to-man defense with aggressive help principles. I might be a little biased towards man-to-man, but no matter how well you run a zone defense, there will be weaknesses teams can exploit if they're completely prepared for it.

I'm put in complete control of our players' training. While coach Holston and I will almost certainly disagree over the rotation (and Dave definitely appreciates that there's no point in having an assistant coach who's just a yes-man), it's particularly nice to work with some of the guys I believe can have a bigger role than they themselves anticipate.

By and large, I'm extremely pleased with how training camp went. Beau is looking even quicker than before and has an entirely new level of confidence in his jump shot; it would've been easy for him to coast on his incumbent status but I can tell he doesn't want to be remembered for playing on the worst Boston College ACC teams in history. Lindsey had some massive improvements all around (+2 JPS, FTS, HND, PAS, PRD; +1 QKN, JMP). I'm really optimistic this will leave coach Holston no choice but to find a starting spot for him - we'll definitely need him as a secondary ball handler to take the pressure off of Beau. For Nathaniel's training, I wanted him to stick to his strengths rather than overthinking things to try to be a player he's not, and he really responded to that (+3 ORB, +3 STL). Lloyd Hintz was someone who didn't strike me as a top-150 recruit when I first met him, but with his work ethic in the weight room he looks like a completely different player over just the course of the summer (+1 QCK, STR, JMP; +8 STA). Big John Kratzer's going to be an even more reliable offensive option and rim protector for us (+1 INS, FTS, PSD; +2 BLK), but try as I may, I can't get him to box out consistently. Probably the biggest disappointment for me was Quesada; His conditioning is still nowhere near where it should be (0->6 STA), and all that work prevented him from developing much in other areas. He's able to bully our guys in practice with his 6'6, 250 pound frame but I'm not sure how that will translate to games.

Dave still wants Quesada starting (to add some toughness to the team, he claims), and I know it's going to be a losing battle. Unfortunately that leaves Nate Doss as the odd man out, and I insist in our staff meeting that we keep a short leash on Quesada and have Doss playing as much as possible as the sixth man. While preparing for our first game, we receive a commitment from Gong An. I personally feel he could start or at least be in the rotation for us right now, so I can't wait to work with him. We're still in the lead over Seton Hall for Robbins, so hopefully we can wrap up our recruiting season soon.


In our first game at Rutgers, both teams started out hot. Rutgers stayed in the game thanks to their three-point shooting, but we took 47-41 lead into the half thanks to huge performances from our star Duley (15, 4, and 4) and Doss off the bench (still think he should be starting, but if he's getting 13 first half minutes I can't complain too much) with 10 points and 3 steals. In the 2nd half we put the clamps on Rutgers defensively and extended the lead to double digits. Rutgers scored some garbage buckets at the end but we open the season with a 72-62 win at their place!

I thank the guys in the locker room for making things easy for me in my first game; I only called one timeout all game, and it was to set up a play with 5 seconds left in the first half (Beau got an decent look but missed the jumper). Beau put up 25, 6, and 6 (with just one turnover) on 11-17 shooting. That's a new career high for him! I could tell from working with him that he was tired of losing and wanted to take his game to another level his senior year. John Kratzer had a very workmanlike 12 and 8 and had me holding my breath a few times the first half as he took a coule charges while already having two fouls. They were great hustle plays, but if those calls go the other way we're left extremely thin in the frontcourt.

We start off playing like ass in Game 2 hosting Yale. I call a timeout 3 minutes in as they're shredding our 1-3-1 defense and, after a heated discussion with Dave, convince him to have us go man-to-man. We stop the bleeding to some extent but still trail by 10 at half; we simply don't have the outside shooting to quickly make up deficits, and 2-6 free throw shooting doesn't help either. Their starting big Spencer Owens is on fire from mid-range and has 15 points in the first 20 minutes.

The 2nd half is more of the same as we come out half asleep and fall behind by 20. We slowly claw our way back in, but miss too many free throws to close within single digits (4-11 on the game is unacceptable in both quantity and accuracy). Owens was All-Ivy League last year so he's no scrub, but after watching him take our lunch money to the tune of 19, 12 and 3 blocks on 7-10 shooting I'm not looking forward to seeing the best bigs the ACC has to offer. I'm already starting to get fed up with Dave's insistence on playing Quesada - he was 2-9 with 4 turnovers today while Doss put up 10 on 5-8 shooting off the bench.

Our last game this month is at Rhode Island, led by freshman SG Myles Belk who's currently averaging 16 and 7 boards through 3 games (out of character note - would have been happy to have this guy at St. John's if we hadn't already landed the #2 and #41 overall recruits, both SGs). The first half is a barnburner, with our guys clinging to a 44-41 lead thanks to Lindsey Jones. He's been on fire with 21 points on 5-6 shooting from 3 and has still had time to dish out 3 assists. Hopefully the other guys can step up and take some attention off of him the 2nd half.

And we do just that. Kratzer and Diaz had some great possessions inside for us to start the half, getting buckets and drawing fouls. Doss came in and provided his customary spark, picking Belk's pocket for a fast break layup and with 12 minutes left we were up 21. The rest of the game passes by without incident other than Nathaniel Doss trying to claim the Hater of the Year award by dunking all over some poor URI guy on a fast break alley-oop with 15 seconds left in the game and then getting T'd up for staring him down. I was unsure of what coach Holston would do, but even he cracked a smile and kept him in; I suppose he knew Nate had the right to let off a little steam with how well he's handled his sixth man role. Lindsey had a quiet 2nd half to finish with 25, 8 and 6 on 8-14 shooting, and Kratzer (22 and 6)was the guy we rode for the last 20 minutes. The constant through it all, of course, was Beau. 16, 11 assists and 5 boards without a single turnover. All in all, a great way to rebound from the ugly Yale loss; maybe we need to play all of our games on the road.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 01:49 PM   #6
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
December 2035

Some bad news to start the month as 4* PF Robbins spurns us for Seton Hall. That leaves us scrambling, but at least nobody seems desperate enough to ask my opinion on recruits. Doss was dinged up a bit in our last game, so he'll probably sit this next one against Boston University.

We outclass our guests, but aren't playing with too much urgency in the first half and let them hang around. We take a 33-27 lead into intermission thanks to getting 4 points on our final possession (could have been five - scored a basket, got fouled, the player who fouled got a technical, but our non-technical foul shooter missed the free throw).

Coach Holston really let them have it at halftime, and we start the 2nd half on a 21-2 run. Hopefully he remembers to save some of those speeches for Virginia Tech and UNC. With 7 minutes left, Duley and Kratzer have outscored BU 39-29. We pick up our first home win of the season in a 69-38 laugher. BU went 1-22 from 3-point land. Kratzer and Duley are our big scorers, but I'm falling more and more in love with Lindsey Jones' game each time out - 9 points on 2-3 shooting along with 10 assists, 0 turnovers, 5 boards, and 2 steals.

Fairfield comes to visit us and our 3-1 record. A bench player of theirs by the name of James Damron is unconscious in the first half, and his 12 points helped them to a 39-37 lead. They're throwing a junk 2-1-2 defense at us, while we only committed one turnover for the half, our shot selection was not doing us any favors. The tone in our locker room wasn't too distraught, as we knew that playing our game combined with them cooling off a bit would bring us a W.

We score the first 5 points of the 2nd half and make them call a timeout 1:30 in. We push the lead out to 8 points and miss several free throws and transition opportunities to really put a cushion between us and Fairfield, but we get enough stops and make our free throws when intentionally fouled and emerge with a 68-59 win. Duley's shooting reverted to last season's form (12 points on 3-19, 1-9 on threes), but he chipped in 7 rebounds and 6 assists without a turnover. Kratzer was our POG with 13 and 7.

On the road against #7 Pittsburgh, we start out well enough. Pittsburgh's sloppy at the start with illegal screens and shot clock violations and we jump to a 16-8 lead. Then, Kratzer picks up his 2nd foul and we have to hold on for dear life. Beau comes up with some big buckets for us and we force them to call the game's first timeout as we take a 24-15 lead with 7:26 left in the half. We continue playing out of our minds, shooting 61% as a team on our way to a 42-26 halftime lead. Beau leads us with 18. The one negative is that Dave put Kratzer back in long enough for John to pick up his 3rd foul.

The 2nd half is ugly basketball on both sides. We get too conservative on offense and come away with some shot clock violations. Pitt can't hold on to the ball for enough possessions in a row to manufacture a run. We win a deceptively close contest, 56-46, that saw Pitt make 2 three-pointers with under 30 seconds left. When you score 14 points in a half and still win by double digits over a top-ten team, you'll take that any day of the week.

