Mr. Analytics Brings Modern Basketball to Campus

[Magic Bird]

Pace and space, small ball, stretch fours, passing big men--these are the buzzwords of contemporary modern basketball. What used to be way downtown is now more like midtown. Players everywhere are following Stephen Curry's example and regularly taking shots from more than 30 feet out from the basket. Here's why: shooting a mediocre three that goes in the basket at least a paltry 33.333% of the time is worth as much as taking a great looking mid-range jumpshot that falls in the basket at least a stellar 50% of the time. Therefore a team that takes halfway decent looking threes and makes them at a 33.34% rate will beat a team that shoots an equal number of solid mid-range jumpshots and makes at least half of those jumpshots. This assumes any other shots taken and made by both teams amount to an equal number of points for each team. But you're a dedicated basketball fan who knows this already. I'm just a nerd with a doctorate in statistics from Princeton who loves to talk about this sort of thing with every hoops fan I meet.

My name is Trey Colson. I grew up on the East Coast in the New England region, loved sports, got good grades in math, and was accepted into an Ivy League program. While I was at Princeton, I helped coach a local high school aged AAU basketball team. Just a small team, not one of those AAU teams stacked with Division I blue chips. We won more than we lost, typically losing to one of those elite Adidas-sponsored teams or another while college and NBA scouts drooled over the opposition's talent. After I earned my Ph.D. I assumed head coaching responsibilities for the AAU team for the next couple of years. Towards the end of that period, I heard that nearby Lafayette College was looking for a new basketball head coach. I decided to apply for the job, thinking that it was unlikely a Division I program, even a little one like Lafayette, would take a chance on me. It couldn't hurt to see what college athletic directors thought of me, right? When they interviewed me I pitched that I could bring success by modernizing their basketball program to reflect what analytics indicate about good shot selection. A strict diet of layups, dunks, and shots at the rim, with lots of threes and skimping on the mid-range jumpers. Apparently they liked my pitch because a couple of weeks later they offered me the job.

I accepted. Why not? I had mostly been working in temporary consultant positions since leaving Princeton, and while they paid well, I wanted a more steady career. I like sports, and basketball is my favorite. Who knows, maybe I will become a legendary Hall of Fame coach.

Profile Information:
Name: Trey Colson
Age: 29
Appearance: Default coach image 12.jpg (for those interested in knowing and looking it up in the game files)
Dream Job: UConn (any blue blood or near-blue blood program will do; the Huskies happens to be the closest to where I grew up, and I cheered for them frequently during my childhood. My alma mater Princeton is another coveted position.)
Ambition: High -- I would like to coach a top program for a short time at some point in the future.
Academics: High -- I understand players may be pressed for time with commitments both to the team and to their studies. However, I'd like to see my guys have at least a 3.0 GPA. I don't think that is too much to ask for.
Discipline: Very High -- It's going to be difficult to implement my offense to its extreme optimum. I need players to commit, work hard, and not bother one another with disruptive behavior.
Integrity: Very High -- I like to think I run a clean program. If any of my assistants, the athletic director, boosters, or players are meddling with stuff they shouldn't that might jeopardize the program, I don't know about it and I don't want to know about it. If I do find out about it, I'm going to report it and lobby for any necessary self-imposed sanctions before the NCAA decides to hand my program a more harsh sentence.
Temper: Low (3) -- Eh, I'm pretty relaxed. I don't yell at my players much. The refs on the other hand...

Ratings:
Offense: 35 -- I've studied basketball offense in the context of analytics quite a bit over the years. I also experimented with what I learned with an AAU team for a few years and refined my knowledge.
Defense: 10 -- Haven't discovered much regarding creating and applying analytics to basketball defenses at this point.
Scouting: 35 -- High rating to compensate for a significantly slower rate of improvement compared to the other ratings.
*Author's Note: As far as I'm aware, the slow scout rating growth that existed in some of the previous iterations of the DDSCB series is still present. The last version of the game I purchased and played full seasons with had a single digit after the name instead of a year, and I have not played much with this version. Someone please correct me if I am wrong about the existence of this issue.
Recruiting: 10 -- I've never had to recruit before.
Player Development: 10 -- I didn't work with the AAU players much beyond implementing my offensive scheme.

Potential Ratings:
Offense: 100
Defense: 75
Scouting: 100
Recruiting: 100
Player Development: 100

I hope to become a Hall of Fame coach, but I will always have more focus on how good offense works than how good defense works. I won't be as predominantly offensive minded and not defensive minded as for example NBA coach Mike D'Antoni. I will still try to figure out and establish a decent, moderately effective defensive scheme.

Philosophies:
Offensive Pace: 8 minimum
Player Preference: 5 -- I'll take freshmen and seniors as long as they're good, efficient shooters.
Full Court Defense: 6
Defensive Intensity: 8 -- I may not know much about creating a good defense, but I want my teams to play hard on that side of the ball.
Offense Crash Boards: 9 -- I want to try to maximize our offensive possessions and earn as many shot attempts as possible.
Player Rotation: 10 -- The team will play fast and hard so we'll need to play at least nine or ten guys every game to mitigate the effects of exhaustion on maintaining my desired pace, effort, and efficiency. Also we may regularly experience foul trouble due to our defensive intensity.
Zone Defense: 1 -- I'm no Jim Boeheim.
Defense Crash Boards: 2 -- I want my team to get out in transition to try to get quick and easy shots.

