The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

[studbucket]

Atlantic Sun and NEC Conference Previews

With both brothers projected to be title contenders for their respective conferences, the pre-conference season has been slightly disappointing. Oggy and Stetson are the better of the two at 6-4 with all four losses coming to bigger schools: Colorado State, USC, South Florida, and North Carolina – nothing to be ashamed of. Their 6 wins are tied for the most in the Atlantic Sun so far, while 4 losses is the 3^rd least. All this bodes well for the upcoming conference season, especially if they can get and stay healthy.

Dinko can be encouraged by his team’s 2-0 record in conference so far, with easy wins over Fake Francis and the projected top team in the NEC, Long Island. The Red Flash won both of those games by 25 points, and if they can keep this up it will be a joyous season for Dinko.

However, not all signs are pointing up. His team got handled by his brother, he’s struggled with his rotation, is relying on a lot of freshman, and has losses to Bucknell, St. Bonaventure, and Harvard en route to their 5-6 record. This record puts them in the middle of the pack in the NEC, with Central Connecticut State sitting at 9-2.

Standings
The NEC has started their conference play earlier than the Atlantic Sun and there are three teams that are undefeated in conference play so far: St. Francis (PA) [2-0], Fairleigh Dickinson [1-0], and Central Connecticut [1-0]. It’s Donyell Marshall’s boys in Connecticut that look the most scary so far, with their 9-2 record outpacing all other teams. This comes as no surprise for a team that returns all 5 starters from last year and their 8-man rotation includes 7 seniors. If the Blue Devils don’t win this year, it may be a long time until they taste success again.

Things are much tighter in the Atlantic Sun, with the only major surprise being Campbell struggling at 2-7. They have the conference’s best player in NBA hopefully Sam Zeigler (SF, 82 ovr), but they are very weak at the PG, PF, and C positions. Stetson sits third right now, but so few games have been played there’s not too much to glean from the records at this point.

Northeast Conference
School	Wins	Losses	%
Central Connecticut	9	2	.818
Fairleigh Dickinson	5	4	.555
Mount St. Mary’s	5	4	.555
Monmouth	6	5	.545
Wagner	6	6	.500
St. Francis (PA)	5	6	.454
Long Island	4	5	.444
Quinnipiac	3	5	.375
Sacred Heart	4	7	.363
Robert Morris	4	7	.363
St. Francis (NY)	1	7	.125

Atlantic Sun
School	Wins	Losses	%
Gardner-Webb	4	2	.666
Lipscomb	5	3	.625
Stetson	6	4	.600
SC Upstate	6	5	.545
North Florida	4	4	.500
Jacksonville	5	6	.454
Mercer	3	6	.333
East Tennessee St.	4	8	.333
Florida Gulf Coast	3	7	.300
Belmont	2	5	.285
Kennesaw State	2	6	.250
Campbell	2	7	.222

Leaders
With all the individual leaders that Quinnipiac has, you’d expect them to be better than 3-5, but the group of Issa Matela (SG, 65 ovr), Nic Carroll (SF, 68 ovr), Gene Cranford (SG, 72 ovr), and Wilbur Santiago (SG, 57 ovr) seems to be better at racking up stats than getting wins. Coincidentally, the Atlantic Sun’s scoring leader, Sam Zeigler (SG, 82 ovr), is also on a bad team.

For the brothers, there are a few players, all new faces, that are leading their conferences.

• Willis Holman (PF, 70 ovr) may be a freshman, but he makes good decisions and takes high quality shots, making 60% of them.
• Deron Wagner (C, 73 ovr) is living up to his UConn pedigree and is a key contributor for the Hatters, especially on defense as he averages 2.6 blocks per game.
• Marko Nevill (PG, 65 ovr) is leading the conference in FG and 3 point percentage. He hasn’t taken a ton of shots, but the ones he does take are often open looks. It’s a great start for the freshman from New Zealand.

