Low shooting percentages.

[adamj95]

Not sure if i’m doing something wrong with my game but it seems to me that I always have very high scoring offensive teams but they always shoot a low percentage on their shots. I’m not sure if the style of play or the offense I choose to run is a factor but it always seems I have teams who take a ton of shots and usually only make 35-40% of them. One specific example of a player I had recruited. He was the #1 overall player in the country and I got him to come and play at LSU. I tried having a balanced offensive focus, outside focus, and inside focus the 4 years he was here and he shot 32% for his career. I only have 4 players as of right now in my schools history to shoot better than 45% from the field for their career. Any advice?

[C-Bailey24]

Not sure if i’m doing something wrong with my game but it seems to me that I always have very high scoring offensive teams but they always shoot a low percentage on their shots. I’m not sure if the style of play or the offense I choose to run is a factor but it always seems I have teams who take a ton of shots and usually only make 35-40% of them. One specific example of a player I had recruited. He was the #1 overall player in the country and I got him to come and play at LSU. I tried having a balanced offensive focus, outside focus, and inside focus the 4 years he was here and he shot 32% for his career. I only have 4 players as of right now in my schools history to shoot better than 45% from the field for their career. Any advice?

It's not you it's the game. I've been pointing this out for three versions now. Inside scorers are fine but perimeter scorers leave a lot to be desired.

[CoachC]

Not sure if i’m doing something wrong with my game but it seems to me that I always have very high scoring offensive teams but they always shoot a low percentage on their shots. I’m not sure if the style of play or the offense I choose to run is a factor but it always seems I have teams who take a ton of shots and usually only make 35-40% of them. One specific example of a player I had recruited. He was the #1 overall player in the country and I got him to come and play at LSU. I tried having a balanced offensive focus, outside focus, and inside focus the 4 years he was here and he shot 32% for his career. I only have 4 players as of right now in my schools history to shoot better than 45% from the field for their career. Any advice?

The Scoring ability of a player is their willingness to take shots, but not necessarily make them...the outside shooting and inside shooting abilities determine their success rate, and the DRFL ability determines how often they draw fouls and get to the line. Other things, like the passing abilities of players on the team are factors as well. So the scoring ability doesn't necessarily translate into points.

Choosing the right offensive sets for your players, and developing their skills at those sets, allowing you to use less offensive freedom is the best way to develop their offense. That takes time, and I often redshirt at least one of my talented freshman so that they get an extra year to learn the system if it doesn't appear they will be getting much playing time their first year. Also, for that reason, I usually prefer recruiting High school kids over JUCO players, unless I have a pressing need for experience. Fifth year seniors with any talent usually ROCK!

Because it takes significant time to develop skills (as opposed to the players innate abilities) I usually focus on only 2 offensive sets, and of course weekly practice in all 3 zone defense attacks, and recruit players that fit the system. As the team as a whole develops i gradually lessen the amount of offensive freedom so that they are spending more time in the offensive sets. As the players develop into a more cohesive unit, you should see things improve from year to year, both as a team and from individual players.

You didn't say whether you play out games or sim them. I personally try to develop a team that has the ability to score inside and out and prefer a balanced approach, but while playing games out (I never sim) I'll adjust focus as the game goes on while the team tries to find their offensive rhythm. A lot depends on the defensive abilities/sets of the opposing team. WIth inexperienced players scoring against zones can be especially frustrating, and you'll probably see a lot of them if your team has superior talent than the opposition.

Finally be aware that your most talented players may not be your most consistent performers especially when they are young. With the team i currently am playing, I'm in my first year with the program, but was fortunate that my predecessor had been running largely the same sets that intended to run in the first place. Most of my upperclassmen are close to 100% with the sets i'm running, and had been getting most of the playing time, simply because they could perform most consistently. As the year has progressed though, some of my more talented underclassmen have been increasingly more productive and have worked their way up in the depth chart, and are getting more minutes.

Hope that helps.

[PointGuard]

It's not you it's the game. I've been pointing this out for three versions now. Inside scorers are fine but perimeter scorers leave a lot to be desired.

You may have a valid point, but I'm not sure as far as shooting percentage. (I do believe that you are correct that Gary needs to make a slight adjustment affecting player PPG so that guards and SF's take a few more shots and score a little more and PF's and C's take a few less shots and score a little less). In older versions of DDSCB SG's scored too much and C's and PF's scored too little, so Gary made adjustments that moved scoring away from SG's toward PF's/C's and then another adjustment that tempered that somewhat, but it still is a little askew. It's a tough balancing act, so I think he needs to be sure to not OVER-tweak things.