School Information:
Name: Lafayette College (known as Lafayette in Division I)
Team/Mascot Name: Leopards
Location: Easton, Pennsylvania
Conference: Patriot League
Facilities: C
Academics: A-
Prestige: 13
Conference Prestige: 26
Arena: Kirby Sports Center
Capacity: 3500
Minimum SAT Score: 980 -- The school has a reputation as a Little Ivy.

Association Setup Info:
Mods: Bloomington's Real World Mod (for real team names and logos)
Starting Year: 2018
Conference Movement: Allowed
Ratings: 1-100
Illegal Recruiting: Allowed
Underclassmen Declarations for Draft: Allowed
Can Be Fired: Yes
Injury Factor: 100%
Recruiting Difficulty: Normal
Job Pressure: Normal

[Wayne23]

Welcome! I look forward to reading more about this fascinating approach!

[Magic Bird]

Welcome! I look forward to reading more about this fascinating approach!

Thank you! I have much more to post but I'm not ready to do so at the moment. I just finished editing my initial post, so you may want to re-read it in case you missed something before your reply.

[PointGuard]

Good start, Mr. Analytics!

[Magic Bird]

The Patriot League is academically stellar; I would say it almost rivals the Ivy League. No school has an academic rating lower than B+, and Colgate boasts an A rating for academics. All the schools have low basketball prestige, and Lafayette here has the lowest prestige of them all at 13. Holy Cross has the highest prestige rating with 33.

Lafayette does not have a non-conference rival; however we have a significant rivalry with Lehigh within the conference. This rivalry, which is known simply as "The Rivalry," dates back deep into the 1800's. It started in and remains best known in football, but has boiled over to all other sports competitions between the two schools. We'll look forward to crushing them each season.

I signed a contract worth $80,000 per year to coach the team for the next two years. That's too short of a time period to improve the team significantly, but I understand the administration's reluctance to commit long-term to an unproven, unknown coach. Hopefully I can quickly improve the team, and improve it enough to earn an extension.

The Athletic Director called me to discuss the team's budget for the season. We have $149,000 but $83,000 totalling my assistant coaches salaries come off the top, leaving us with $66,000 for recruiting and any other necessary activities. He also let me know he's beginning to assemble our game schedule for the season. I'll get back in touch with him to provide some input after I've looked at our team more closely.

Afterwards my assistant coaches meet with me and introduce themselves.

Assistant Coaches:
1st Assistant: Michel Landram, 39 years old. Salary: $36,000/2 yrs
Ratings:
Offense: 20
Defense: 20
Recruiting: 20
Scouting: 20
Player Development: 60

2nd Assistant: Adriel Thompson, age 51. Salary: $33,000/2 yrs
Ratings:
Offense: 24
Defense: 28
Recruiting: 29
Scouting: 23
Player Development: 24

3rd Assistant: Rodney Robisch, 41 years of age. Salary: $14,000/2 yrs
Ratings:
Offense: 29
Defense: 23
Recruiting: 23
Scouting: 22
Player Dev: 23

Michel's been in charge of practices and he will remain so. When we discussed player development he seemed to know what he was talking about. The other two guys didn't demonstrate much knowledge of any particular skills. Adriel has been overseeing recruiting and Rodney has done some scouting of teams and players. I'll let them continue filling their posts.

The next day Michel initiated introductions between the players and myself. Also I observed the players while he conducted a practice session.

Roster:
Point Guards:
Travon Watkins, Sophomore, 6'2 185, rated 1/3 stars -- He's a decent shooter and ball handler but won't look to score or pass. Not quite my idea of a point guard. Has some potential to be a decent PG.
Francis Cambridge, Senior, 6'1 209, rated 2/4 stars -- Francis is a good shot who can also score, pass, and handle the ball. He'll probably be our starting PG. Too bad he leaves after this year.

Shooting Guards:
Tega Allen, Freshman, 6'4 175, rated 1/3.5 stars -- Has the potential to evolve into a decent point guard.
Clint English, Sophomore, 6'0 189, rated 1/2.5 stars -- Clint is a great shooter and is pretty athletic. He'll never be more than that.
Tyler Stanfield, Senior, 6'1 191, rated 3.5/3.5 stars -- I expect him to be the star of the team. He's a terrific shot (100/100 outside shooting rating), fast up and down the court, and is the best player on the team that has the skills to play my style. I only wish he had even better scoring instincts and that he was an underclassman.
Vegas Johnson, Sophomore, 6'2 187, rated 2/2 stars -- He's a good shooter, is very athletic, and can run the point.
Sean Faye, Junior, 6'2 171, rated 0/0 stars, WALK-ON -- Sean doesn't have any skills at all except for one very important one: he has an excellent shot. Actually, he has one other skill: he's a decent ball handler. He's perfect for utilizing as a spot-up shooter.