In our home tilt versus Vermont, their PF John Slaughter keeps them in the game by scoring 11 of their first 15 points. Once Dave goes to my personal favorite backcourt lineup of Duley, Doss, and Jones we quickly open a double-digit lead, but Slaughter comes right back at. With 1:40 left, our lead is back down to 31-27. He's finding too many holes in our 1-3-1, so I call for us to go back to man defense. The very next possession, Doss reads a passing lane and gets a breakaway layup.

In the 2nd half, Vermont briefly takes a lead with 12 minutes to go after a Reggie Miller-like sequence from their SG Ahmed Chaisson. After a much-needed timeout, we settle down some and bring the lead back to 12 thanks to some opportune steals and transition opportunities. William Quesada had his best game in a BC uniform thus far and ends up with 15 and 6 on 6-10 shooting. He and Doss (14 and 6) really picked up the slack on the wing for Jones, who was saddled with foul trouble. Don't get too carried by our 6-1 record, though: Rutgers and Rhode Island are a combined 2-16 on the season. However, I couldn't be happier with how my first season's going so far, and we can hopefully run our record to 9-1 with 3 winnable home games to close December (Hofstra, Hartford and Stony Brook).
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 02:35 PM   #7
britrock88
Pro Starter
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Madison, WI
Great premise; looking forward to future updates!
britrock88 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 03:16 PM   #8
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Hofstra's off to a 5-2 start led by 6-8, 265 PF Byron Pepper (21 ppg, 20 INS). Luckily, their starting SG and 2nd best player is dinged up. The first 2 minutes give me a good feeling about the game. We're only ahead 4-0 but have already drawn 5 fouls. Unfortunately, the refs are completely whistle happy this game and Hofstra comes back from an early 21-9 deficit on the strength of free throws. They lead 44-38 at the half. Lindsey Jones is our main guy with 14 points but has 3 fouls. We're down 2 for four straight possessions in the 2nd half and come away empty-handed, and that isn't enough to overcome the massive free throw discrepancy. Hofstra shoots 31-38 at the line to our 13-22. Duley and Kratzer combine for a ghastly 10-35 from the field. If we end up on the bubble, that will be the game to point to.

Against Hartford, an otherwise mediocre first half is propped up by Kratzer's 13, 8 and 2 blocks, which is enough for us to have a 33-27 lead. After halftime, we can't stop shooting ourselves in the foot offensively, but some nice individual efforts by Jones and Duley are keeping us in front. We get a rebound up 53-48 with 5 minutes left and call a timeout to get a breather for our guys. The ensuing play breaks down, but Chet White, a senior walk-on PF with no discernible basketball skills, continues his bizarre tendency to make key baskets for us (he killed some rallies in the Pitt and Vermont games) and calmly hits a free throw line jumper. We're up 60-52 lead with 2:43 left, but Hartford ties the game at 60 thanks to two straight three pointers made within 5 seconds of gaining possession. We take a timeout with 26 seconds left to hold on for the last shot, but the play Holston draws up somehow involves our offensively-challenged PF Freddy Diaz receiving the ball in perfect position to get trapped and turn the ball over with 11 seconds left. Lindsey Jones blocks the potential winning three-pointer, and we're heading to overtime.

Scoring isn't too much of an issue in the extra period thanks to both teams being in the double bonus. We're up 3 with 1:30 remaining, but their center (0-4 on the season) hits a three to knot things up. Jones answers back with a big three-point play, and that puts us in position to be shooting free throws after getting a stop. Beau goes 4-4 from the line in the last minute, and we hold on for a 77-72 win. We rack up an absurd 25 offensive rebounds, just three fewer than Hartford's total number of boards for the night.

Stony Brook's 1-9, so I'm really hoping we can close out the year with a stress-free win. It takes us 10 minutes or so to get going, but Duley and Kratzer start to put on a two-man show; with 4 minutes left in the half the two of them are outscoring Stony Brook 24-21.

With 14 minutes left in the 2nd half, we're up 54-34. Our ball movement (19 assists to 5 turnovers) is as good as it's been all season. We move to 8-2 with a 74-48 victory. Despite the blowout, we only get 9 guys into the game, and afterwards I have a heart-to-heart with our 10th man, JR PG Chris Earl. It was a tough conversation because Chris is a walk-on and understands we've got guys like Beau and Lindsey who are key to our success, but he's easily got the best court vision (17 PAS) on the team and could likely find a low-major program he could start for his senior year if he chooses to transfer. I tell him the truth - minutes could be hard to come by this season but if he sticks around he'll be neck-and-neck with Shawn (Everson, our backup PG) for the starting job next season.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 06:42 PM   #9
Young Drachma
Dark Cloud
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
This is nice and with lots of detail. Will be following along.
__________________
Current Dynasty:The Zenith of Professional Basketball Careers (FBPB/FBCB)
FBCB / FPB3 Mods
Young Drachma is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 08:00 PM   #10
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Heading into January, still no news on the recruiting front. Gulp.

Let me list off some season stats, because we've got three consecutive road games (UConn, Providence, #4 Texas) before going through the ACC. Currently, the ACC's ranked teams are #7 Georgia Tech, #15 Virginia Tech, #18 Miami, and #22 NC State.

We're riding Duley as hard as we possibly can, and he's come through for us so far. He's putting up 16.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 5.2 APG (with a 4 A/TO ratio) He's only shooting 40.8% from the field, but that's a significant improvement over the past two seasons. Big John Kratzner's averaging 15 and 7 while also chipping in a steal and a block and a half per game. Lastly, Lindsey Jones is averaging 12, 5 and 5 in a hyper-efficient manner (45-88-47 shooting splits, 2.17 A/TO)

New Year's Day is our showdown at UConn. The RPI ratings likely have a lot of settling to do, but as of now the Huskies will be the 2nd top-100 team we've faced this season (Yale). 5 minutes in, we're ahead 15-7. Backup big Brent Alexander has taken a couple charges and gotten some hustle points off of offensive rebounds - that's what we're going to need to come out on top. After that, the talent gap begins to manifest itself. Again, we leave several points on the board from missed free throws (especially one-and-ones) and UConn heads into the half with an 11-point lead.

The 2nd half went on to show we can't hang with top-10 caliber teams unless we're at our absolute best, and we take a 75-54 beatdown. Frankly, Beau was the only player who looked as if he belonged on the court with those guys.

At Providence, we're hanging within 5 points of them for most of the half, but then a flurry of turnovers and 3-pointers puts them up 38-21 after 20. It's pretty disheartening to watch your team put up a 3-pointer and for the most part be able to immediately rule out the possibility of a make.

A mini-run by Duley cuts the lead to 11 and makes Providence call a timeout 3 minutes into the 2nd half. This settles them somewhat, allowing them to extend the lead back to 18, but we whittle it down to 8 heading into the 8 minute media timeout. We're shooting 50% to this point, but silly unforced turnovers are holding us back. Still down 8 with 4:20 left, we go 0-2 at the line and promptly give up a three-pointer. We actually make back-to-back threes to cut the lead down to five with just over a minute left, but a Providence offensive rebound on the ensuing possession seals our fate.

At #4 Texas, most of the team seems to be caught in the spotlight. Lindsey Jones was by the best player on the floor; his 16 first-half points kept the game from being a massacre but we head into the locker room down 43-30. We actually win the 2nd half to end up with a respectable 68-58 loss at a tough place to play. Jones was extremely passive after halftime and ended up with 19 on 8-14 shooting. Quesada killed us once again with 0 points, 3 turnovers, and 4 fouls on 0-5 shooting in 17 minutes. Still have no clue why he's starting over Doss or even Hintz.

We get North Carolina at home for our conference opener. The first half is an entertaining, back-and-forth contest. With 2:30 remaining, Beau ties the game up on a vicious and-one dunk but misses the free throw. UNC scores 2 buckets to end the half, and we're down 34-30. Duley has 13 and Doss has 8 off the bench.

