Recruit predictably

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

I understand the desire for predictability and a level of "certainty" and realize there are a lot of DDSCB players on either side of this issue.

But I think that the game's portrayal of "uncertainty" is a good reflection of life. There are those who are high school stars who just don't make it at the Division 1 level. They look and play great in high school and may have all the potential in the world, but their delivery (for any number of reasons) when they begin playing with the "big boys" just doesn't match the hype. And there are those who are good, but not great, players at the high school level who mature and bloom when they get to college. And...college head and assistant coaches have biases, get inaccurate information, and make evaluation errors all the time.

There are games I like and play where I know and can expect player performance (e.g. an MLB sim game where I know Mike Trout will be a great hitter) and the level of "uncertainty" is much lower, but I've become hooked on DDSCB (and therefore play the other games less) because with DDSCB I can't always accurately predict how recruits and players will do. So recruiting, while not a crap shoot, is an educated guess. More often than not I'm right, but...

Yes, except it is the 'all the potential in the world' part that should be the great variance, not the HS level of ability. I don't have a problem with a kid who never develops in the ACC--happens all the time. But that kid can go to ODU and still be a valuable starter. I don't think that has much chance of happening here.

Going from say 1.5 stars to 3.5 stars is a normal ACC 'developmental' starter, I think. Showing up as an 0.5 is not really realistic. At worst, he could be a 1.0 and only have 2.0 potential, and then transfer to place where could start as a Jr or Sr, but not be a bench warmer at Jackson St.

At a lower level school, I should be looking at 1.5 star guys who likely won't improve and weighing whether I can gamble that a 1.0 with 2.0 potential could become a better player if I take a risk and get him.

[PointGuard]

I'm not doubting your experiences but they are different than what I've experienced. When coaching a team with a prestige level in the 20's, I wasn't getting recruits with 0.5 ratings. Some walkons had 0.5 OVR's, but not recruits. Some recruits did come in with 1.0 OVR ratings, but others had 2.0 and 3.0 ratings as freshman. Some 1.0 players have pretty decent individual skill ratings and play very well......I guess Gary would need to say why the OVR rating isn't closer to what it would seem it should be given the player's individual skill ratings. And most (but not all) players' ratings (skill and OVR) improve over the course of their careers...obviously some more quickly than others.

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

This issue begins to spill over into development. When I get 0.5 guys, they play well, become 1.0/2.5 guys as second-year players, then drop back to 0.5/1.0 for third year. Finally they end up 1.5/2.5 (or so). This happens frequently. I've learned to play around this, however it means I basically ignore the overall ratings and go by individual ratings. Which, taken with the lack of recruiting information (no schools listed) means when I play as a low level school, much of the game is irrelevant or missing.

Not a good thing.

And I most definitely agree that the overall ratings quite often don't match the individual ratings and that issue needs addressing.

[TerpsFan]

Unfortunately I think I'm done with this game because of this issue. The players don't progress enough after being signed to make up for the fact that every recruit outside of the top 50 starts with 2 stars or less. It is very unsatisfying for example when I coach Cambridge to a winning record and pick up 6 recruits in the top 100 of their positions, 4 in the top 50, 5 of 6 with B overall grades, number 28 recruiting class in the nation. And I have my worst ever team because 5 of 6 have 1/5 ratings and the other is a 2. Their potentials range from 2-4, averaging about 3 which is barely ivy league starting material, let alone a program changing class. I've played about a dozen seasons as various schools and found that there is no predictability to recruit quality unless a guy is in the top 25 of the indy camp. I have tried paying attention to the individual skill ratings but they don't seem to matter if the player is just bad. I like the game but it just isn't rewarding when recruiting doesn't seem to matter.

[NCAAhoops]

Not trying to defend anything here just trying to help.

Have you tried a season just letting the game handle recruiting and see what happens?
I'm not sure who Cambridge is (?) as I was trying to see what their Prestige was as that has a big effect. Also your coaches "Player Development and "Team Facilities" if those are bad then players will not develop well no matter how good the recruit is. So a 2/5 is never going to reach 5. Hire a good player development rated coach and assign him to run practice.

Having guys rated "B" is comparable to what your team is capable of getting. Duke may say they guy is a D because they always get better players and probably wouldn't even be on their team as that would be a walk on to them. What your coaches will rank hi A or B, Duke coaches will rank low, its relative to what an A is to your team and not league wide rating as your not going to get Duke type players. The rating is relative to what your team can get so a B is only a B to your team. For instance a PG you have rated at A passing is because he's the best passer your team can get, Duke may say he's D at passing because they had/have some great passers and you will not even get interest from those type players.

The biggest thing that sticks out is #28 recruiting class should have done well for you but could relate to their "Intangible" rating, were some unhappy with Coaches or team, maybe Playing time?