Small Forwards:
Johnnie Long, Sophomore, 6'6 196, rated 3/3.5 stars -- Johnnie has moderate shooting ability and has some scoring ability.
Marcus Woods, Senior, 6'5 198, rated 4/4 stars -- Marcus is probably our most talented player; his skill level is comparable to Tyler's. He's also exceptionally athletic. However, he is a mediocre shooter.
Tim Stowers, Junior, 6'8 221, rated 3.5/4 stars -- Tim is like Johnnie; he has some scoring ability and is a decent shooter.

Power Forwards:
Dennis Riley, Junior, 6'8 214, rated 2.5/3 stars -- He favors outside shots more than inside shots. His rebounding ability could be useful and I might play him at center in emergencies.
Jerome Campbell, Freshman, 6'6 218, rated 2/3 stars -- Jerome is not a good scorer but he's a pretty good shooter inside and outside.
Tory Holbrook, Junior, 6'8 205, rated 0/0 stars, WALK-ON -- His outside shooting is pretty good for a PF; otherwise he's not skilled in any area.

Centers:
Shaun Lavin, Sophomore, 6'9 274, rated 1/3.5 stars -- Shaun likes to take jump shots and is good at drawing fouls. Unfortunately he's not good at shooting or anything else, but has the potential to be solid everywhere except on defense. I'm also worried about his poor work ethic.
Starzee Reed, Freshman, 6'8 239, rated 1/1 stars -- He's probably our best option for reliable dunks and lobs but otherwise he's just an extra body. We are thin down low so we will need him.

All of our guys are from Pennsylvania and all of them have GPA's above 3.0. Shaun Lavin has the lowest GPA at 3.1. Great! I shouldn't have to worry about my players' academics! However, no one knows how to play defense and my most talented players don't have the shooting skills to execute my system. We also lack depth in the post and ability to move the ball around well. Even though three of my four most talented players play the same position, I find this a minor issue because I favor positionless basketball.

Following these initial evaluations, the A.D. contacted me again. This time we conversed about the administration's goals for the team and what they expected me to achieve this year. They don't want any of our players to become academically ineligible. Our players have good grades and I will hold them to fairly high standards so I am not concerned about this. The administration also doesn't want the team to finish last in the conference, and they also want us to win at least 10 games. I think we can avoid finishing last in conference play, but with this roster I'm worried we'll struggle to win 10 games. I expressed these thoughts to the A.D. and told him I will try my best to earn 10 wins. With regards to the team's potential performance I asked the A.D. to arrange a soft schedule with lots of home games. He told me he would attempt to do so. After the conversation ended I turned my attention to recruiting.

[Wayne23]

Just as an FYI, the most important Coach rating- for Head as well as Assistants, is Reputation. I'll give an Ass't with a 33 Rep. and a 22 Recruit, the recruiting job over one with 17 Rep., and 29 Recruiting.

[Magic Bird]

Good start, Mr. Analytics!

Thank you! Sorry for the belated reply. I thought I had included it in my previous post.

Just as an FYI, the most important Coach rating- for Head as well as Assistants, is Reputation. I'll give an Ass't with a 33 Rep. and a 22 Recruit, the recruiting job over one with 17 Rep., and 29 Recruiting.

Thanks for the information, I'll keep this in mind in the future. I've always thought the reputation rating was mainly for coach hiring purposes. However, I can see how it may impact other things such as a recruit's willingness to talk with a coach or increase interest in the school. It would make sense to favor a coach with noticeably greater reputation where the difference in recruiting ratings is negligible.

All of my assistants have Reputation ratings of 9, and Coach Colson has a Reputation of 8. At the low rating levels my assistants have I don't know how much difference it would make if one assistant did have a much higher reputation rating than the others.

[Magic Bird]

We have $66,000 to spend on recruiting. I purchased the basic Atlantic East scouting report. I'm also attending the Big Apple Showcase summer camp. These expenses left us with $57,300, which I believe is plenty. We have 3 scholarships available to offer to recruits for next season.

Lafayette has a very high minimum SAT score requirement of 980. For this reason I am only looking at recruits with GPAs of at least 2.8. I think that some recruits with that level of GPA still may not achieve the requisite SAT score.

Adriel and I added 32 prospects to our call and watch lists at the end of June after browsing player reports. Most of the players are from Pennsylvania, while the rest are highly rated recruits showing interest in attending Lafayette.

7/31: Only a couple of the prospects we are looking at made any impact at the Big Apple Showcase. We've watched game films and also hosted several guys for campus visits. Adriel and I have been working the phones incessantly. No one really wants to talk to me. They say they're glad I called but then say they're busy on social media whenever I ask them questions. Maybe my staff should use social media more. On the bright side, the only player who did respond to me is the highest rated recruit we're watching. SF Michael Kimbrough is the top high school senior in the state of Pennsylvania and is in the top 100 in the nation (55 overall). I think it's a long shot that we'll land him but he's showing moderate interest in our school right now.