UNC threatens to pull away in the 2nd half, but back-to-back threes from Jones trim our deficit to 49-44. With 8:55 remaining, Jones draws the 4th foul on the Tar Heels' leading scorer Richard Lehr and knocks down the foul shots to bring us within 4. We grab our first lead of the 2nd half with 4:20 remaining but fail to create separation thanks to a couple missed layups and free throws. Lehr re-enters the game and promptly buries a corner 3 to put them up 2, and Kratzer ties it at 64 on the next possession with a huge putback slam. We trade stops until there's less than a minute remaining, when Quesada picks off an errant UNC pass. Going the other way, we run our secondary fast break to perfection and get Duley a corner three, which he hits. We switch to man and get another steal. It's Kratzer who comes up with it, and he hits both ends of a 1-and-1 to put us up 5 with 18 seconds left. We're not out of the woods yet as Lehr makes a three with 4 seconds remaining, but we safely inbound the ball to Lindsey Jones and the 87% foul shooter hits both to ice it. 71-67, good guys.

Our conference road opener is against the well-balanced attack of #11 Miami; their top 5 scorers average between 10.7 and 13.1 PPG. The game starts out a slugfest with us leading Miami 7-5 after the 2nd media timeout. Both teams warm up from there, and we get enough stops by switching between 1-3-1 and man to prevent a bit of a scoring drought from sinking our hopes. We trail 29-28 heading into halftime - Duley leads us with 11 and 4 assists.

Miami scores the first 8 points in the 2nd half, aided by Kratzer's rare feat of pulling off consecutive traveling violations. We surge back, but the Hurricanes are able to use depth and superior rebounding to keep us at bay. We fall 81-60. Duley had 21 and 9 (with a career-high 5 turnovers), and our starting PF and C managed 6 rebounds in combined minutes.

Wake Forest at home is a must-win for us if we are to keep up with the pack in the conference race. Their SG and SF are sharp-shooters extraordinaire and average a combined 36 PPG; I stress in pregame walkthrough to not get caught overhelping in the lane. As a result, Wake Forest's center is having a big game inside, but we stick to the plan and lead 40-32 at the half.

Duley picks up an obnoxious charge call a minute into the second half, but we slide Jones to PG and don't miss a beat. Doss is all over the place and helps us push the lead out to 17. With a couple minutes left, they uncork a barrage of threes but it's too little, too late. We hold on, 72-61, and move to 10-6 (2-1). We've already matched last season's win total!

#9 Virginia Tech is the new 'it' program in the ACC. They've made 12 straight NCAA tournaments and have advanced out of the first weekend 7 of the past 9 seasons. 6 former top-25 recruits currently suit up for them, so this is quite possibly our toughest game of the season. Despite 6 early turnovers, we are still in a dogfight with them and trail 8-7 at the 2nd media timeout. Both teams remain cold until VaTech hits a couple threes late in the first half, and we head into the break trailing 23-18.

The Hokies make it clear that they can tighten their defense up even more the 2nd half. Our first points come via technical foul free throws 5 minutes in, and we trail 22-33. Their 3-2 defense suffocates our perimeter-oriented attack, and Kratzer can't score inside on the 5th-best shotblocking team in the country. 19 turnovers. 28.6% from the field. 8.3% from 3. That adds up to a 56-39 loss.

Our unbeaten home conference record is on the line against #16 Georgia Tech. Their SG Lon Stout is putting up 20 PPG, and I suggest doubling him from the start since he has limited vision as a passer. Despite the attention we're paying him, Stout still bombs his way to 13 in the first half. We trail by 9. Doss, Duley, and Jones have 27 of our 28 points.

With our three scorers on the court together, we close the gap to 40-36 with 17:38 remaining and force a timeout. Down just 2 with 7 minutes remaining, we proceed to turn it over on three consecutive possessions as Tech reels off 8 straight. The backbreaker comes when Georgia Tech gets an offensive rebound and caps a 1 minute, 6 second possession with a three from Stout to go up 12. They hit 11 threes to our 3 and won the head-to-head center matchup 15-2.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 09:37 PM   #11
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Heading into January, still no news on the recruiting front. Gulp.

Let me list off some season stats, because we've got three consecutive road games (UConn, Providence, #4 Texas) before going through the ACC. Currently, the ACC's ranked teams are #7 Georgia Tech, #15 Virginia Tech, #18 Miami, and #22 NC State.

We're riding Duley as hard as we possibly can, and he's come through for us so far. He's putting up 16.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 5.2 APG (with a 4 A/TO ratio) He's only shooting 40.8% from the field, but that's a significant improvement over the past two seasons. Big John Kratzner's averaging 15 and 7 while also chipping in a steal and a block and a half per game. Lastly, Lindsey Jones is averaging 12, 5 and 5 in a hyper-efficient manner (45-88-47 shooting splits, 2.17 A/TO)

New Year's Day is our showdown at UConn. The RPI ratings likely have a lot of settling to do, but as of now the Huskies will be the 2nd top-100 team we've faced this season (Yale). 5 minutes in, we're ahead 15-7. Backup big Brent Alexander has taken a couple charges and gotten some hustle points off of offensive rebounds - that's what we're going to need to come out on top. After that, the talent gap begins to manifest itself. Again, we leave several points on the board from missed free throws (especially one-and-ones) and UConn heads into the half with an 11-point lead.

The 2nd half went on to show we can't hang with top-10 caliber teams unless we're at our absolute best, and we take a 75-54 beatdown. Frankly, Beau was the only player who looked as if he belonged on the court with those guys.

At Providence, we're hanging within 5 points of them for most of the half, but then a flurry of turnovers and 3-pointers puts them up 38-21 after 20. It's pretty disheartening to watch your team put up a 3-pointer and for the most part be able to immediately rule out the possibility of a make.

A mini-run by Duley cuts the lead to 11 and makes Providence call a timeout 3 minutes into the 2nd half. This settles them somewhat, allowing them to extend the lead back to 18, but we whittle it down to 8 heading into the 8 minute media timeout. We're shooting 50% to this point, but silly unforced turnovers are holding us back. Still down 8 with 4:20 left, we go 0-2 at the line and promptly give up a three-pointer. We actually make back-to-back threes to cut the lead down to five with just over a minute left, but a Providence offensive rebound on the ensuing possession seals our fate.

At #4 Texas, most of the team seems to be caught in the spotlight. Lindsey Jones was by the best player on the floor; his 16 first-half points kept the game from being a massacre but we head into the locker room down 43-30. We actually win the 2nd half to end up with a respectable 68-58 loss at a tough place to play. Jones was extremely passive after halftime and ended up with 19 on 8-14 shooting. Quesada killed us once again with 0 points, 3 turnovers, and 4 fouls on 0-5 shooting in 17 minutes. Still have no clue why he's starting over Doss or even Hintz.

We get North Carolina at home for our conference opener. The first half is an entertaining, back-and-forth contest. With 2:30 remaining, Beau ties the game up on a vicious and-one dunk but misses the free throw. UNC scores 2 buckets to end the half, and we're down 34-30. Duley has 13 and Doss has 8 off the bench.

UNC threatens to pull away in the 2nd half, but back-to-back threes from Jones trim our deficit to 49-44. With 8:55 remaining, Jones draws the 4th foul on the Tar Heels' leading scorer Richard Lehr and knocks down the foul shots to bring us within 4. We grab our first lead of the 2nd half with 4:20 remaining but fail to create separation thanks to a couple missed layups and free throws. Lehr re-enters the game and promptly buries a corner 3 to put them up 2, and Kratzer ties it at 64 on the next possession with a huge putback slam. We trade stops until there's less than a minute remaining, when Quesada picks off an errant UNC pass. Going the other way, we run our secondary fast break to perfection and get Duley a corner three, which he hits. We switch to man and get another steal. It's Kratzer who comes up with it, and he hits both ends of a 1-and-1 to put us up 5 with 18 seconds left. We're not out of the woods yet as Lehr makes a three with 4 seconds remaining, but we safely inbound the ball to Lindsey Jones and the 87% foul shooter hits both to ice it. 71-67, good guys.

Our conference road opener is against the well-balanced attack of #11 Miami; their top 5 scorers average between 10.7 and 13.1 PPG. The game starts out a slugfest with us leading Miami 7-5 after the 2nd media timeout. Both teams warm up from there, and we get enough stops by switching between 1-3-1 and man to prevent a bit of a scoring drought from sinking our hopes. We trail 29-28 heading into halftime - Duley leads us with 11 and 4 assists.

Miami scores the first 8 points in the 2nd half, aided by Kratzer's rare feat of pulling off consecutive traveling violations. We surge back, but the Hurricanes are able to use depth and superior rebounding to keep us at bay. We fall 81-60. Duley had 21 and 9 (with a career-high 5 turnovers), and our starting PF and C managed 6 rebounds in combined minutes.