Category	Northeast	Atlantic Sun
Best offense (PPG)	Fairleigh Dickinson (71.2)	Campbell (77.4)
Best defense (PPG)	SC Upstate (62.5)	Monmouth (60.8)
Best differential	SC Upstate (1.5)	Central Connecticut (7.6)
Rebounds per game	Wagner (34.8)	Campbell (35.9)
Assists per game	Wagner (12.2)	Gardner-Webb (12.5)

Category	Northeast	Atlantic Sun
Scoring	Issa Matela, SG, QUIN (20.8)	Sam Zeigler, SG, CAM (26.6)
Rebounds	Nic Carroll, SF, QUIN (10.3)	Taurean Myles, PF, GW (9.8)
Assists	Gene Cranford, SG, QUIN (4.9)	Shawan Russell, PG, LU (5.4)
Steals	DeAndre Gill, PG, SFNY (1.8)	Othello Austin, SG, MER (2.3)
Blocks	Martin Harvey, C, SH (2.1)	Deron Wagner, C, STET (2.6)
FG%	Willis Holman, PF, SFPA (60%)	Marko Nevill, PG, STET (59.3%)
3P%	Wilbur Santiago, SG, QUIN (55%)	Prosper Brickens, PG, BEL (57.1%) Marko Nevill, PG, STET (57.1%)

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

It's been three weeks in between games for the brothers, so here is a College Hoops Tonight from the interim to see what's been happening around the country.

[R1zzo23]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Just took the last week or so to read this legacy from start to finish. Absolutely tremendous work, amazing story telling and an incredible amount of time and effort put into creating those draft classes to see the college players become pros. I can't wait to see one of the brothers put a player into the league and follow their career.

I will admit that I started out an Oggy fan, trended more towards Dinko and now find myself split 50/50 between the two of them when playing "favorites". There are so many moments throughout these first ~70 pages of posts that I could comment on, but I would just be reiterating things that were already said.

As a Texas Longhorn fan, the best win I've seen in this legacy is Texas beating A&M in the NCAA tournament!!!!

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Just took the last week or so to read this legacy from start to finish. Absolutely tremendous work, amazing story telling and an incredible amount of time and effort put into creating those draft classes to see the college players become pros. I can't wait to see one of the brothers put a player into the league and follow their career.

I will admit that I started out an Oggy fan, trended more towards Dinko and now find myself split 50/50 between the two of them when playing "favorites". There are so many moments throughout these first ~70 pages of posts that I could comment on, but I would just be reiterating things that were already said.

As a Texas Longhorn fan, the best win I've seen in this legacy is Texas beating A&M in the NCAA tournament!!!!

I am very glad to hear you enjoyed it. I also can't wait for one of the brothers to go pro, but I have to ensure I don't hurry the story. I know the payoff will be even better when I let it happen naturally, but I'm so excited to see what comes next (whether that's Duquesne for Dinko, a major job for Oggy, or something else that's more intriguing). With the new NBA team in Hawaii, one idea that crossed my mind was getting Oggy to UH (if the job opens up) and treating that like an informal feeder program for the NBA team, building up talent and giving Oggy a possible future promise of an NBA job there. But that's just an example of one of the many ideas I've brainstormed.

Your sentiments definitely seem to mirror the surveys and the ride others have been on. Oggy has a tendency toward brash and emotional decisions while Dinko is a bit more reserved (at least externally) and principled in his approach, but perhaps too risk-averse.

One thing that's true about both brothers: they have struggled with recruiting.

Texas has had some very talented players and teams, but they have lost and are losing a lot of that and I'll be interested to see if they can rebuild.

[RolePlayer]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Oggy's group seems primed to be making a conference title run this year.

I don't think Dinko is out of the running by any chance either and with the two early wins he has to be feeling good. But man Central Connecticut looks good, did they beat anyone notable in their OOC schedule?

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Oggy's group seems primed to be making a conference title run this year.