8/28: Still few recruits are talking to me about their interests. I'm offering a scholarship to Kimbrough and two others. My priorities are for two players who are great outside shots with good scoring ability and for one center who is a good rebounder with great shooting accuracy near the rim and good scoring ability.

9/4: I want Shaun Lavin to get some tutoring for the next month. Even though he has a 3.1 GPA, he has a very poor work ethic. I'm concerned that his grades might plummet.

9/11: I'm visiting 4 of our top prospects, including the 3 we've offered scholarships to, at their homes this week to make final recruiting pitches.

9/18: The visits did not go as well as I'd hoped for. I'm going to visit them again because I think I can still make some solid pitches. For example, one player mentioned that academics and location are his top priorities in determining where he wants to go. I emphasized academics when I visited with him and told him about how Lafayette is known as a Little Ivy. A few days later he sent me an email stating that he didn't think our meeting went well. I plan to bring up how his home is located only a couple of counties north of our school in my next visit.

The A.D. and I conferred over the final season schedule. We're playing four home games and five away games. One of our home games is against Iona, who I think is one tier better than we are and should provide a good test of our team. Another game is at #15 Texas, which I expect to be a loss. They are led by the preseason player of the year: senior SG Damian Gordon. The rest of the teams on our pre-conference schedule are cupcakes that I think Lafayette can beat. In addition to the main schedule we arranged for a pair of exhibition games to tweak my rotation.

9/25: My second visit with the player who doesn't like us yet whose priorities we fulfill also did not go well. I'm rescinding our scholarship offer to him and offering it to a similarly talented player showing high interest in us.

10/2: The center we were pursuing committed to Wake Forest. He is not rated highly so I'm surprised an ACC school was after him. Perhaps they like me think he's a hidden gem. I don't like any of the other centers we're watching. I think Lafayette won't be able to secure any commitments until the spring.

Shaun Lavin's grades haven't improved. He's going to receive tutoring for a month every month until he improves.

Practices are starting so it's time for me to begin implementing my system. The previous coach frequently used the High Post offense (70% usage) while occasionally running Triangle and 5-Out. I want to run the 5-Out offense and maybe Motion or the Princeton, but to compromise for the skills of my team this year I'll run a balance of 5-Out, High Post, and Motion. Our offensive focus will favor outside shots and the team will have significant offensive freedom for the start of the season. I would like to be running one of our sets 75%-80% of the time in games by the time conference play begins. On defense the previous coach usually went man-to-man. We'll use man-to-man exclusively.

Here is the practice schedule I've set up:
Offense:
Motion: 10% (usage 20%)
High Post: 5% (usage 40%) -- I want to phase this out of the team's usage.
Princeton: 10% (usage 0%) -- I want to phase this into the team's usage.
5 Out: 20% (usage 40%) -- This will be the main offensive set I'll run.
Zone Attacks: 5% each (usage depends)
Defense:
Man To Man: 25% (usage 100%)
Pressure Defense:
Full Court Man To Man: 15% (usage 100%)
*Author's Note: Lafayette lacks the personnel to run FC Man-to-Man effectively. This will be a significant weakness for the team. Coach Colson doesn't know much about the defensive side of the game so discovering and learning what works, what doesn't work, and changing his philosophies and strategies accordingly will be part of his character development.

Another aspect of practice is that some of my players need to change their shot preferences. I'm having several players work on taking more threes and shooting fewer mid-range jumpers.

10/9: No recruits have committed here yet. Michael Kimbrough still shows considerable interest in us.

10/30: Still no progress with Shaun Lavin's grades. Practices are proceeding well. I'm surprised how quickly everyone is understanding the Princeton offense. I may get to use it this year.
*Author's Note: The entire roster went from 0 proficiency to 20+ proficiency in the Princeton this month. No player showed any proficiency rating improvement greater than about 10 for any other offense.

11/6: Here is the lineup I've settled on for the start of the season:
Starters:
PG: Francis Cambridge
SG/PG: Tyler Stanfield
SF: Marcus Woods
PF/SF: Tim Stowers
C: Shaun Lavin
Bench:
SF: Johnnie Long
PG/SG: Vegas Johnson
PF/C: Dennis Riley
PF/SF: Jerome Campbell
SG: Clint English
C: Starzee Reed
SG: Sean Faye
PF: Tory Holbrook

I decided to redshirt Travon Watkins and Tega Allen. They can develop into players that I will want to give decent minutes to by next year.

It's time for our first exhibition game!

[Magic Bird]

*Author's Note: Sometimes I will sim games, other times I will play out and coach games. I like to play out the first several games of each season, the first few games of conference play, and the last few games of the regular season. Of course I also enjoy coaching my teams in postseason games and in matches against ranked opponents, rivals, and other matchups that I find potentially challenging.