Wake Forest at home is a must-win for us if we are to keep up with the pack in the conference race. Their SG and SF are sharp-shooters extraordinaire and average a combined 36 PPG; I stress in pregame walkthrough to not get caught overhelping in the lane. As a result, Wake Forest's center is having a big game inside, but we stick to the plan and lead 40-32 at the half.

Duley picks up an obnoxious charge call a minute into the second half, but we slide Jones to PG and don't miss a beat. Doss is all over the place and helps us push the lead out to 17. With a couple minutes left, they uncork a barrage of threes but it's too little, too late. We hold on, 72-61, and move to 10-6 (2-1). We've already matched last season's win total!

#9 Virginia Tech is the new 'it' program in the ACC. They've made 12 straight NCAA tournaments and have advanced out of the first weekend 7 of the past 9 seasons. 6 former top-25 recruits currently suit up for them, so this is quite possibly our toughest game of the season. Despite 6 early turnovers, we are still in a dogfight with them and trail 8-7 at the 2nd media timeout. Both teams remain cold until VaTech hits a couple threes late in the first half, and we head into the break trailing 23-18.

The Hokies make it clear that they can tighten their defense up even more the 2nd half. Our first points come via technical foul free throws 5 minutes in, and we trail 22-33. Their 3-2 defense suffocates our perimeter-oriented attack, and Kratzer can't score inside on the 5th-best shotblocking team in the country. 19 turnovers. 28.6% from the field. 8.3% from 3. That adds up to a 56-39 loss.

Our unbeaten home conference record is on the line against #16 Georgia Tech. Their SG Lon Stout is putting up 20 PPG, and I suggest doubling him from the start since he has limited vision as a passer. Despite the attention we're paying him, Stout still bombs his way to 13 in the first half. We trail by 9. Doss, Duley, and Jones have 27 of our 28 points.

With our three scorers on the court together, we close the gap to 40-36 with 17:38 remaining and force a timeout. Down just 2 with 7 minutes remaining, we proceed to turn it over on three consecutive possessions as Tech reels off 8 straight. The backbreaker comes when Georgia Tech gets an offensive rebound and caps a 1 minute, 6 second possession with a three from Stout to go up 12. They hit 11 threes to our 3 and won the head-to-head center matchup 15-2.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 11:39 PM   #12
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
February 2036

Still no offers going out on the recruiting front. Have to assume that we'll just punt on our remaining scholarship and hope to land a transfer. One one hand, we can grab an impact player like the previous staff did with Lindsey, but we'll be in immediate need of a post player if we're to remain respectable next season with Kratzner and Duley graduating. I don't want to sound ungrateful because I've really learned a lot from Dave and love working with the players, but the last thing I want is for my career to stagnate because we couldn't keep the cabinet stocked with players; nobody's looking to hire assistants from 8-24 teams.

We visit Wake Forest on the first of the month. The fans sense a prime opportunity for an ACC victory, and the 8-0 lead the Demon Deacons jump to whips them into a frenzy. We eventually become acclimated and take our first lead, 26-24 with 4:30 left in the half on Lloyd Hintz's three- pointer.

Wake Forest has significantly cooled down, and we build upon our 35-30 halftime lead despite not firing on all cylinders offensively. Then, Nathaniel Doss begins to take over. His 16th point of the contest gives us a 55-39 lead with 8:38 to play. We milk the clock for a 73-51 win and climb back to .500 in the ACC.

Next is the rematch with North Carolina. They're 1-5 in conference and will be looking for revenge. The RPI paints a pretty accurate portrait of our season thus far; 0-6 versus the top 50 and 8-0 against teams ranked 200 and lower. This game seems destined to come down to the wire. We're tied with them at 23 with 5 minutes left in the half, thanks to the layup we've gotten from breaking their press. UNC hits a buzzer-beating three to go ahead 31-29. They're killing us 26-15 on the glass; unsurprisingly the three-pointer was a second-chance opportunity for them.

In the 2nd half, our scoring is as balanced as it's been this season. Kratzer completes a couple three-point plays, and we grab a 54-53 lead with 5:13 remaining. Jones, Doss, Kratzer and Duley are all in double figures. Over the next 2 minutes, we go 2-6 on free throws but continue to turn North Carolina away. We get a nice bounce when UNC misses a three that's rebounded by our best free-throw shooter, Lindsey, and he makes them both to put us up 64-57 with a 1:02 left. Then, we proceed to do every single thing wrong. UNC's sharpshooter Lehr gets 3(!) tries to make a three-pointer the following possession thanks to offensive rebounds. That puts us up 64-60 with 35 seconds left. Their center proceeds to steal the inbounds pass from Duley (he of the 20 HND rating) and make a layup. We turn over the next inbounds pass as well, force UNC into a miss, give up an offensive rebound, and then foul Lehr with 6 seconds remaining. He makes the first, misses the second.. and then tips in his own miss to give them the lead.

I call a timeout to set up a final play - a wing pick-and-roll for Duley. Everyone in the arena knows it's going to him, and he rises up with 2 seconds left - and dumps it to the wide-open screener Freddie Diaz! North Carolina tries to foul our unheralded starting PF (3.6 PPG), but it's too late: he gets the bucket, and one. UNC's halfcourt heave falls just short, and we've swept the Tar Heels!

With that, we're 12-8 (4-3) and face Clemson at home. Both teams spend much of the first half shooting over 50 percent. We just need to string together some stops, and that should allow us to build a comfortable lead. With 5 minutes remaining in the half, we begin to do just that and lead 40-30. At intermission, Duley and Jones are both in double figures.

In the 2nd half, Clemson gets within 4 before a Doss steal and breakaway jam helps us regain the momentum. We eventually settle on a 10 point lead, with Beau knocking down two heat check threes whenever Clemson makes a run. We win 73-57. Lindsey fills up the stat sheet with 16, 6, and 6. Beau has 19, 5, and 4. We commit only 15 fouls the entire ball game, which is right in line with our season average. Being the 2nd-most foul-averse team in the nation has certainly helped us in close games.

Virginia comes to visit Chestnut Hill. They're currently underachieving at 2nd-to-last in the conference. Let's keep it that way. They start out hitting some 3s against our 1-3-1, so we abandon that for man-to-man. Beau keeps us afloat early with 10 points in the first 10 minutes, and we take our first lead of the game (30-29) 12 minutes in. Some ugly defensive lapses have us trailing 50-45 at the half.

In the 2nd half, we just missed all of our open looks while they made theirs. An 18-point home loss to the 2nd-worst team in the conference will just about seal our NCAA at-large chances. We're tied for 5th in the conference with NC State and sit 2 full games ahead of the 7th place teams. The four teams ranked ahead of us are all in the top 25, and we get Miami at home next.

#9 Miami threatens to blow us out early, but some good work on the boards keeps us within 2 over the first 10 minutes despite shooting 38% to their 56%. Duley has had an off game, but I know he's not going to stay quiet all night. John Kratzer's playing his best half of basketball in months, and we pull ahead 38-37 on a Lindsey Jones 3. When that shot's falling for Lindsey, there aren't many wings in the country I'd take over him. He's got 15 at the half as we lead 43-42. Kratzer has 13 and 4.

Doss gets going early in the 2nd half with a couple steals and some jumpers, and we lead 55-48 with 11 minutes left. A four-turnover streak allows Miami to whittle away a 59-50 lead with 8 minutes left, and we're clinging to a one-point lead inside the last media timeout. Kratzer steals a post entry past and is off to the races. He then lobs it to Quesada off the glass (at least Big John says it was a lob; some of his teammates are convinced he completely lost control while attempting a layup), and Quesada finishes an and-one dunk to put us up 4. Miami scores back-to-back buckets to tie it, and Duley hits a jumper from the left wing (only his 5th point of the game) to put us up 2 with 53 seconds left. We commit a foul with 18 seconds left, and Miami's Coy Clifton splits the pair. Doss ends up with the rebound and makes his foul shots. Miami then takes us by surprise by not taking a timeout, and reserve guard Kieth Judge swishes a three from a step inside halfcourt to send it into OT.

The first minute sees Kratzner foul out Miami's center and sink two free throws, followed by Jones stealing and dunking the ensuing inbounds pass to put us up 4. We then trade baskets the next few minutes, with Jones and Kratzner scoring all of our points. When Miami starts going for threes, we again secure the rebound and make our free throws (26-28 for the game). This time they're out of miracles, and we hold on for an 87-82 win. Kratzner had 25 and 9 on 8-13 shooting, and Jones poured in 25, 5, and 5 shooting 10-16. At 14-9 (6-4), we've eclipsed our ACC win total from the past two years, but our guys aren't complacent. In fact, I hear quite a few of them still lamenting the Virginia loss.