I don't think Dinko is out of the running by any chance either and with the two early wins he has to be feeling good. But man Central Connecticut looks good, did they beat anyone notable in their OOC schedule?

I agree on Stetson, if they can stay healthy. They have been hit hard by injuries.

For St. Francis, they need to get things to come together, but I think the NEC is worse than the Atlantic Sun, which helps him. CCST is very solid, but no great wins. They lost to #12 Pittsburgh by 5 and have wins over Temple (10-6) and Drexel (13-5) but that's about it.

[Careless Whisper]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Provided no more major injuries, I have a good feeling both brothers are dancing this year. Stetson possibly has the most talent in the Atlantic Sun and Oggy has to be riding high after getting that elusive win over Dinko earlier in the year. The NEC always seems to be a little more down, and while CCSU has gotten off to a nice start, Dinko has proven time and time how to navigate the conference slate and tournament bracket with SFU.

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

Provided no more major injuries, I have a good feeling both brothers are dancing this year. Stetson possibly has the most talent in the Atlantic Sun and Oggy has to be riding high after getting that elusive win over Dinko earlier in the year. The NEC always seems to be a little more down, and while CCSU has gotten off to a nice start, Dinko has proven time and time how to navigate the conference slate and tournament bracket with SFU.

I hope so. It's been very up and down so far, and we'll need to see if they can perform consistently during the relatively short conference season and carry that into the tournament. It will be a big disappointment for both brothers if they don't at least make the conference tourney finals.

[studbucket]

December 30, 2022 St. Francis at Central Connecticut State [NEC]

The Red Flash have only played three games in the last 18 days, giving them plenty of rest. Unfortunately they are 1-2 in that stretch. The first game was a heartbreaking 83-82 loss at Temple that saw freshman backup PF Willis Holman break his hand and get knocked out for the next month. However, there were some encouraging signs in that game, as St. Francis saw 4 players score in double-digits, including Stephane Diakite dropping 22 points. The biggest problem for the Red Flash that game? Only shooting 14-28 from the charity stripe.

The next week, they traveled an hour into Pittsburgh and were outscored by 21 points in the second half, losing to 21^st ranked University of Pittsburgh. Dinko’s boys redeemed themselves two days later with a comfortable win over the hapless Princeton Tigers at home.

This brings them to the most important game of the season so far: a conference matchup at the 10-4 and very experienced Central Connecticut State Blue Demons. The Blue Devils will be hungry for revenge after this group has been knocked out of the conference tourney by the Red Flash two straight years, both times by significant margins. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, they will be without PF Dana Ravello (69 ovr) and SF Akil Crenshaw (65 ovr) due to injury. However, they still have Walter Wheless (PG, 70 ovr), Tommy Victor (SG, 70 ovr), and Russ Ba (PF, 67 ovr) in their lineup, and plenty of experience. Donyell Marshall’s team lacks height but are well-rounded.

A win tonight would put the Red Flash in a very strong position at 3-0 in the NEC with wins over two of their strongest opponents. Given how uneven the start to the season has been, Dinko would relish that.

The Blue Devils came out in a 2-3 zone, as their starting center Felipe Kinloch is only 6’6”, so they needed to clog the paint in order to keep Floyd Akindele, Chris Thompson, and Stephane Diakite from torching them on the interior.

Despite this, the game started off on a hot streak, with both teams scoring on their first 4 trips down the floor and the score was 12-12 just four minutes in as the offenses did whatever they wanted. Central Connecticut State pulled ahead 18-14 after a deep three pointer, causing Dinko to call timeout and sub in some fresh legs. This strategy worked immediately as the Red Flash scored off of two fast breaks and by hitting a three, giving them a lead.

Aside from a Walter Wheless basket, giving him 12 points in the game already, the CCST team was building a brick house, clanking shot after shot. This allowed St. Francis to build up a 34-26 lead at half. Floyd Akindele had been huge in the half, grabbing several offensive rebounds and getting putbacks thanks to his 6 inch height advantage.