11/6: Lafayette vs Savannah State
We started the game hot, making almost every shot. Shortly before the first media timeout Tim Stowers picked up a pair of quick fouls, so I benched him for the rest of the half. We also took care of the ball well for most of the first half, not committing a turnover until about 6 minutes before halftime. Unfortunately we lost control from there, committing four more turnovers before the half. In the first half we hit 5/12 from three and shot 55.9% overall. Great numbers! I'm pleased. While 5 turnovers for a half isn't bad, they were concentrated over a six minute stretch so I would like to see some more consistent discipline with the ball in the 2nd half. The last six minutes of the half saw our lead shrink from 14 points to 5 for a halftime score of 43-38. One explanation for the late half collapse may be that I was playing our bench for most of that time. I think the team could shoot some more threes in the next half, so I instructed them to do so while in the locker room at halftime.

The second half went well in my opinion. We took more threes while maintaining our good shooting percentage and took decent care of the ball consistently for the half. We also managed our fouls better than in the first half. My starters and top bench players rebuilt our lead to 17 points but I noticed that when I subbed Starzee Reed in at center that our defense deteriorated and Savannah State dominated down low. In fact, during the few minutes that Starzee played in the 2nd, we blew a double digit lead and faced a 3 point deficit. Lafayette has one more exhibition match to see if Starzee consistently has this negative effect on our play. If Reed really is this bad, I will try never to play him. I'll play him at center for about 10 minutes next game to observe what happens. I'll also give Tory Holbrook some minutes at center to see if he can be a viable emergency option there.

In the end we won the game 87-86. We shot 15/36 from three point range and 51.6% overall; these are excellent figures. We only committed 11 turnovers while Savannah St. had 13. Also I like that the turnovers were spread evenly across most of the team. We lost the rebounding battle and had fewer points in the paint, fast break points, and scores off offensive rebounds. Our style does not focus on rebounding so I will not expect Lafayette to control the boards but I would like to see more effort to get second chances at shots. Savannah State struggled to score in the post when we didn't play Starzee Reed so I think we can do better there in future games. I don't know if we can improve our fast break scoring or not. The team needs to do a better job of not fouling as we had 17 fouls to Savannah State's 12. This isn't too bad in my opinion, but I still would like to keep our foul count around 15 or lower per game. My players also shot only 6/11 from the free throw line. Tsk Tsk.

Player of the Game: Marcus Woods (21 pts, 2 ast, 3 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl, 0 tov, 3 pfl, 6/10 3pm/a, 19 min)
Other Notable Performances: Francis Cambridge (11 pts, 4 ast, 1 stl, 1 tov), Johnnie Long (12 pts, 4 reb, 2 blk, 3 tov, 3/4 3pm/a, 19 min)
Johnnie did well subbing for Marcus Woods at the 3, though I'm not pleased that he led the team in turnovers. I was disappointed in Tyler Stanfield, who only scored 4 points and missed all three of his 3 point attempts. I think he'll do better, and I need him to do better.

*Author's Note: I wish the exhibition games included a +/- stat in the box score. I would love to see Starzee Reed's +/- for the game. If he had a +/- better than -15 I would be surprised.

11/11: Lafayette vs Massachusetts Lowell
Tonight we welcome the River Hawks to the Kirby Sports Center. I gave Starzee Reed about 9 minutes of playing time in the first half and we outscored UMass Lowell by 10 during that time. He also didn't foul or turn the ball over. I guess he just had a bad game against Savannah State. Other variables may be affecting his performance as well. At halftime we led 44-36. We kept our turnovers down to 5 spread across the period (Tyler Stanfield had 3 of them) and kept our fouls down to 6. We shot well (7/13 3pm/a, 60.7% fg%) and racked up 12 assists thanks to solid ball movement. We couldn't stop the River Hawks' center Earl Ledbetter as he put up 19 points on 8/9 shooting and Shaun Lavin and Dennis Riley picked up 2 fouls apiece while trying to guard him. Our walk-on Sean Faye proved what an excellent shooter he is by scoring 12 points on 4/5 shooting.

In the second half we turned the ball over 8 times and nearly let UMass Lowell and Earl Ledbetter (33 pts) steal the game from us, but improved free throw shooting (13/16) saved the day and the Leopards pulled out an 84-79 victory. We continued to shoot well, finishing 13-29 from 3 with a 53.7% field goal percentage. I thought we played pretty well overall, and some different players from last game stepped up to lead the team tonight.

Player of the Game: Vegas Johnson (19 pts, 3 ast, 1 reb, 2 stl, 2 tov, 2 pfl, 3/6 3pm/a, 7/10 fgm/a, 22 min)
Other Notable Performances: Tim Stowers (18 pts, 3 ast, 4 reb, 1 stl, 0 tov, 1 pfl, 2/3 3pm/a, 7/11 fgm/a, 27 min),
Sean Faye (12 pts, 1 tov, 1 pfl, 2/3 3pm/a, 12 min) -- I didn't play Sean in the second half.
I also thought Jerome Campbell, Starzee Reed, and Clint English played well in limited time. Clint English's main flaw is that he doesn't attempt enough shots. Tory Holbrook did nothing in 8 minutes at center. Marcus Woods and Johnnie Long disappointed scoring wise compared to last game with only 6 points each, but they weren't shooting well and were smart enough to defer to other Leopards who were performing better, as evidenced by Marcus and Johnnie's 3 assists each. I'm still disappointed with Tyler who only scored 3 points and led the team with 4 turnovers. He didn't take any shots either outside of foul drawing attempts.