Last edited by nol : 08-14-2014 at 06:29 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2014, 06:29 PM   #13
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
We need this road win against Maryland to entrench us more firmly in the top half of the conference. They've got some talented guys, but might have more depth issues than we do. At the 12 minute mark, William Quesada rips off an impressive sequence of back-to-back steals and transition buckets and we lead 14-8. We continue to turn them over, and a 3 from Doss gives us a 21-11 advantage. We lead by as much as 12, but some missed free throws (1-5 from the normally-reliable Kratzer) and threes from them have them with 4 at the half. Duley is scoreless, but Jones and Doss are making up for it with 7 and 6 assists for Jones and 13 for Doss.

Turnovers and fouls are the story of the 2nd half. We continue to force giveaways (17 for the Terrapins with 10 minutes to play) and are already in the bonus for the half. Jones has hit a 3 and gotten to the line on some non-shooting fouls, so his 18 points has inched the lead back to 53-43. We lead by 7 with 1:30 left, and despite our best efforts to let them back in via missed free throws and turnovers, they don't make enough three-pointers to oblige. We get a nice road victory 74-66. Jones had 18 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds.

We're tied for 5th in the conference, 2 games behind Duke and Georgia Tech and 3 games ahead of 7th-place Virginia and Wake Forest. The bubble watch has us as the third team out of the tournament right now, but I hope none of the kids are paying attention to that crap (guess I am getting used to being a coach, calling them kids when I'm just a year or two older than some of them). We've got 5 regular season games left, and 4 of them are against teams above us in the standings - if we keep winning, all of that bubble/RPI stuff will work itself out.

We hit the road to take on #14 Georgia Tech, and we have a bit of a break as Cameron Warrington (their center who outplayed Kratzner in our 10-point home loss) is coming off a sprained ankle and isn't at 100 percent. Our defensive gameplan against them is working well to start; we lead 12-9 9 minutes in, and they've had to rely on their 5th option on offense for 7 of those points. Doss hits a 3 that forces a timeout, and when they answer back with two free throws he responds with a poster dunk and completes the three-point play to put us up 22-14. We lead by as much as 12 in the half, but Tech closes the margin to 6.

In the first minute of the 2nd half, The Yellow Jackets' leading scorer Stout picks up 2 quick fouls to put him on the bench with 4. We almost immediately go ahead by 9, but we've taken a couple timeouts while getting trapped and have only 2 left for the last 15 minutes. With 14 minutes remaining, Tech closes within 1 and I really don't want to burn yet another one. Luckily Beau buries a three, which kicks off an 11-0 run. They claw back to within 4 thanks to some more hot shooting from 5th year senior Fletcher Merriman, who's got a new career high of 20 with 6 minutes to play. We make the switch to man, and our defense responds to the challenge, forcing two one-and-done possessions and a shot clock violation. We go up 10 and make our free throws down the stretch to escape with a win in College Park! Doss sets a new career high with 22 points on 6-8 shooting (9-11 on free throws), and we only committed 11 turnovers against their pressure defense. Freddie Diaz had the best game of his college career with 10 points, 4 boards, and a couple blocks.

There probably weren't too many people who thought our Wednesday night matchup hosting #24 NC State would carry more ACC and NCAA tournament implications than UNC-Duke, but the winner of this game will enter March 1 game out of the conference lead. John Kratzer has our first five poitns, and the and-1 he completes marks NC State's 6th team foul in the first 4 minutes. Hopefully we can continue the aggression and pick up some easy points on offense. Sure enough, Kratzer makes 4 more free throws, and back-to-back threes from Jones and Duley give us a 22-11 lead. They rip off three consecutive three-pointers, and it's a fresh ballgame. Our massive foul advantage (15-3) is enough to give us a 40-35 lead at half. Kratzer has 15.

NC State retakes the lead 3 minutes in, and I've had enough of their three pointers: we're playing man the rest of the game. Jones rips off 5 straight points to put us back on top. We maintain a one-possession lead until the last media timeout, when our ball movement starts to break down. Off of turnovers and questionable shot selection on our part they retake the lead. They have the ball out of bounds up 1 with 27 seconds remaining and somehow manage a lay-up when our team was trying to intentionally foul. Quesada's fouled on the other end, and he misses the front end of a 1-and-1. His 0-9 with 1 point sticks out like a sore thumb, and enough is enough: I put my foot down and tell coach Holston the stakes are too high for Quesada to continue starting.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2014, 07:01 PM   #14
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
March 2036
Dave was definitely taken aback by my outburst in the staff meeting, but like I told him, if you want to hire the numbers nerd to bring in a new perspective, don't be surprised when the kid drops some stats on you. I probably didn't need to get much deeper than 39% from the field and 15% from three, but I came prepared with adjusted plus-minus, situtational stats, biometric readings from in-game data, you name it. Now we're going to slide Lindsey to SF, start Nathaniel at SG and have Willy come off the bench as more of a combo forward.

#23 Duke has led the ACC wire-to-wire but hasn't gotten much respect from the polls or the RPI. On paper, they don't look like the deepest team but head coach Dino Coffee has them ready to play every single game. They're the number one defense in the nation in terms of PPG allowed and are 3rd in rebounding margin. It won't be easy on the road, but hopefully our new lineup can take them by surprise.

Roland Roy, their starting PG and a 28% three-point shooter, starts out 3-3 from from downtown but we remain within 5. They continue their ridiculous shooting and take a 13 point lead into the locker room. Roy and their starting SF Robert Cushman have both surpassed their season averages.

We get within 10, but the threes just keep coming for Duke. We aren't as stymied by their defense, but their PG, SG, and SF who were shooting under 32 percent for the year went 12-19 from beyond the arc. 82-63 is the final score. That loss places us OUT on the bubble watch once again as we head into the final week of the season at Florida State and hosting Virginia Tech.

Last edited by nol : 08-14-2014 at 07:03 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2014, 01:46 AM   #15
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
We're one win away from clinching a winning conference record, and that's gonna be the minimum we'll need to make it to the big dance.

Florida State is our last road game of the season, and luckily for us their starting SG and C are out with injuries. Their starting PG picks up an injury 7 minutes in but remains on the court. We begin to build a lead, which is good because FSU is way too depleted to be competitive at this point. With 2 minutes left in the half, we lead 38-22. Doss and Jones have 12 each. We lead 43-24 at the first half buzzer, and from here we're just hoping FSU's injury bug isn't contagious.

The lead stays around 20 for most of the 2nd half until a half-dozen turnovers in the last 5 minutes allow them to pull within 11. We make a garbage time 3 to set the final margin at 78-64. Doss had 25 and 7 boards (4 offensive) and Duley put up a stat line reminiscent of his early-season work: 17, 8 dimes, and 7 boards on 7-10 shooting. Jones scored 0 in the 2nd half thanks to some self-inflicted foul trouble (picked up a technical for taunting after his second three-pointer in the first half).

We're entrenched as the 6th place team in the ACC with our 17-11 (9-6) record. The 5 teams above us all have a shot at the regular season title depending on how the tiebreaker shakes up. Senior night gives us the chance to knock off #12 Virginia Tech, whic has arguably the most talented team in the nation with 5 projected first-rounders. The fickle bubble watch has us as the last team IN the tournament right now; but the motivation is more visceral for our seniors (Doss, Duley, and walk-on Chet White) who after experiencing such lows now get to play their last home game in front of a raucous crowd that truly appreciates their role in this season's turnaround.

Early on, it looks like a repeat of our first matchup with the Hokies. They grab an early double-digit lead, but we get back within 25-19 with 6:25 to play thanks to some inspired play by our freshman SG Lloyd Hintz. He scores 5 straight points and dishes an assist in our 7-0 run. My decision to move him ahead of Quesada in the rotation is looking good, and in any event this should be valuable experience for Hintz going in to next year. Lindsey Jones hits a three with 1:25 left to put us within 6. Jones and Kratzer have 10 each, and Kratzer has 3 blocks in the first half. We trail 45-38 at halftime.