The second half of the game was marked by alternating runs. First, CCST scored the first 8 points of the half, tying up the game. However, St. Francis immediately responded with their own 10-2 run grabbing their own 44-36 lead. That was extended to 51-37 before coach Marshall called time to stop a 17-3 run from St. Francis. The Blue Devils’ bench was failing them again and changes needed to be made.

Those changes were effective as the home team went on a 13-4 run to cut the game to just 4 points with a few minutes left. However, when Vern Quick hit a 25-footer with 36 seconds left, that gave them a 7 point lead and secured the victory.

It was a 63-57 final, and Central Connecticut’s Walter Wheless only scored 3 points in the second half after his explosive first half. Floyd Akindele had 16 points and Chris Thompson had 12 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. Tanoris Houston was valuable with 10 points off the bench, while CCST’s Tomy Victor was 0-5 from three, 1-8 for the game, and only had 3 points.

Around the NCAA

• Oggy has played 5 games over the last 3 weeks, including in the Daylight Bowl tournament at UTEP. Unfortunately, all 5 games were losses. Fortunately, he finally has gotten back his entire team and nobody is injured.
• 42-76 loss at East Carolina. Deron Wagner had 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 blocks.
• 65-68 loss at Marshall. Arnaud Dahi had 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists.
• 74-87 loss vs Ohio. Deron Wagner had 12 points and 9 rebounds.
• 73-84 loss at UMass. Arnaud Dahi had 21 points and Deron Wagner had 12 points and 11 rebounds.
• 54-61 loss at The Citadel. Lennox Evertsen had 10 points and 6 rebounds. Deron Wagner had 5 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks.
• Texas A&M scored a huge upset victory over top ranked Florida, 77-74. Delvon Archie (C, 84 ovr) scored 35 points in the win.
• #3 Michigan State beat #25 UNLV 86-76, led by Viti Hite (SG, 87 ovr) with 25 points. This is the first of 7(!!) straight games MSU has against ranked opponents, as they play #4 Ohio State (twice), #23 Iowa, #12 Purdue, #6 Wisconsin, and #20 Illinois.
• #7 Oregon and #8 USC are both 12-0 and looking very good as we head into conference play. They play each other on January 1.
• Oklahoma’s Sherman Turner (C, 84 ovr) dropped 43 points in a win over NC State.

Around the NBA

• Andre Drummond (C, 90 ovr) had a monster game to help the Cavs beat the Mavs. He grabbed 24 rebounds to go with 29 points in the victory.
• The Suns beat the Magic as Devin Booker (SG, 92 ovr) dropped 50, shooting 10-13 from three.
• Something has gotten into the Wizards’ Isaiah Whitehead (PG, 81 ovr), as the 4^th year pro from Seton Hall is scoring 21.2 points per game and had 38 points to beat the Raptors.
• Milos Jeffers (SG, 79 ovr) scored the most points of his young career by tallying up 31 in a big win over the visiting Nets. The win moves the Thunder to 3 games above .500.
• The Washington Wizards had a logjam of fringe starters at the 4 and 5 and the Trail Blazers are suffering from injuries and don’t have a good backup for Domatas Sabonis. They made a deal that moves B.J. Johnson (SF, 77 ovr) and rookie Mason Delgado (PG, 72 ovr) to Washington in exchange for Larry Nance Jr (PF, 79 ovr) and Tyrone Dowdell (SG, 74 ovr).
• The Pacers are without Steven Adams for 2 months due to a broken left ankle.
• The Nets have lost Jakob Poeltl (C, 81 ovr) for most of the rest of the season with an achilles injury.
• Bradley Beal (SG, 93 ovr) has been unstoppable for the Nuggets, scoring over 30 points 10 out of 14 games this month, and exceeding 40 points thrice. He’s led the Nuggets to an 11-3 record this month and may be more important to their success than Jokic, who missed several games due to injury.
• Cleveland’s Andre Drummond (C, 90 ovr) and the Warriors’ Stephen Curry (SG, 98 ovr) won the Player of the Month awards.
• Vitor Bigby (SF, 77 ovr) is featuring prominently for the Knicks, playing nearly 30 minutes a game. His performance this month has gotten him the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month award. . The Pelicans’ Adrian Stewart (PF/C, 83 ovr) won the West’s RotM award and is avering 15 points, 4 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game.
• Don’t look now, but the Lakers have clawed their way to a 17-17 record and the 6 seed in the West. Maybe it’s all coming together for the purple and gold.