Conclusions from the exhibitions:
Lafayette doesn't have a go-to guy. Each night, a different group of players will lead the team. Marcus Woods may be the closest guy we have to a consistent leader and performer.

My initial assessment of the team appears accurate. I'll continue to start Tyler Stanfield because I believe his performance will ameliorate but Clint English or even Sean Faye may claim his spot and some of his minutes if he continues to underwhelm. Tory Holbrook won't get minutes outside of blowouts. Otherwise I expect to play at least 11 of my 12 other active players each game.

We are going to lose games because we can't defend the lane. Opposing big men and excellent drivers are going to punish us. I'm trying to recruit a good defensive big man so that we don't suffer from this flaw next year.

I think this team will fit with and execute my system better than I originally thought.

[Magic Bird]

One of my assistants left a magazine from a major sports publication on my desk. It was flipped open to a section about the Patriot League. Apparently we've been picked to win the conference. Oh my! Talk about high expectations and putting a target on our backs. Colgate is expected to be our primary competition. The starting lineup the article's writers have projected for us is out of date, however. It's based on the lineup Lafayette had last year. Obviously the journalists who wrote the piece didn't do their homework. They should have interviewed me or one of my staff. I don't think we are the best team in the conference, and their erroneous knowledge of our team shows why I have little stock in their projections. The magazine also contained the preseason AP top 25 poll. Florida begins the season at #1; they are led by PF Reginald Hahn, who is the best freshman in the nation and is projected to be the top pick in next year's NBA draft.

11/13: Holy crap, we landed the long shot! Top 100 recruit Michael Kimbrough committed to Lafayette this week. What a recruiting coup for our small program! He's rated #65 right now.

Now I'm pumped for our first game of the season!

11/16: Lafayette (0-0) vs Bryant (0-0)
A few quick turnovers by us allowed the Bulldogs to get out to a 7-0 lead. I subbed out Shaun Lavin for Dennis Riley since Shaun was our main turnover culprit. The Bulldogs are shooting lights out! Our defense started getting their act together and turned Bryant over several times. Still Bryant continued to build their lead. We can't hit any shots tonight. I called a timeout to encourage the team to keep taking shots. We're good shooters, and eventually our shots will fall. The beatdown continued. We were down at the half 30-49. We turned the ball over 12 times, and shot only 3/13 from 3. Ugh. One bright spot is that Tyler Stanfield had 7 points in 9 minutes and hasn't missed a shot or turned the ball over. I tell the team to slow the pace down and look for good shot opportunities in the next half. We'll also try to double team their center, who led the Bulldogs in scoring.

Marcus Woods picked up his 3rd foul 1 minute into the 2nd half. Great. Bryant's center picked up his 3rd a minute later. I guess we're even. We whittled their lead to 9 (58-67) with 9 minutes left but the Bulldogs nailed a pair of threes to push the deficit back to 15. Their center has been sitting with 4 fouls now and their next best post player is exhausted, which bodes well for our frontcourt defense. I've been playing Dennis Riley at center for most of the half. Tyler Stanfield has been stellar, and with 3:38 to go the score was 72-76. With 34 seconds left we were down 83-84. Our interior defense has continued to keep Bryant from scoring at the basket but their guards have been drawing fouls and making free throws. Vegas Johnson hit two free throws with 24 seconds remaining to give us our first lead of the game, 85-84! Bryant called a timeout. Tim Stowers blocked Bulldogs forward Matt Everett on the ensuing possession and Bryant intentionally fouled us with 10 seconds left. Vegas made the first free throw, but missed the second! The Bulldogs attempted a three. They missed! They nabbed the offensive rebound! No! But they can't get a shot up in time. Leopards win! What a spectacular comeback! What an exhilarating season opener! Final score: 86-84 Lafayette!

Player of the Game: Tyler Stanfield (23 pts, 5 ast, 1 reb, 1 stl, 1 tov, 5/6 3pm/a, 9/11 fgm/a, 24 min)
Honorable Mentions: Starzee Reed (13 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 1 stl, 1 blk, 0 tov, 1 pfl, 6/7 fgm/a, 13 min), Vegas Johnson (12 pts, closed the game out at the free throw line), Dennis Riley (8 pts, 2 stl, 3 blk, 2pfl, played good defense against Bryant's big men)

Other Game Notes: We only made 10/31 threes, yet shot 51.6% overall and made 10/13 free throws. One significant factor in our comeback was that we only committed 3 turnovers in the second half.

11/19: Lafayette (1-0) @ North Alabama (0-1)
This is our first road game. Let's see what else we're made of.