Virginia Tech's lead yo-yos between 4 and 10; whenever we get close, one of their blue-chip guards hits a three. With 7 minutes left, Duley misses a three to tie that would have torn the roof off; he's struggling with only 5 points. He then loses his man for a three-pointer. A pair of Hintz free throws and a Doss steal and breakaway bring us within 2 with 3:13 to play. We foul them three times on the ensuing possession, but luckily we're not in the bonus and they eventually miss. Jones draws a foul on a strong attack to the rim and knots it up at the line. Virginia Tech calls a timeout with 1:04 remaining. Kratzner gets what looks like a clean steal, but it's called a foul. Diaz fouls their PF 20 feet from the basket, and we're down two after he makes both ends of the one-and-one. With 27 seconds left, Duley rifles a pass in to Quesada (in at PF) and he evens the score again. On their last possession, Doss hounds their SG Sweeney (a potential top-three pick) enough to make him give it up, and their jumper rims out.

Both teams score on their first two overtime possessions, but we're having to earn our buckets while Virginia Tech goes 4-4 from the line. With 2:24 left, Kratzer turns it over and fouls out preventing the ensuing fast break. They go 2-2, and after Hintz misses a three for the lead, they're fouled again and this time get three points out of the ordeal thanks to an offensive rebound. With Duley (7 points, 3-14 shooting)and Kratzer already fouled out, that pretty much sinks our chances and we lose 88-83. Kratzer's player of the game in a losing effort with 24 points (6-7 from the field and 12-13 from the line), 8 boards, and 4 blocks. 2-20 on threes isn't the prettiest stat to look at after an overtime loss.

In the conference tournament, we draw North Carolina in the opening round, definitely the team I least want to face out of everyone ranked 7th-12th. We're not even listed on the bubble watch now, so every game's a must win. We're playing UNC in man from the start because I don't want to allow them to tee off from distance. Their leading scorer Richard Lehr has 13 points in the first 4 minutes despite high defensive pressure and constant double teams, so I'm not too sure what to do other than try to sneak a sixth guy on the court over the media timeout. We're scoring on them as well, so it's not getting too out of hand. Duley hits a triple to tie the game at 26 with 9:25 left in the half, and his second one two possessions later puts us up 3. A brief flurry of baskets from Hintz puts us up by as much as 8, but some more ridiculous threes from Lehr and two shot clock violations and a five second violation from our offense puts UNC up 50-46 at halftime. Lehr has 23 and 6 at the half.

We do our best to stay in the game, but UNC has the "Richard Lehr makes a three-pointer regardless of the amount of defensive attention" cheat code activated. He hits a three (I've lost count of how many) to give them a 74-69 lead with 7:27 left, his 41st point. We miss a golden opportunity to take control of the game with Lehr out and instead get scored on 4 straight possessions. Duley throws one down with 3 1/2 minutes left to bring us back within 2. We can't get stops and don't get as close again until a 3 by Hintz with 1 second left. We flame out 92-90, courtesy of Lehr somehow getting free to shoot 9-13 on threes despite orders for max defensive pressure and manual double teams. Awesome to get sent to the NIT on something like that.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2014, 01:55 AM   #16
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Oh, not even the NIT. We are somehow not invited to a single postseason tournament despite our 17-13 (9-7) record and #42 RPI.

We place 3 players on the all-conference teams. Duley and Jones on the 1st, and Kratzer on the 2nd.

Just had a big edit lost into the ether. Long story short: prestige stayed the same; 2 PGs transferred (Everson and a bad freshman I never mentioned); our scout got hired as Maine's head coach; replacement scout is 26, a better scout than the old one, and makes $25k more than Desmond (not the smartest strategy when we have a minimum of 5 scholarships to fill); and no head coach offers for Desmond (will I have to manually intervene at some point?).

Last edited by nol : 08-15-2014 at 03:17 AM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2014, 01:26 PM   #17
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Summer 2036

In the transfer period we pick up former PG Quentin Williams. I could say he's 5'6 and didn't appear in any games for Idaho State last season and end it at that, but he's a decent 3-point shooter with the potential in ball-handling, passing, and perimeter defense to be at least passable as a backup PG.

This is a huge recruiting year for us since we will only have 7 scholarship players returning next season, so I'm completely perplexed when I see we've only completed scouting evaluations on 10 players and offered 3 of our 6 scholarships. Why the hell are they paying this guy Gilbertson so much and then not sending him on the road?

Not much I can do besides try to actually earn my own salary. We lost two starters from last year (Beau and Nate Doss), along with all of our point guard depth. Lindsey Jones, our returning all-ACC performer, is going to have to play out of position for the 2nd year in a row and run our offense, but he should be more than capable. The only PG on our roster, Chris Earl, is a passing wizard (18) but an absolute defensive liability (3 PRD). I'd honestly be more comfortable with our freshman SG Gong An at backup point. He came in every bit the sharpshooter as advertised (18 3PS) and shows legitimate combo guard potential. His in-between game is less polished than I thought it'd be, but he surprised me with his ability and willingness to guard his man. He's even willing to redshirt, which is incredible for the 169th-ranked recruit, but Dave's against that and I'm confident that by the time training camp's over he'll have proven himself too essential. Another name worth remembering is James Lindsey. The walk-on out of Amherst is an off-the-charts athlete (20 QKN, 20 JMP) in a 6'3 frame. He's obviously not the most polished basketball player but he shows real potential as an outside shooter and a threat in the passing lanes. Unfortunately he doesn't want to redshirt but we're lucky this kid fell into our lap.

Lloyd Hintz, the only other SG on the roster besides Gong, will take over as the starter there. Getting more minutes led to some promising results towards the end of last season, and if he has another impressive training camp, he'll be a solid player for us the next three years. Tyson Freeland, a senior SF, has more of a shooting guard's game and will see time backing up both positions. He can pass and defend slightly better than Lloyd but is worse at everything else.

With Jones moving over to PG, William Quesada looks to be the starting SF by default. Hopefully this past season's experience was necessary to get the JUCO transfer up to speed in the Division I game. I hadn't seen much from our second recruit Peregrine Robins before he arrived on campus; the SF is a decent athlete for the position and has more of a slashing game (12 INS) than any of our perimeter players. Other than that, if he starts for us at any point in his career we've frankly failed in recruiting ACC-caliber players to BC.

The big man rotation has gone from my greatest to least concern with the team in the span of a year. We already know what John Kratzer can do, but last year's starting PF Freddie Diaz was an unsung factor in Kratzer's 2nd team all-ACC campaign. Diaz isn't flashy on offense, but he takes care of the ball (12 HND) and hits the boards well enough on defense to make up for Kratzer's weakness there. Both players should average close to 2 blocks per game this season. Transfer Charles Enriquez is now eligible and has the same defensive/rebounding DNA as Diaz but is shorter and has no offensive game outside of 3 feet. Senior PF Brent Alexander rounds out the rotation and can hold down the glass for 10-15 minutes a night.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2014, 03:10 PM   #18
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
October 2036

After training camp, Jones is showing legitimate PG skills (16 HND, 15 PAS) that he can balance with the ability to call his own number (+2 JPS up to 19, +1 INS, +1 3PS). Kratzner really rounded out his game and has just about maximized his potential. Diaz will be our rock on the defensive end (16 DRB, 15 PSD, 18 BLK). Quesada mostly improved on defense and at least has respectable stamina now (+5 to 10). Hintz incrementally improved his shot-creating ability and should be able to keep defenses from playing him only for his jumper. It's easier to list what Gong An didn't see marked improvement in - INS, STL, and BLK. He's going to put up Lindsey Jones-esque numbers as more of a three-point shooter someday. Coach Holston recommended a 3-2 zone, which I agree matches well with our personnel, so we tried to put that in along with man-to-man.

Our first game's at #16 Providence. The Friars were ranked #6 in the preseason polls but were upset by Temple in a preseason tourrnament. Providence landed possibly the most insane recruiting class I've ever seen with the #3, #7, #12 and #13 ranked players and if that wasn't enough, a transfer from Florida who's projected as a lottery pick.

In the first minute, we jump on them 6-0. Jones is fouled shooting a three and Hintz swishes a three of his own. We're ahead 23-13 but sub in a lineup with zero scoring once our starters get tired (Earl, Freeland, Quesada, Alexander, Enriquez). They gamely get some stops on defense but are outscored 5-0 in three minutes; we at least should have Gong's shooting on the floor in those situations if we can't stagger our starters' minutes. At halftime, we're up 32-29. Jones has 8 and 4 assists and Kratzer has chipped in 8 points as well.

They hit a three to tie up the game, but we get a couple nice midrange jumpers from Diaz to stay ahead. We break a pattern of alternating baskets with 8:50 to go and go up 4 on a pair of Quesada free throws. With 4 minutes left, they get a 4-free-throw possession as Kratzer fouls out of the game and gets a technical to boot. Without Kratzer in the game and with Jones bizarrely on the bench, we don't get a bucket the rest of the way and fall 74-69. Kratzer was +9 and Jones was +4 for the game. Still a decent showing for us; we just need those two to compete with the top teams.