But with regard to shooting percentage:

In the past couple versions of DDSCB, I've done analyses of shooting percentages (as well as other stats) and have found that overall FG% and 3P% are very close between DDSCB and the real world NCAA. But I've not done a detailed analysis of shooting percentage comparisons of interior and perimeter players, so that may be something that would be worth doing at some point.

As the result of your comment, I just randomly picked 4 teams to compare the FG% and 3P% of their apparent perimeter players vs that of the perimeter players on the same team in my present DDSCB2019 association.

Here's the FG%-3P% (e.g. 46-35) for those who appear to be perimeter players (guards and forwards who shoot a fairly high amount of 3's) first for REAL WORLD and next for DDSCB (these do NOT include players with fewer than 10 mpg of playing time since their stats can be highly variable):

Washington (real world):
41-32
45-38
51-45
38-27
44-46
29-28
31-26
Washington (DDSCB):
47-33
41-34
44-43
42-34
41-25
37-21

North Carolina (real world):
37-36
39-35
55-43
37-21
34-29
20-25
36-18
36-23
North Carolina (DDSCB):
42-38
32-35
36-31
49-21

Murray State (real world):
45-43
57-27
43-33
37-33
47-25
Murray State (DDSCB):
47-38
56-41
38-42
51-40
36-39
43-37
50-46

Michigan (real world):
56-31
51-50
50-33
43-40
43-33
44-38
44-25
33-29
Michigan (DDSCB):
43-30
36-34
37-19
42-37
39-31
49-43
44-32

Of the 4 teams in this cursory comparison, 3 seem to have relatively comparable shooting % stats between real world and DDSCB and only 1 (Michigan) seems to have overall higher shooting % for real world over DDSCB.

Again this is not a detailed analysis.

[CoachC]

also not a detailed analysis, but shooting percentages do seem to be slightly higher in DDSCB:19 vs real world, but not by a great amount. 2/3 of the way through the season in my first year with the present dynasty, the median team fg% in DDSCB:19 is 45.4%. The median team fg% in the real world DI this year, is 43.4%. A margin of error i can live with.

Median team offense in my assn is 73.6. In the real world this season it's 71.6. Again, not too bad. the slightly higher fg% leads to slightly higher PPG. All in all, I think it would be difficult to adjust it more without over-compensating

Last season's NCAA medians were 72.3 and 44.4%. Even closer, and a more appropriate comparison. The slightly expanded 3 Point arc this season along with the shot clock only being reset to 20 after defensive fouls and offensive rebounds may be the reason for a slight drop in the NCAA this year.

So compared with last seasons stats just a 1% difference in median FG% and 1.3 PPG difference in median scoring. It seems Gary has gotten this as close to right as anyone can reasonably expect.

[C-Bailey24]

But I've not done a detailed analysis of shooting percentage comparisons of interior and perimeter players, so that may be something that would be worth doing at some point.

For every 4 i can show you another 4 that are just ugly. I do a detailed post every release so im not gonna go through teams and post pics etc all over again. See where you and I differ in our evaluation is that i don't take into account the bottom half of a teams roster when i'm going through the team stat pages. My cutoff is 6 shots per game. Why? Because a monkey could make 2/4 or 2/5 so that's gonna make the individual and the much referred to "median" numbers look good. My issue has always been the top 2 or 3 guys. I would like to see the scoring rating not simply be about quantity and likelihood of taking shots but also incorporate some level of efficiency especially with the top recruits. They're some of the worse.

And since we're gonna make real life comparisons why is it in DDSCB that PG's, SG's and SF's have insanely low Inside Shooting ratings? You mean to tell me that perimeter players don't drive the ball to the basket in real life? What about the pie charts? They seem to be cosmetic because perimeter players in this game take over half they're shot attempts from 3-point land despite the player card saying 90% Midrange, 10% Three. When i think of a Scorer i think of someone who has a talent for putting the ball in the hoop not just a guy who's gonna jack up a lot of shots

[PointGuard]

If you've looked at my posts on these boards (of which there are more than a few...lol), I think you might have to admit I'm not argumentative here...and wasn't being so with my previous post. I said that I just picked 4 teams randomly and that it wasn't a detailed analysis. I said I didn't include players who were averaging less than 10 mpg of playing time. And I said that I picked as "perimeter players" those who were shooting a fairly high amount of 3's as well as 2's. I didn't go into their actual style or analyze their numbers and stats from every different distance to the hoop. It was merely (as I said) a quick and cursory look at things.

