Walk on dynasty

[Wayne23]

So intrigued by what happened in season 7 of my Rhoda dynasty that I'm setting up a dynasty where I will get to the point where I play only walk ons.

In order to do this i will use Promotion/Relegation, starting with a team in the lowest conf., and seeing how far i can take them. it will probably take 2-3 years to purge scholarship players totally, I'm not sure. Here we go!

[Wayne23]

Walk On Dynasty

Coach: Ben Downs School: Nebraska-Omaha Conference V, Promotion/Relegation

I will do no recruiting, will cut the squad to 10, including the 2 walk ons, and will get to all walk ons a.s.a.p.

At the end of the year we will always request a facilities upgrade since we will not need cash to recruit.

5/1/’2015: We buy some reports to use up money.

6/26: Recruiting only until we spend the $3,000 left in our budget.

7/4: Money is used up.

9/18: Schedule: As weak as we could get it.

10/2: Practice begins. We have 2 walk ons- that’s all you can get in year one. Rest of the squad: 5 seniors, 2 juniors, a soph, so we’ll get to all walk ons soon.

11/6: The question is whether to just sim all games but I think the only fair test is to play the way I normally play, so no, I won’t sim.

We will start our 2 walk ons in keeping with the theme. 8 man rotation. No need to track names here. Occasional updates with records, stats…

[Wayne23]

11/20: Lost our 1st game, away, in OT. Won our 2nd, home, with a 3 at the buzzer. Tweaking the lineup and will be for a while, I’m sure.

11/27: We’re 2-2. We won by 20 at home, then a starting guard got hurt (12 days), and we lost by 4 on the road. Still tweaking the lineup.

12/4: 3-3. A road loss, a home win. Back at full strength.

12/11: 4-4. Still losing on the road, winning at home.

12/26: We end pre-conf. play at 6-5. RPI #153. +2.0 PPG, +4.2 RBs, +0.1 TOs. Won all 6 at home, lost all 5 on the road.

[Wayne23]

1/8/’16: Great week, 2 wins; 1 at home, 1 away. 8-5, 2-0.

1/15: 2 road games. 1-1, 9-6, 3-1. RPI #87.

1/22: 2 more wins, 11-6, 5-1, tied for 1st, RPI #50 (WAY too high).

1/29: 4 game win streak ends. 12-7, 6-2. RPI #72. 1 back of 1st. +3.0 PPG, +4.6 RBs, +0.5 TOs.

2/5: 1-1 week. 13-8, 7-3, RPI #70. 3 way tie for 2nd, 1 back.

2/12: 1-1 at home. 14-9, 8-4, RPI #. Alone in 3rd.

2/19: 16-9, 10-4, RPI #63. Tied for 2nd, 1 back, with 2 to play.

2/26: We end the regular season with 5 wins, finishing 18-9, 12-4, RPI #57, alone in 1st place in Conf. V.

(Author’s note: I have done no “narration” in season 1. I am now going to “cheat.” Since I want this dynasty to be about progress by walk ons. I do NOT want this team to move up to Conf. U. Therefore, I am not going to allow them to advance to the round of 4 in their tourney. Hopefully they will lose “honestly” but if not I’ll replay until they do lose.

Also, I will have only 5 players on the roster at the beginning of season 2. This may cause a crash. If so, I’ll need to start over and be certain that I have enough “non-seniors” in year 1 for the dynasty to be viable. Stay tuned.)

3/3: Took 2 tries to lose. 18-10, 12-4, RPI #62. Will we make a tournament?

3/12: No.

4/4: Awards: Conf. V: Senior Gary Gray made 1st team. That’s it. Not much for the team who finished 1st!

4/23: We ask for a facilities upgrade. Got it! C to B!

Let’s see what happens.

5/1: Looks like no crash. I DID get bumped up to Conf. U. np

6/25: The association did not crash. I now have all walk ons, and I will report on this association as I normally do with others. I have 3 players at OVR of 3.5, 1 at 3, 4 at 2.5, 4 at 2.

[Wayne23]

KRAP! Forgot all about having two dynasties going, switched back to Rhoda, saved her under this one. I will sim season 1 of the Walk on and just do over.

[Wayne23]

Take Two: Went with SIU- Edwardsville. Ben Downs Head Coach, Conf. V. I will sim season 1.