Two days later, we get to visit #1 USC. We also play on the road at #2 UConn on the 30th. Whatever it takes to get some exposure, I suppose. They're 5-0 with no win by fewer than 15 points. I don't think they have the individual star power to win six straight in the tournament, but they're an extremely deep, solid team - if their 13th-14th men were on our team we could probably find a spot for them in the starting lineup. Lindsey Jones is clearly relishing the return to LA, and he scores 9 points in the first 3 1/2 minutes to put us up 10-4. We start to look a bit ragged around the 8:00 mark, and I don't want USC to make a run as we wait for the media timeout, so I call one. The next play, Lindsey hits a 3 to put us up 23-16; he's got 15. With 3 minutes left in the half, we lead 36-23 but Lindsey picks up his 3rd foul and has to sit. The offense implodes with 3 turnovers and our lead is down to 37-31. Jones has 18, 3, and 3 at the break.

In the 2nd half, they try to press us more and we're breaking it enough to maintain a 7-9 point lead. Jones makes a risky play with 14 minutes to go but comes up with a sensational rejection of the USC center's dunk attempt on a fast break. Chris Earl has given us some great minutes to take the pressure off of Jones; he has 10 with 6 assists with 9:27 to go and we lead 57-45. For two straight possessions after USC closes with 8, Earl delivers a pass on the money to a cutting Jones for the finish. We lead 10 with 1:39 left, and of course manage to blow the lead. USC goes 3-3 on three pointers in the last minute and is helped by 2 Hintz turnovers and 2 missed free throws. Jones puts us back up 3 with 20 seconds left, and USC of course answers with another bomb.

In overtime, their leading scorer gets hot and scores 8 points. They're up 92-88 with 1:45 to go. Earl makes two free throws, and we have a chance to tie after getting a stop, but Jones turns it over for the 10th time today. We force a shot clock violation and get the last possession down 92-90. I call a timeout and sub in An for Hintz, who is gassed. Earl hits Jones on a give-and-go to even it up with 7 seconds left. They then crush us with a buzzer-beating three. USC goes 7-8 on three pointers in the last minute of regulation and overtime after shooting 6-24 the previous 39 to completely screw us over and nullify Jones' 40, 10 and 5 rebounds. 3 points from Kratzer in 40 minutes hurts as well. Earl had 16, 10 and 5 with only 2 turnovers on 5-7 shooting.

Hey, it looks like our AD does schedule winnable games every now and then. We host Sacred Heart and lead 16-2 after 8 minutes. I try to stay relatively hands-off this game - we're leading 45-27 at the half. 12 and 6 for Kratzer, 9 and 6 for Quesada, and 10, 2 and 3 for Jones thus far. Pretty unimpressive stuff in the 2nd half; they get within 7 at one point but we win by 19. Quesada sets new career highs of 15 points, 9 boards and 3 steals. Kratzer stuffs the stat sheet with 19 points, 9 boards, 4 assists, and 3 blocks.

Now for the slightly tougher team from Connecticut, #2 UConn. Jones picks up 2 early fouls, but we're staying within a possession of them midway through the half. Then they get hot; we gamely try to keep pace but trail 50-39 at half. They're shooting 58 percent from the field, and we're not giving them layups.

In the second half, UConn comes out sloppy. We're missing quite a few good opportunities to cut the lead to 5 or 6, but with 15 minutes to play they're in the penalty, 7 fouls to our 0. Jones hits both free throws and it's 48-54. Hintz hits a three to bring us within 4 with 11:36 to go, and our normally stoic SG is yapping at their bench; you just know his home state Huskies didn't give him a second look in high school. He hits another three to give him 18 with 7:47 remaining, and we're within 1. We force a miss and the next time down Brent Alexander hits a three to put us up 3. Our bench can do nothing but erupt in nervous laughter - Brent's always going to put up a shot every couple minutes he's in, and this one ended up working out. After Diaz splits a pair of free throws, we trade baskets, and then Hintz hits another three to put us up 6 with 4 minutes remaining. He's already eclipsed his career high by 4 points. They answer back with a three, and then pick Hintz's pocket for a breakaway dunk - but they miss it! On the ensuing possession, Lindsey gets trapped in the corner, and I almost run over the official trying to call timeout but they call a foul first. As you'd expect (19 FTS), he knocks them both down. We trade steals, and then force a miss from distance. Strangely, they start fouling with over two minutes remaining and just a 5 point deficit. However, we'll take the charity. We make enough free throws and UConn doesn't go crazy with the three-pointers. We hold on to win 94-87, but unfortunately Diaz picks up an injury (unknown since I can't click on my e-mail but he's out 53 days) in the last minute. All 5 of our starters hit double figures and you probably could have made a case for each of them as player of the game. So, in road games against the top 2 teams in the country we were a miraculous 3 point barrage from going 2-0.

Last edited by nol : 08-15-2014 at 11:10 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-15-2014, 11:17 PM   #19
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
November 2036

We pick up two much-needed commitments on the first of the month. Garret Hildebrand is a 6'8 C from NYC. At 250 pounds, he's an enforcer on defense who plays within himself on offense (62% from the field). Our second commit is a 4-star player as well, and we seem to have quite an overseas pipeline going. PF Charles Parratt is a bit undersized at 6-6, but he's a tenacious defender with good athleticism and floor-spacing capability as a shooter. We've also got two scholarships out to a couple top-150 Australians and are in the lead for both of them based on what I hear from coach Reed.

We host Massachusetts on our first game of the month. I persuade Dave to have Charles Enriquez start for us rather than Alexander so we don't have to totally retool our defensive scheme. Kratzer has a huge first half with 15 points and we lead 41-27. We're shooting 63 percent to their 33. Hintz starts the 2nd half out smoking and we push the lead to 20.

We don't do anything major in the 2nd half and win 70-54 to knock UMass to 4-2. I have to say the choice to start Enriquez worked well for our defense; he was 2-3 with 6 boards and 3 blocks in 27 minutes.

Against Quinnipiac we want to turn up the pressure early on but struggle to pull ahead thanks to their 63% shooting over the first 10 minutes. That run finally comes with 5 minutes left in the half and we go into the break up 47-32. Quesada and Hintz lead us with 10 and 8, respectively.

Hintz hits two three-pointers in the first three minutes of the 2nd half to push it into blowout territory. Our reserves get some good playing time as we win 77-57. Despite the hot start, we end up holding Quinnipiac to under 40% shooting for the game.

Looking at the polls, USC's still undefeated and #1, while UConn has an umblemished record aside from the loss to us. Hopefully those will continue to look good on our resume come March.

Marist looks talented on paper, and they've also lost a close game at Providence this season. Can't overlook these guys. This game I'm more adamant that we stick to 3-2 to start rather than switching defenses up. In the first 8 minutes, Marist is 2/19 from the field and some unfortunate charge calls are keeping us from leading by more than 13-5. Gong gives us some good minutes at point guard, hitting a pair of threes to give us a 23-11 advantage with 6 minutes to go in the half. They storm back and get with 29-27. We have more fouls, more turnovers, and fewer rebounds than them; this is absolutely not our brand of basketball and Dave lets them know that in the locker room.

In the 2nd half, we come out flat again and are sparked by a dream sequence from little used C Aldo Carlock. The redshirt sophomore converts a three-point play, draws a charge, and gets a tip-in in a three-possession span to put us up 47-35 with 8 minutes remaining. Kratzer fouls out with 3 minutes to play, and after a pair of free throws Marist is within 7. Hintz misses a three from the top of the key, but has his rebound tipped right back to him and converts the second attempt to give us a 61-51 lead. Over the next few minutes we trade baskets and Quesada goes 4-4 when intentionally fouled. That gives us enough of a cushion for a 69-58 victory. Our big guys Kratzer and Enriquez combined for 11 blocks. None of our regulars were very impressive offensively, so the 15 points An and Carlock combined for in just 14 minutes were huge.

Last edited by nol : 08-16-2014 at 04:04 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2014, 10:47 PM   #20
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
We play Eastern Michigan in the Las Vegas Shootout, and in the first half we just can't get out of our own way. We trail 40-29 with plenty of uncharacteristic free throw misses, fouls, and turnovers.

In the 2nd half we switch to man and fight back to within 3. It's 46-43 after Lindsey Jones hits a three-pointer for his 16th point with 13 minutes left. Our turnover fever returns and they push it back to a 10 point game; just another mountain for us to climb. Jones gets another three-point play to cut it to 58-57 with 3:37 left. We get a stop, and then Quesada hits a jumper to give us our first lead of the game. After trading some baskets, Lindsey comes out of nowhere for a putback to put us up 63-62 with 1:37 left. We get a stop and Kratzer hits both free throws when intentionally fouled. On the next possesion, EMU hits a three just as the shot clock expires. We call a timeout to set up the last play, and in shades of the 1994 Chicago Bulls coach Holston doesn't sub Jones back in and we end up not getting a shot off.

Luckily Lindsey doesn't take it too hard and hits a three on our first possession of OT. Eastern Michigan answers back with another three (they somehow have a bunch of random bench players who are 17+ in 3PS). The next possession Lloyd Hintz drives the lane and takes a hard foul. I'm ready to jump in there but the referee jumps in and calls a technical on their player for talking too much after the whistle. Lindsey and Lloyd both make their two free throws to put us ahead 72-68 with 2:47 to play. After that, they make two more three pointers. None of our possessions for the rest of the game go to Jones, who ended up with 30 points and 7 rebounds. After we went up 4, Earl and Quesada combined to go 0-2 from the field, 0-2 from the line and turn it over twice. Quesada was 2-7 from the line in a 2-point overtime loss (actually 2-10 if you count missing the front end of a one-and-one as two misses. That's how to end up on the wrong end of a 3-14 first round upset.

Our next game is at #4 Florida. Florida's not especially deep, but they're led by star SG Ernie Humphries, who is a lot like Jimmer Freddette from back in the day if Jimmer were also a lockdown perimeter defender. Freddie Diaz is still injured for 25 days, and we definitely missed him after Enriquez's 0 point, 0 FGA game against Eastern Michigan.

We start out the game on a 7-0 run, and that's good enough to keep us in control for the first few minutes. We've returned to our non-fouling ways (not sure what those Vegas refs were on the other game) and are making the most out of each possession. With 5 minutes left in the half we lead 27-15. They make a couple threes but we steady ourselves and take a 37-27 lead into the last minute. Then, Florida scores 8 points, including a three from beyond midcourt to make it a 39-35 ballgame at half. Jones is scoreless with Humphries blanketing him, but Quesada has 15 and Kratzer has 13; it's going to take all hands on deck to win this one.

In the 2nd half, we go on an extended turnover spree/scoring drought and find ourselves down by as much as 10. We keep it close but whenever we get with 4-5 points we kindly turn it over enough times to let them maintain the cushion. We lose 67-62 in our 3rd road game against a top-4 team.

To close out December Holy Cross will be the targets of our rage. We're moving the ball much better and putting the clamps on them defensively and lead 50-31 at halftime. Quesada has 17 and Jones has 11; I don't know what's gotten into William but I'm not going try to take any credit for my tirade after the Eastern Michigan game.

Somewhat predictably, we let them back into the game in the 2nd half. They've closed to within 5 with 4 minutes to play; so much for getting our backups some experience. After that, their senior PF Andrew Davis finally cools off (his 26 eclipses his previous career high by 8 points) and we make some free throws to win 79-71. Quesada's our player of the game with 21 on 8-13 shooting. Earl gives us some good minutes off the bench with 13, 7 assists, and 5 boards - if he could only play a lick of defense we'd be more lethal with him at PG and Lindsey playing off the ball.

Last edited by nol : 08-20-2014 at 10:47 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2014, 11:31 PM   #21
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Programming note: In the year and a half of playing as an assistant coach, I feel like I'm doing the text sim equivalent of going to a Mexican restaurant and ordering a hamburger and fries.

FBCB does a great job of letting you run every aspect of your own program and gets good results when simming games/seasons from more of a top-down view. I know I'm basically doing the exact opposite thing at the moment, but does anyone else reading this have any experience with trying to manually coach the games?

When I'm in the assistant coach role, I'm not super hands on other than manually changing to one defense if we seem to be getting torched more in one particular defense while in Auto mode and adjusting the double inside/double outside ratios depending on the INS/3PS ratings of the other team.

Even that stuff could very well be superstition on my part that might not affect the actual outcome of games, which would be a bummer given that the sutff I do in "assistant coach mode" is already unlikely to counteract some of the more egregious coaching (starting orange/yellow players even when yellow/green backups objectively do better in their spot) and recruiting (not offering the maximum amount of scholarships available even when it means doing stuff like withdrawing scholarships to top-100 players when you're the only school that has offered) CPU decisions. Essentially, I'm wondering if there's a way to improve the in-game aspect of it or if it would be better to just try to get a head coaching job ASAP and forget about that other stuff.

Last edited by nol : 08-21-2014 at 01:28 AM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-28-2014, 01:42 AM   #22
nol
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
January 2037

Tyson Freeland's college career is done as he's ruled academically ineligible for the spring semester. He wasn't setting the world on fire with 2 points per game in 7 minutes, but we're now critically thin at the wing positions. Our two freshmen An and Robins are now the only bench players at SG and SF. I personally wouldn't mind asking Gong to play out of position at SF, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see if Robins can do anything in these next few games since he's been whining about PT.

At home against Dartmouth, our offense is pitiful to start. Kratzer has all 10 of our points in the first 7 minutes. Jones and Hintz both pick up a couple fouls early, and guys like Robins and James Lindsey are playing their first meaningful minutes of the season. They play a couple minutes of error-free basketball and we're able to take our first lead of the game. Our starters come back in with a 35-28 lead with 2:30 left in the half and allow Dartmouth to cut the lead back down to one. We played an unacceptably sloppy first half with 11 fouls and 9 turnovers. Hintz is scoreless with 3 turnovers.

We elect to stay in our 3-2 zone to start the 2nd half to avoid potential foul trouble. Dartmouth is not backing down, but Hintz gets a steal and a breakaway jam, and that seems to get him into the rhythm of the game. A couple threes and three-point plays later, he has 11 points in the first 10 minutes of the half to give us a 6-point lead. Dartmouth clearly doesn't have the talent to keep up with us, and we eventually build the lead to 14 points. From there, Hintz has a rather shameful end to his night as he picks up his 4th and 5th fouls by getting dunked on for a three point play and getting T'ed up. We pick up yet another underwhelming win at home, 77-67. Kratzer only had 4 points after the first 10 minutes, but he had 2 blocks, 2 steals and at least that many drawn charges. Our senior walk-on PG Chris Earl continues to be a stabilizing influence off the bench; he had 14, 4, and 4 on 4-6 shooting.

Our last nonconference game is at Rhode Island. We are quite the RPI darlings heading into this game, ranked #6 in the nation thanks to the four top-10 teams we've played thus far. USC (still undefeated), Florida, and Connecticut are a combined 41-2 on the season, so we're going to be their number one fans once conference play starts. Rhode Island's hotshot freshman from last season became a one-and-done lottery pick, but his replacement, an unheralded juco guard by the name of Nestor Herren is averaging nearly 23 points in 30 minutes per contest.

Once again, Lindsey picks up 2 quick fouls and has to sit. If this happens in conference play, we'll get buried and I let him know that as he comes to the bench. Luckily, our defense has responded to the challenge of shutting down Herren. He's scoreless through the first 15 minutes and we lead 36-23. Once again, Earl fills in admirably for Jones with 8 points in the half. Much like Dartmouth did against us, we give Herren some easy points by putting him at the line following an illegal screen, and this sparks a URI run to pull within 40-33 at halftime.

In the 2nd half, they begin to heat up and take their first lead 5 minutes in. Jones is putting up an 0-7 stinker at this point. We fall behind by 10 and then get back within 3 with 2 minutes left. We get three shots on our next possession and come away empty-handed. With just over a minute left, we elect to try for a stop. Unfortunately, Rhode Island is able to run off the last minute thanks to an offensive rebound and NCAA rules that only allow coaches to tell their players to intentionally foul at certain junctures of the game. We lose 66-63 in what will hopefully be our worst shooting performance of the year. Jones has been held to single digits in 3 of our last 4.

Heading into ACC play, we actually have the worst non-conference record at 7-5. Florida State, NC State, UNC, and Virginia Tech are currently in the top 25, and Duke, Miami, and Clemson aren't far behind. There aren't going to be any pushovers this year. We open at home against Duke and then travel down to Miami. After those two games, our starting PF Diaz should be back from injury.

Last edited by nol : 08-28-2014 at 11:15 PM.
nol is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


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

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:09 PM.



Powered by vBulletin Version 3.6.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.