We committed 4 fouls in the first 2 minutes. Tyler Stanfield picked up two, so he'll sit for the rest of the half. A minute later and Tim Stowers picked up his second. This is maddening. I tell our guys to be less intense on defense. Of course Shaun Lavin picks up 2 fouls over the next 15 seconds. GAAAAAHHHH! Timeout! I rant to the team, and tell them to be careful. If it happens again, I may rant at the refs for being too nitpicky. Our guys still need to play smart and avoid the ticky-tack fouls. And what's with no calls against the Lions at this point? With 16:08 remaining in the 1st, Marcus Woods notched his 2nd foul and I have four starters languishing on the bench in foul trouble. I needle the nearest official about it all. The good news is we're turning North Alabama over like a spitroast. At the 10:46 mark my backup PF Jerome Campbell earned his 2nd foul. I'm thin at PF and C so my only two choices are either to play someone with 2 fouls or to play nonfactor walk-on Tory Holbrook. Let's give Tory a chance to do something. At least we lead 19-11 thanks to easy scores from the Lions' 7 turnovers. From there North Alabama went on a 17-0 run to put us down 19-28 with 6:09 remaining. And you know what? Tory's done nothing but--you guessed it--pick up 2 fouls in that stretch. I'm subbing Tyler, Marcus, and Tim back in despite the foul trouble. Tyler will run the point since Vegas committed 3 turnovers during that awful stretch. A few minutes later Starzee Reed injured himself and won't be available for the rest of the game. I'm anxious about what the team's doctors will say; the injury looks bad but I don't know any details. At halftime we were down 34-46. The Lions took advantage of our foul trouble and found plenty of good shots.

We start the second half with the referees calling a pair of fouls on us. I argue with an official briefly but the negotiation is not tense. I'm going let my players play and go with the flow of the fouls. Four minutes into the half the officials call a pair of quickies on Dennis Riley. I yell at them. Over the next few minutes, the Lions go on another run, the refs call a few more fouls against my men, I let them know how I feel about it, and I give up. The officiating took us out of the game. If we had a rematch versus North Alabama with a different officiating crew I think Lafayette would win. North Alabama coasted to a 67-85 victory thanks to some 8 on 5. The refs tried to cover their tracks by calling a torrent of fouls against the Lions at the end of the game for a final foul count of 24 fouls against us to 21 fouls against them. The Lions attempted 25 free throws while we attempted 24 free throws. They also shot 63.8% to our 38.3% but the refs wouldn't let us play D, so North Alabama found many clean looks at the basket. We only had 12 turnovers while we forced 23 turnovers from the Lions. Usually a disparity like that would indicate a victory for us but again, the poor refereeing negated that advantage.

Normally I'm pretty lax even when the officiating is bad but I was quite excitable in this game. I was probably still giddy after our comeback victory over Bryant. On the other hand, the reffing was deplorable.

Player of the Game: North Alabama SG Dionne Smith (20 pts, 2 ast, 5 reb)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (13 pts, 3 ast, 2 reb, 5 stl, 0 tov)

It turns out Starzee Reed only twisted his ankle; he'll sit out of our next few games.

Earlier in the day, Michael Kimbrough signed his LOI to play for us. I hope he meets our minimum SAT score.

11/20: Hardly any centers are available to recruit, let alone decent ones. I'm expanding my search outside of the Atlantic East region.

11/23: Lafayette (1-1) vs Iona (1-0)
Let's avoid the unmitigated disaster from the last crock of rubbish (it wasn't a game, it was a load of...)

Our guards picked up a few early fouls. Iona's guards are fast and talented. The Gaels are hitting all of their shots. We're turning the ball over too much. With 5:48 remaining we trail 25-39 and put Iona in the double bonus. We've got to stop fouling, but Iona is more athletic than we are. It's not like last game where the refs were picking on us. Shortly after came a media timeout and I issued some minor adjustments to our style of play. We started hitting some threes and pulled within single digits by the end of the period. Halftime score: 41-48. Iona will probably hit their shots, but they are not taking care of the ball much better than we are. Even better news: due to foul trouble we were relying on our bench for most of the half. If Tyler and Francis start playing well in the 2nd, we could upset the better team.

Two down, 50-52, at 13:31. We're playing smart basketball, the Gaels are not. Tied at 57 with 10 minutes left. My players aren't shooting well, but Iona simply is not playing well. Good for us! A steal from Johnnie Long and the ensuing fastbreak led to Shaun Lavin making a thunderous dunk off Long's lob to give us the lead at the 7:53 mark. Go Leopards! From there we fumbled about so I called a timeout with 4:50 left to try to clear our heads. The game went back and forth, and we found ourselves down 73-76 with 7 seconds left and the ball. The Gaels blocked our previous three shot attempts. I call a timeout and draw up a play to get the ball to Tyler for a 3. My players go out and thoroughly botch up the play. We lose 73-76. I'm upset because this was a winnable game versus a better team and we collapsed down the stretch.

Player of the Game: Iona SF Voshon Lofton (14 pts, 2 ast, 13 reb, 1 blk, 3 stl)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (17 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 2 stl), Tim Stowers (15 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl), Vegas Johnson (7 pts, 6 ast, 3 reb, 2 stl, but 4 tov)

11/26: Lafayette (1-2) @ New Jersey Tech (0-4)
The NJIT Highlanders like to bang around inside. I'll try some of the tactics I used to stop Bryant from dominating in the paint. I'm also hoping we can lead at halftime for the first time this season.