2016 season: OVR Ratings: 4-1, 3.5-2, 3-4, 2.5-1, 2-2.

1/1/’17: 4-7 going to the conf. schedule.

1/29: 9-10, 5-3. In a 6 way tie for 2nd in conf., 1 back of the lead. RPI #190, which is not all that bad for the worst conference.

2/26: 11-16, 7-9, RPI #247, at the end of the regular season. In a 4 way tie for 9th.

3/1: We lose the play in game for the Conf. V tourney to end up 11-17. That means we should stay in V for next season when we go all walk ons.

4/23: We ask for a facilities upgrade. No.

[Wayne23]

5/1: We stay in, and we will go with all walk ons.

5/25: 12 walk ons, not as strong as last year: 3- 2, 2.5-3, 2-3, 1.5-4.

11/6: 9 man rotation: 3 equally sharing at guard, junior Jed Yon at SG, senior Doug Wild and soph Neil Rich at both guard spots. Two others standing by.

Senior Al Mann is at SF, backed by senior Sam Gill. Our best player seems to be soph Ryan Diel, who’ll start inside along with soph Dave Nagy. Junior Dan Stem and frosh Mal Will back up. I expect changes as time goes forward.

Here we go.

11/20: 2 road games, 2 bad losses. Little offense (48.5 PPG). Some lineup changes.

11/27: A 3rd road loss then we finally came home- and won! Still tweaking the lineup.

PPG is up to 59.0 (-15.8). None of our stats are very good.

12/11: 3-5. RPI is 334; that’s about as low as you can get. We won at home. Lost on the road again.

12/18: 4-5, RPI #320.

12/25: 4-6, RPI #344.

1/1/’18: We end pre-conference play at 5-6, RPI #301. -7.0 PPG, +1.1 RBs, -3.3 TOs. We’re not a very good team, but since we’re in the lowest conf., to date we’ve obviously only played teams from higher conferences. Let’s see how we do against competition at our level.

[Wayne23]

1/8: 6-7, 1-1, RPI #316. We’re not very good at home but we’re terrible on the road, 0-6, and most were not close. Offense is the problem, more than anything else.

1/15: 7-8, 2-2, RPI #322. 1-1 in 2 home games. Given that we have yet to win on the road this is not good. We are #331 in PPG, and that’s the problem. Part of that is 17.9 TOs pergame. In a 4 way tie for 6th.

1/22: 8-9, 3-3, RPI #321. In a 3 way tie for 7th. Lost on the road, won at home. I ramped up the O. Moved Pace from 6 to 7, increased O rebounding from 8 to 9. We scored 75, our 2nd highest of the season. Let’s see what happens.

1/29: Lost by 2 on the road in a game we could have won. Good news is we scored 74. Then we scored 72 in a home win. Maybe we’re closer to finding the right combination.
9-10, 4-4, RPI #289. Still only tied for 8th in Conf. V.

2/5: We got trounced on the road by the 2nd place team and then won a knuckle biter, 67-64 at home. But PPG is up to 62.2 (Still not great but improving), and RBs are up, TOs are down. The road schedule the rest of the way is against all weak teams.

10-11, 5-5. RPI #267. Still tied for 8th.

2/12: Finally a road win, 65-59! Nagy hurt his Finger. Out 9 days.

And then back to back road wins! We’re scoring more, up to 63.0, and that is making a huge difference.

12-11, 7-5, RPI a season best 221. Tied for 6th, 1 back of 3rd, 2 back of 2nd. If we can finish 3-1 we could be top 4 with a little luck.

2/19: We played terribly at home but won by a point on a last second backdoor pass and layup.

Guard Brad Robb’s last 6 games have been 24, 21, 17, 19, 16, and 20 points. He’s on fire.

Nagy is back.

And another road win! 76-72.

14-11, RPI #195! 5 game win streak. In a 4 way tie for 3rd. We play a tough team at home then 15th place team away. This team seems to have jelled.

2/26: 85-77 at home, matching our most points for the season. In a 4 way tie for 2nd going to the last game of the season.

Couldn’t get it done in that final game, 59-72. Ends the 6 game win streak, and the lowest point total in 10 games.

2/26: 15-12, 10-6, RPI #194. We end in a 4 way tie for 3rd, the #6 seed. -2.5 PPG (up to 64.1 though), +1.8 RBs, -0.8 TOs.