All I was saying with respect to making a comparison with real world is that in general this game's stats are pretty comparable. For every nuance of the game? Probably excellent for some, good for others, and less so for yet some others.

If there are things that you want changed about shooting and scoring (or anything else) and have the data for that, then supply that directly to Gary and maybe he can work toward making incremental change to improve things. That would be a good thing.

As to ratings, that's not something I'm going to get into...I'll leave the "how the sausage is made" to the developer.

[fabfries]

And since we're gonna make real life comparisons why is it in DDSCB that PG's, SG's and SF's have insanely low Inside Shooting ratings? You mean to tell me that perimeter players don't drive the ball to the basket in real life?

From what I’ve seen, the inside shooting rating is more about the ability of a player to post up, and doesnt really have much to do with driving to the lane. I believe scoring success on drives comes from a combination of the cuts the player makes in their set offenses, scoring ability, drive tendency (players that drive more are likely more comfortable finishing around the rim), ballhandling (to get by your man) and the passing opportunities from teammates.

Efficiency naturally tends to go down with volume, so it makes sense for a 5 star freshman guard to sometimes not be shooting 50% from the field and 38% from three. Not all players can, especially when they haven’t had time to learn the offense. The players that do are typically your All-Americans.

I will say that shooting percentages from guard positions varies more from game to game, but overall it feels pretty similar to real life. That’s just my two cents.

[CoachC]

And since we're gonna make real life comparisons why is it in DDSCB that PG's, SG's and SF's have insanely low Inside Shooting ratings? You mean to tell me that perimeter players don't drive the ball to the basket in real life?

From what I’ve seen, the inside shooting rating is more about the ability of a player to post up, and doesnt really have much to do with driving to the lane. I believe scoring success on drives comes from a combination of the cuts the player makes in their set offenses, scoring ability, drive tendency (players that drive more are likely more comfortable finishing around the rim), ballhandling (to get by your man) and the passing opportunities from teammates.

Efficiency naturally tends to go down with volume, so it makes sense for a 5 star freshman guard to sometimes not be shooting 50% from the field and 38% from three. Not all players can, especially when they haven’t had time to learn the offense. The players that do are typically your All-Americans.

I will say that shooting percentages from guard positions varies more from game to game, but overall it feels pretty similar to real life. That’s just my two cents.

I agree with all of this wholeheartedly. I've had perimeter players scoring in a variety of manners, not just shooting long range jumpers and 3s. All of the factors you mention definitely play a part, and in addition so does the ability to draw fouls. Since missed shots when fouled in the act do not count as attempts, guys that get to the line a lot will have a higher shooting % because only the makes count as attempts.

[Gary Gorski]

I would like to see the scoring rating not simply be about quantity and likelihood of taking shots but also incorporate some level of efficiency especially with the top recruits. They're some of the worse.

Just in case people don't see the other threads I will explain briefly again here. The way you want the scoring rating to work is not how it works. The scoring rating has nothing to do with efficiency. That's why there are other ratings for that. The scoring rating is simply a measure of being able to put the ball in the basket whether that's via 20 free throws a game or shooting 30 times. It only accounts for them being able to get shots off and get the ball into the basket.

And since we're gonna make real life comparisons why is it in DDSCB that PG's, SG's and SF's have insanely low Inside Shooting ratings? You mean to tell me that perimeter players don't drive the ball to the basket in real life? What about the pie charts? They seem to be cosmetic because perimeter players in this game take over half they're shot attempts from 3-point land despite the player card saying 90% Midrange, 10% Three. When i think of a Scorer i think of someone who has a talent for putting the ball in the hoop not just a guy who's gonna jack up a lot of shots

The inside shooting rating has nothing do with their ability to make a layup or something like that. It's a measure of their shooting ability in the paint in combination with the probability of them shooting from there. If a player does nothing but shoot jumpers then he's going to have a low inside scoring rating because he doesn't go inside. He might actually shoot 75% inside but the fact is that it is because he made 3 out of 4 layups on the season and that's the only time he got anywhere near the basket. If it was just a straight measure of the ability to make a basket from a certain distance then you could see some PG with a inside rating pretty close to that of a center who is the next coming of Shaq on your team. Instead the game rates that PG as a 1 or 2 and Shaq a 10 to show there is a clear differentiation in their games - not in their ability to make a shot from 5 feet away.