The Highlanders came out hot (why do our opponents always seem to start hot from the field and 3?) and bombed a few threes. We were also careless with the ball at first. We started hitting our shots and gradually narrowed the double digit lead NJIT built near the beginning of the half. We entered halftime down 43-44 (Still down at halftime like always! Grrr...). I like our 9/13 3 point shooting and only 6 turnovers. NJIT has a massive rebounding edge, however. I don't like that we have 12 fouls right now. The Highlanders won the first half at the charity stripe.

Again we started the next half turning the ball over. NJIT PF Greg Stinson scored all of their points for the first 5 minutes. We've been double teaming him but it's not working well. We picked off a few of NJIT's passes for easy layups. NJIT called a timeout at 11:32 while we led 62-56. Their coach's words must have hit home because the Highlanders stormed back and we found ourselves fighting from behind every possession for the rest of the game. With 9 seconds left NJIT fouled. Johnnie Long hit both free throws to tie it up at 76. I called a pair of timeouts to sort out our defense. Greg Stinson hit a jumpshot and Vegas Johnson missed a last second heave. We lost another winnable game 76-78. I think I made a mistake as I should have had Tyler Stanfield bring the ball up instead of Vegas. Tyler is a much better 3 point shooter, therefore a heave by him would have had a higher chance of falling in than Vegas's heave.

Player of the Game: NJIT PF Greg Stinson (24 pts, 2 reb, 2 blk, 1 stl)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (25 pts, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl), Johnnie Long (14 pts, 3 reb, 2 blk, 14 min)

11/27: Shaun Lavin's grades have improved significantly; he now boasts a 3.9 GPA! Congratulations to him for his academic dedication.

I'm going to change some of my strategies to optimize this year's team. We're going slow our pace of play down slightly (from 8 to 7), press less frequently (from 6 to 4), and soften up a little bit on defense (from 8 to 7). I've already experimented with these changes in our past couple of games and thought we played better with them. We're also starting to run our offensive sets more often. I want the team to use our offensive sets about 70%-80% of the time by the beginning of conference play. In addition to these adjustments, I'm going to substitute Tyler Stanfield with either Clint English or Sean Faye as soon as Tyler earns his first foul. I want Tyler available to play during the latter portion of first halves. One of my goals with these changes is to mitigate our foul troubles. Another goal is to ensure good shot selection from my team. I prefer for my teams to play at as fast a pace as possible without sacrificing much in quality of play, and the pace that I'm settling down to is the fastest pace that this team can consistently play well at.

While perusing team statistics across the nation, I observed that Lafayette ranks in the top ten in the nation in steals per game (11.0 spg, 5th best mark nationally) and opponent turnovers per game (18.8 topg, 8th best mark in the nation). I'm impressed! This is want I want to see from our defense! I doubt we will sustain these rates with the changes I'm instilling, but hopefully we will remain at least a top 25 team in these areas. On the opposite side we are the second worst rebounding team nationally, averaging only 24.5 rpg. We are actually in top half nationally in offensive rebounds per game, which means we are by far the worst defensive rebounding team in Division I. Oof, though this is somewhat expected.

11/30: Lafayette (1-3) vs Rider (0-4)
NJIT was also 0-4 when we faced them and we lost. Starzee Reed is back in the lineup tonight.

Broncs C Alan Smith is dominant tonight. Rider prefers to get him the ball. We start double teaming him. We hit a few shots and go on a run. At 14:55 Rider calls a timeout with the score at 14-7 favoring us. We start missing shots, but Rider isn't playing well and we are maintaining our lead. Rider takes the lead 24-26 at 6:11 and I call a timeout. My guys can't shoot tonight, though we are rebounding much better than usual. Alan Smith of Rider earned his 3rd foul with 4:32 remaining. The Broncs will have to rely on their perimeter scorers now. If we can start making shots, we should win this game. We finally take the lead again at 3:32 after Johnnie Long hit a 3. We end the half down 33-36 because we only shot 31.4% in the half. Otherwise my Leopards are outperforming the Broncs and playing decent ball.

Lafayette finally made some shots, and we pulled up 44-37 by 16:50. Tyler Stanfield was stellar to start the period, getting a few steals and scoring from all over the court. I bumped our defensive intensity and press frequency back up because I think the team is performing well in those areas tonight. We started turning it over late in the game, so I called a timeout and told the team not to be so careless. We may have a big lead, but don't get cocky. Despite lackluster shooting and the late game turnovers, our players outplayed the Broncs and we rolled to a 72-56 defeat of Rider.

Player of the Game: Tyler Stanfield (19 pts, 4 ast, 1 reb, 2 blk, 4 stl, 0 tov, 1 pfl, 3/4 3pm/a, 8/11 fgm/a)
Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (13 pts, 3 ast, 7 reb, 1 blk), Francis Cambridge (7 pts, 3 ast, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl),
Tim Stowers (7 pts, 1 ast, 8 reb), Vegas Johnson (8 pts, 2 ast, 2 reb, 3 stl)