Developing a DePaul Dynasty

[PointGuard]

Actually, I like his name...pretty cool.

[Vann_the_Red]

You mean Binky?

[Vann_the_Red]

Chapter 3 – A New Season
Moving toward the ’21-’22 season, we lose no one to transfer (yay?) and we’ll have two scholarships to use this season. Yeah, we should talk about schollies. I tend to leave several unused as players sitting seems to be the second biggest cause of discontent (after signing jerks in the first place). Youngstown State plays a slow offense, so I’m going to aim for two-deep and I’d rather have 8 scholarship players than 11. Both of my scholarship centers are seniors, so I’m going to focus there.
I feel like transfers are a bit overpowered in startups so I’m going to skip transfer season (don’t worry; we’ll work the portal like it owed us money when we get a big-time job) and we’ll try and bring in one freshman and one juco transfer.
Once I’ve gotten everyone scouted, I cull out the recruits who are bad defenders and note who the top 25 campers were. There’s an in-state 4-star center who’s willing to chat! I’ll try and moderate my hopes. And he gave me the Heisman on my first in-home...
I guess we should talk about campus visits. I’m now of the opinion that they hurt more than help at schools the prestige of Youngstown. Interested in your thoughts. For now, I’m not doing them.
All we’ve done is lose players in recruiting so far, so let’s take a break to look at the roster and decide on our rotation for the season. As for our freshman, Binky, early returns are not encouraging. I think he’s a redshirt.

Looks like the walk-on is our best option at the point. Sad state of affairs. Better yet, our senior shooting guard can pass and handle. Let’s develop our scholarship guys. We’re going to need the frontcourt to play really well this season. We’ll go into this season with this chart:

And that brings us to the eve of the season with no signees. The juco class was disastrous. Only 2 players over 1-start with at least a C in both defense and rebounding. And since that’s their job… One of them committed elsewhere immediately; the other resolutely refuses to speak to me. Offers out to two more international players. Gonna save here and then tip this off.
We got smoked in our opener. But won our second! A loss to Idaho drops the team to 1-2, but more importantly, SF Brent White -- arguably the best player on the team – breaks his ankle and will miss more than two months. Next man up.
I intended to sim through the end of non-conference season, but it seems I was over-enthusiastic and got the first conference game, too. 4-6 is not what we wanted, but a heckuva lot better than anticipated, especially down a starter (27 days left on the ankle). I’ll call it a sim at this point.

[Vann_the_Red]

Chapter 4 – Season Two Conference Play
We struggled to open conference play with Brent White out and only won one game before his return. Things started to heat up with the expected starting five together and we won 5 of our last 6 to finish the season 10-19 (7-13) and earn the 12 seed and a date with Fort-Wayne in the Skyline tourney.
And we bow out in the tourney opener for back-to-back disappointing seasons. The only plus is increased familiarity with the systems. With the Polar Bears’ season done, we’ll fast forward through the rest of the season and upgrade to DDSCB22 in the offseason.
And, Pitt defeats Marquette for the national title! No Youngstown State players amongst the award winners. I met my 10 win goal (by the skin of my teeth) and failed to not finish last. I won’t even look at other jobs since my first recruit hasn’t graduated yet.
We finally filled out the recruiting class with three centers, on JuCo and two internationals. The plan is to redshirt whichever of the international players rates worse next season. Here’s the incoming class:



Season leaders:
Points: Scott Brown, SO, SG, 10.5; Ray Newton, SR, SG, 10.4, Steve Hein, SR, C, 9.4
Assists: Ray Newton, SR, SG, 3.6; Scott Brown, SO, SG, 2.3; Brent White, JR, SF, 2.2
Rebounds: Hunter Shannon, JR, PF, 6.6; Steve Hein, SR, C, 5.8; Brent White, JR, SF, 4.3
Steals: Steve Hein, SR, C, 2.1; Brent White, JR, SF, 1.6; Scott Brown, SO, SG, 1.4
Blocks: Steve Hein, SR, C, 1.4; Hunter Shannon, JR, PF, 1.1; Scott Brown, SO, SG, 0.5
No changes needed in the coaching staff. I’ll request a budget increase, but I ain’t getting’ it. Time for the season flip and upgrade. If it doesn’t work, well, this has been fun.

[PointGuard]

Both of your international recruits look pretty strong and Haslem looks like he should be a good scorer inside.

[Wayne23]

PG just beat me to it with these comments.

[Vann_the_Red]

Chapter 5 – Season Three
The good news is that the upgrade to 22 worked flawlessly. The bad news is that I lost the juco player I just recruited to transfer plus my returning PG leaving my boy Binky as our only point. So, two freshman 2-star centers and a redshirt freshman point guard who needs a good rerate. Fingers crossed. Sadly, the rerate gods were not kind to us, so Binky enters his first season as the starter as a 1.5 star with a pass/handle/defend of 40/47/32. This is not auspicious. Scott Brown was our second leading assist player last season and he’ll have to serve as the backup point guard this season.
In recruiting, we’ll need another point guard to help Binky, a small forward to replace senior Brent White, and a power forward to replace senior Hunter Shannon. Probably not a bad idea to keep an eye on centers, too, since Jesse Coupland came in as a .5/4 and Phillip Kirk as a 2/3.5.
No commits before practice opens, so let’s swing to the rotation for the year. As usual for my slow-paced teams, we’ll try and settle into an eight-man rotation:
PG: Binkentios “Binky” Gatzioudis, FR
SG: Scott Brown, JR
SF: Brent White, SR
PF: John Bakken, SO(R)
C: Hunter Shannon, SR
Aaron Thompson, SO(R), backcourt
Eric Stephens, JR(R), wing
Phillip Kirk, FR, big
Alright! Two recruits sign before the season!


And one of them is a top ten camper! That brings us to the tip of season 3 still looking for a SF and, maybe, a C.
As always, feedback and questions are wildly encouraged!

[Vann_the_Red]

Chapter Six – 2022-2023
Conference play is underway for the ’22-’23 season and the Polar Bears start off 2-2 when Brent White injures his wrist. He’s still able to play, but the staff shifts some of his minutes backup wing Eric Stephens. The team is 3-4 when White returns, but Hunter Shannon goes down with a calf injury. White takes on some PF minutes to rest Shannon and Stephens continues his wing duties.
Youngstown State finishes non-conference play 4-5 – one game better than last season. Binky’s leading the team with 4.1 assists per game. Hunter Shannon, bad wheel and all, is the leading rebounder at 7.6. Scott Brown (13.6), John Bakken (12.1), and Aaron Thompson (9.9) carry the brunt of the scoring burden.
Sadly, the big European center who fancied us picked UVa instead. No real leads on an upgrade at center. Several small forwards are receptive to our calls. Our recruits are still verbal, so it appears both failed to meet our modest (860) SAT requirements. Mad scramble. Wait, they’re listed as verbal commits, but the SATs are in and they scored highly enough to qualify. Is this a 21-22 change? Recruits used to sign LOIs at the end of the first week. Now I’m confused.
Season closes at 9-20. One game worse than last season. And the season concludes with a 1st round tourney loss to Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a worse season than last. Kentucky defeats NC State for the natty and we’re into the offseason. No Polar Bears on the conference teams. Looks like both my freshman centers may transfer. I may have to ammend the transfers house rule to allow replentishment of portal losses. We’ll see.
The early commits did sign LoIs late. This seems to be a version difference. Picked up two more late commits, too.


Final statistical leaders were as follows:
Points: Scott Brown, JR, SG, 12.6; John Bakken, SO, PF, 10.8; Hunter Shannon, SR, PF, 8.5
Assists: Binky, FR, PG, 3.1; Scott Brown, JR, SG, 2.5; Aaron Thompson, SO, SG, 2.2
Rebounds: Hunter Shannon, SR, PF, 6.3; John Bakken, SO, PF, 6.0; Brent White, SR, SF, 4.4
Steals: Scott Brown, JR, SG, 2.1; Brent White, JR, SF, 1.4; Aaron Thompson, SO, SG, 1.2
Blocks: John Bakken, SO, PF, 1.0; Brent White, SR, SF, 0.7; Hunter Shannon, SR, PF, 0.7
Did not get my funding increase. I’m going to flip the season, catalog my transfer losses, and call it a night. Number 86 recruiting class. That’s headed the right direction. Gut punch as we lose both freshman centers AND Aaron Thompson, our third guard. This is not going well.

[PointGuard]

Yes with CB2022, some recruits don't sign LOI's in November...some of those meet the SAT's in January, others do not.

[Vann_the_Red]

Thanks for that, Fedora. Scared me.