We play #11 UMass Lowell in the play in round. We need 2 wins to advance to Conf. U.

3/1: We were flat in the 1st, and in foul trouble but we came out ahead, 37-33.

Then we played a great 2nd. 71-55. +12 RBs, 8 guys all doing their part on O, and solid D.

It’s #3 seed Nebraska-Omaha13-14, 10-6, in the quarter finals. We won by 10 at our place. On paper it’s a toss up.

3/2: 43-31 at the half. Lots of fouls called; it could come down to the benches.

Got it to 20 with 4 min. left. 76-68 at the end but it wasn’t that close. +6 TOs, and we shot 60% for the game. 24, 7, 4 for senior guard Doug Wild.

It’s #2 seed Seattle, 18-10, 11-5 in the semis. We didn’t play them in the regular season. On paper they are much better. We’ll see.

24-29 at the half. Worst offense in a long time but the D is getting it done. We’ll change a couple of things.

69-67. HUGE upset! We shot 50% for the game. 8 players scored between 12 and 4.

We play #12 seed Bryant, 14-16, 7-9 for the title. They beat us by 10 at our place but that was before we made the changes that made us what we are. I think we’re a little better inside, they’re a little better outside.

3/4: Getting beat up. 34-48 at the half.

65-89. Not tonight.

4/4: Awards: I get Conf. V COY.

4/23: We end the season at 18-13, 10-6, RPI #143. -2.0 PPG, +2.0 RBs, -0.7 TOs. I’ll take it!

We’re losing 2 of our top 3 guards, and a good backup big man.

We ask for a facilities upgrade. No.

29-30, .492, after 2 seasons.

[Wayne23]

5/1: And we’re still in Conf. V. WTF!

6/22: Our 8 returnees include 2 PGs, an SG, an SF, 2 PFs, 2 Cs. 3- 2, 2.5- 1, 2-4, 1.5- 1.

6:25: Our final roster: 3- 5, 2.5- 2, 2-7. We’ll cut 2 after the exhibition games.

9/18: We have a schedule. Mostly teams in U, some in T.

10/2: 1st day of practice. Lots of options.

11/6: Here’s our team: Juniors Neil Rich and Tip Kean start at guard. Soph Greg Aby backs up. Senior Jed Yon, who started last year, and frosh Wes Wall are waiting in the wings.

At SF soph Jim Hoy looks like our best player. Frosh Bat Bay is behind him.

The other candidate for best player is frosh Cam Fitz at C. At PF and backing up at C are three guys getting about equal minutes: senior Al Tice, junior Dave Nagy, who started last year, and soph Mal Will, our 6th man last year. In the wings are junior Ryan Diel who also started last year, senior Dan Stem, yet another starter last season. No doubt there will be changes.

11/20: 1-1. Lost by 3 on the road, won by 4 at home. As usual TOs are a problem.

11/27: 2-2. Lost by 3 at home, won by 8 on the road. Guards are scoring more than expected but horrible with the ball (19.5 TOs).

We’re giving #3 guard Greg Aby more minutes at the Point.

12/4: 2-0, both at home.

12/11: 1-1 in 2 road games puts us at 5-3. The loss was in OT.

Some things are coming together. We are using Rich, Kean, and Aby about equally at guard. The TOs are coming far more form the 3, 4, and 5 spot than from the guards. Fitz and Hoy are our scorers, and we are rebounding very well (+5.6). Will, Nagy, and Tice are battling for time. TOs are the problem. We’re going to try speeding up the offense.

12/18: 20 point win at home puts us at 6-3, RPI #235. Big games for the bigs and for Kean. Only 11 TOs.

12/25: 6-4 after a road loss. But only 14 TOs. We’re letting the battle for minutes continue between Will, Nagy, and Tice, but we’re settled everywhere else. We like our 3 guard system and, as expected, Hoy and Fitz are our best players.

1/1/’19: We end pre-conf. play at 7-4 (RPI #210) after another home win and 12 TOs. Speeding up the O seems to have worked. +5.6 PPG, +4.3 RBs, -1.9 TOS but getting better.

We were picked #11 in conf. but I’m thinking we can make the tope 3 or 4.

1/8: 2-0 start, 1 at home, 1 away. 9-4. Good news? We won by 17 and 16. Hoy had 23 and 10 in the 1st.

1/15: 11-4, 4-0. RPI #166, alone in 1st place. Hoy continues to light it up. TOs down to 16.6, getting steadily better.

We’re going to give the PF spot to Nagy for a while. He seems to be doing more than the other two guys.

1/22: Road loss, home win. 12-5, 5-1, RPI #156. Still alone in 1st, but 4 teams are 1 game back. We were absolutely crushed at North Dakota- just an awful night. We bounced back nicely at home. 20 for Hoy, 14 for Kean.

Aby hurt his wrist. He’ll miss at least one game.

2 on the road vs. tough conf. rivals. I’d love a split!

1/29: We got the split. Won the 2nd game with Aby back from the injury. 13-6, 6-2.

[Wayne23]

2/5: 2-0 week, 1 home, 1 away. 15-6, 8-2, alone in 1st, only 1 team 1 game back.

This week 2 at home against teams with losing records.

2/12: 2-0. 17-6, 10-2, RPI #94. 2 up on Cal ST-Bakersfield, 3 or more on the rest with 4 to play. We decided to start Greg Aby for Neil Rich. He responded with 17, 4, 3, 3. Our other starting guard, Tip Kean, had 23. Hoy had

19, 5, 6. In the next game Kean had 35 and Aby 14. Hoy had 6, 4, 3.

2 on the road, then we close with 2 at home. A 3-1 finish would be great.

2/19: 0-2 week but we’re still in 1st by a game. Hoy, Kean, and Aby continue to do the scoring.

2/26: 2 wins. We end the regular season 19-8, 12-4, RPI #87. +6.4 PPG, +4.9 RBs, -0.2 TOs (16.2). 1 game up on Cal ST-Bakersfield, 3 or more on the rest.

We like our chances going to the postseason.

#8 seed North Dakota, 14-14, 8-8. They gave us our worst defeat of the season there. Not the opponent we wanted.

3/2: Our 2 best players both picked up 2 early fouls.

66-58. We were down as many as 15, and we never took the lead until 3:27 left in the game. +10 RBs, 12 TOs. 15, 4 for Hoy, 11 each for Aby and Rich, 10 for Fitz.

#4 seed Longwood, 16-12, 9-7, in the semis. Hoy hurt his back. He’ll see limited action, if any. Terrible time for our best player to get hurt.

3/3: 39-23 at halftime. We’re shooting 50%, they’re shooting 22.2%. We decided to focus on D with Hoy out. Didn’t expect the O to do what it did. 9 each for Fitz and Will.

71-49. Cleared the bench with just under 5 min. to play. +11 RBs. 56.1% to 29.4%. Great D! Fitz led us with 15 but 12 guys played (All except Hoy) and 12 guys scored.

#3 seed Northern Kentucky, 20-9, 9-7 for the title. They gave us our 2nd worst beating of the season, 27 there.

3/4: Slow start then we came back, 31-24. We were down 7 early. +10 RBs. We need to shoot better in the 2nd, but the D is right where we want it. The bench is doing some great work for us.

76-63 and without our best player! +16 RBs, only 12 TOs. We shot 66.6% in the 2nd. 19, 4 for Fitz, 14, 3, 3 for Kean, 13, 3, 2 for Rich.

And my all walk on team is in the Big Dance!

But, there’s some very bad news. While Hoy will be back, #3 guard Neil Rich broke his wrist. Out for the season.

Kean and Aby will continue to start, and Hoy will back up at SG.

3/12: 22-8, 12-4, RPI #77, conf. regular season and tourney champs. Still probably a play in or a 16.

#15 West. We play #2 seed, #10 ranked Virginia, 22-6. It will be a struggle at best but hey, we got here and we’re moving up to Conf. U. We have faced no one remotely close to this talented.

3/17: 21-39. They’re too quick and too big.

Terrific 2nd half, 61-66. I’m proud of my guys. 22, 7, 3 for Hoy, 13, 2, 7 for Kean.

4/4: #1 Duke, 35-4, won it all.

Awards: Jim Hoy made 1st team, guard Tip Kean made 2nd. I was conf. V COY.

4/23: We ask for a facilities upgrade. And once again this year, no.

22-9, 12-4, conf. title. Overall I’m 51-39, .567.

The only guy who’s graduating who plays at all is Al Tice, and he averages 15.2 min/game.