My biggest issue is how much the ratings change once they are on your team. A guy rank 50 when committed in September then can drop to 900's after Nov 6th is too much of an error. If that happened in real life I would fire my coaches and recruit from Verbal Commits or ESPN website ratings and save the money and would do better than the coaches.
That being said I think the Scouting reports you buy should be more correct and closer to what you will actually get in overall ratings with just slight error on most but with a few big errors for busts. Like the 50's turning out to be 900's would have shown the guy in the 800-900's to begin with unless he was a bust but should not have a lot of those.

[PointGuard]

Terps..sorry to hear you're having difficulties with recruiting. While I agree it's not a "science" and instead is an "art", I find I can get pretty much the results I expect with most of my recruits. Yes, some are better than I expected and some are worse, but for the most part the majority perform as expected.

I assume "Cambridge" is "Harvard" in real life...you've just not applied the mod to get real team names. You mentioned you had a winning record and signed 6 pretty good players who then come to you with low current ratings but high potential ratings. You said they were rated in the top 100 "at their positions", so I guess that places each of them somewhere between 150 and 600 (or so) overall nationally...so OK to pretty good recruits but not great. Were their individual skill ratings different from their low current overall rating or were those 1's and 2's ? You also mentioned this makes it your "worst team ever". Did you play out that season with those freshmen (and your returning players)? How did the freshmen perform? Did they perform better as the season progressed as they became familiar with your strategies? What was your W-L record with that team? What were their ratings the next season when they became sophomores? Were their skill ratings substantially different from their current/potential rating as sophomores?

Another thing about freshmen players...in real life, unless the recruit is top flight, most freshmen aren't starters and come off the bench...some with a fair number of minutes, others with little or no play time, and others simply as role players. As they develop and mature as sophs or juniors they can earn starting roles.

[alternativestats]

Duke may say they guy is a D because they always get better players and probably wouldn't even be on their team as that would be a walk on to them. What your coaches will rank hi A or B, Duke coaches will rank low, its relative to what an A is to your team and not league wide rating as your not going to get Duke type players. The rating is relative to what your team can get so a B is only a B to your team. For instance a PG you have rated at A passing is because he's the best passer your team can get, Duke may say he's D at passing because they had/have some great passers and you will not even get interest from those type players.

Is this true? I start at a low prestige program and I assume my ratings are less accurate because of the skills of my coaching staff but I never considered that prestige would also impact the ratings. So this means that my scout might accurately rate a players passing ability and determine it's great for my school, but Duke, to use your example, would see the same passing ability and asses a lower rating? If that's true it's a great layer to this game that I was not aware of.

[NCAAhoops]

I asked about prestige because usually good recruits don't go to low prestige schools and to get several and have #28 class made me wonder if there is a reason higher "prestige" schools didn't want them such as being a trouble maker, low grades so instead of practice their being tutored, not a consistent player (hidden rating) or quite possibly could be low Work Ethic rating. If you read the text in your scout phone calls you can catch a lot of these players with statements from his High School Coach and know how they are when they arrive on campus.
There are so many variables in the game I don't know how Gary and team bring them all together and make it work!

But as far a scouting recruits below is what Gary said in the past. This has been version back but I assume the same applies. I may have over stated the difference between his team and my example of Duke a little more than what really happens but it is in the game.

Scouting (from Gary)
There is meant to be an "inaccuracy" in both and each coach has his own standards for how the words tie in with the ratings. You'll learn over time that your coaching staff may think a kid with 5-6 handling has "great handles" - maybe that's the best your school can do so for what they are used to seeing he's fantastic. But you might get the coaching staff at a major school saying he's just an average ball handler because to them he would be.

[PointGuard]

NCAAhoops: Glad you found that posting from Gary.

[TerpsFan]

I appreciate the previous responses, and I was probably a little strong saying that I would not play again. This game is a lot of fun. I guess part of my frustration was that it seemed that players do not progress very much from their starting rating, but I am finding that they progress more than I thought.

I had a down season with a bunch of freshman, but a few improved their overall rating by 1 between seasons (while some stayed at 1 overall), and the next season I recruited a few players with extra focus on their performance at camps. I ended up with some lower ranked players who had high ratings as freshman (3.0 or 3.5 stars), which is a good level for the Ivy League and allowed my program to progress. In the next 3 offseasons I still have not bagged an "A" rated recruit, though I got my best player #63 nationally, so hopefully he pans out. At this point I am dominating most conference games even though my player ratings are not that much higher than my opponents, so maybe those ~100 ranked B players are noticeably better than the ~1000 ranked C players even if the scouts cannot tell the difference.

I understand that most freshman are not ready to be D1 starters. From my first seasons at Harvard and my seasons at Maryland, it seemed like players did not really improve (maybe because of coaching and facilities at Harvard and bad temperament at Maryland). But my subsequent recruits have developed over four years to be starters. Also, I have been playing on normal recruiting difficulty with high coaching attributes, in case anyone is wondering why my recruiting is so successful.