The Nets’ Kevin Durant crosses up Golden State and throws down a monster slam.



Trevor Merchant has been a menace this season, including this windmill alley-oop against the Suns.

[marshdaddy]

Re: Introduction

Are conference titles off the table for each brother? What’s gone so wrong for them to struggle this much early on? Seems like some tough non-conference games.

[studbucket]

Re: Introduction

Are conference titles off the table for each brother? What’s gone so wrong for them to struggle this much early on? Seems like some tough non-conference games.

Surprisingly, no. Neither conference has a dominant team, but they will need to play better.

St. Francis is relying on too many freshman to be consistent, plus they only have 1-3 good shooters, depending on the game.

Stetson has injury problems and their three big men aren't consistent offensive players, so the variance is high.

The non conf games were tough, but some of that was due to tournaments and outside our control.

Sent from my phone.

[RolePlayer]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

The images took a second to load on my screen and when I saw Blue Devils for a few seconds I thought you had a close battle with Duke. While it isn't the Duke Blue Devils, showing the hottest team in the conference that they still hold nothing on the Red Flash is good to see. You guys really took advantage o the size miss-match plus the injuries on Conneticutt's end. I think this is the best performance by your bigs all season? This season is brought but you're 3-0 in the conference and that's the real season.

Looking at Oggy's scores, that's rough. At least one of the losses was to ECU.

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

The images took a second to load on my screen and when I saw Blue Devils for a few seconds I thought you had a close battle with Duke. While it isn't the Duke Blue Devils, showing the hottest team in the conference that they still hold nothing on the Red Flash is good to see. You guys really took advantage o the size miss-match plus the injuries on Conneticutt's end. I think this is the best performance by your bigs all season? This season is brought but you're 3-0 in the conference and that's the real season.

Looking at Oggy's scores, that's rough. At least one of the losses was to ECU.

I only wish I could play Duke close.

However, you are right - this was a good win. Part of it is due to CHoops having some teams that are great with the sim engine and less formidable in actual games: like CCST.

It is at least the most consistent and effective performance by Dinko's starting frontcourt all season, and a good sign. He needs some consistency with this group.

Oggy's stretch has been awful. However, it's understandable with 3-4 different players being injured and a really short rotation. He needs 1-2 more years of recruiting to fill out his bench with talent so he can handle these types of stretches in a better way.

Happy to lose to ECU for you (at least all the losses were non-con, you are right).

[studbucket]

Re: The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

I am on a vacation with my family now, but managed to get 5 games in (including the CCST game) and some notes taken before leaving. You'll see reports trickle out, but the biggest thing to note is that I spent these games tinkering with sliders.

The style and competitiveness of each game will vary quite a bit because of this, but I am relatively happy where I ended up. I may still tweak them some more (especially before post-season play), but one thing that I am doing is changing the shooting tendency sliders before every game to match the opponent's strengths.

You'll see a game coming up where an awful shooting team kept jacking up threes and missing them. That made me realize I should tweak things each game, as teams like that should focus on post play and the mid-range game. Since then, the games have been more interesting and varied.

Thanks as always for following along

[R1zzo23]

Re: Introduction

Big win over the Blue Devils but man that was a rough stretch of games for Oggy.

I’m not sure what’s most impressive about this legacy: the storytelling of two different coaches or the ability to keep up with the happenings across both the college and pro landscapes. Really top notch stuff here! [emoji1376][emoji1376][emoji1376]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro