I'm going to try out the 5-Out, Inside Focus idea that the Ai teams employ. Also, I'm going against my usual choices and starting out at a lowly school with limited resources. They are Academics B and Facilities C.

Further, I'm going to go all zone defense, with little to no pressing or defensive pressure. Again, contrary to my instincts.

As a coach, I gave myself HIGH in everything, but with a temper, so we'll see how that works with less than stellar talent.

The first year is all about recruiting for me, as I don't give a horse's patoot about the start out players.

There are 3 schollies available, with 2 SGs and an SF graduating. The Cunningham twins aren't the Van Arsdales, but they start, so we'll miss them.

My plan will be to try for a big man, a scorer and a PG to nail down the starting nucleus. I won't pay as much attention to Athletes, indeed I might go the other way on purpose to see if going zone makes these guys more resilient. My experience is that lower ATH guys tire and foul much more in the pressing, high pressure D I like to go with.

Hopefully I'll be able to get 'slashers' but that depends on so many chances that I can't count on it.

Oh yeah, I went with HARD on recruiting now that I have my routines back up and running. I went with the basic report, so I'll miss seeing the other schools, which is a shame. That adds so much to the color of recruiting.

The first year recruiting went relatively smoothly. The first bump was a good looking C who decided to go to Iona. However my first two targets a PG and a SG, committed, as did my second choice big man. The SG has a worrying 2.3 GPA so I'm a bit concerned that he might not get to 940 on his SATs. A few months to go before we find out. Meanwhile, I'm contacting the few regional recruits still out there and began cultivating international possibilites since there is a ton of money left. Next year will definitely be the gold report.

Practice plans next.

Hey, you started a Dynasty Report with the 5 Out and Inside Focus offensive strategy like what you and I discussed recently in another thread! I'm eager to see how much success you have. Go Seawolves!

The Seawolves have Shuffle as there preferred offense, with a little bit of Princeton and High Post thrown in. So we will leave those 3 on 0 and go 20 on Five Out and 20 on Triangle for the first season. Also 5-5-5 on the zone offenses.

On defense, they are 70 man and 30 1-2-2. I changed to 0 man and 10 on each of the zones. Gradually we'll switch over to the zones as the season progresses. I'm changing to the 2-2-1 half court trap for pressure time, which should be rare.

first game of the season is home to Prairie View. A toss up, 52-48 for us. Looking at the scouting report, PV uses Outside Motion and man and rarely presses. Let's see more.

I begin my game plan by clicking on the roster, then going to stats and sorting by minutes played so I can see who starts. PV has played one game already, so I can do this. I glance at who the top scorers are, then click on ratings so I can see the players a bit better. First I notice Defense and that they are not bad. One hole is at PG. All three players are 18's, so that is a plus for me. The other guys are solid, however, with the SG and SF being the best. So an outside focus won't be optimal.

Next I click on the first player and check his card for experience. The report says Motion, however, Flex and Highpost are nearly as proficient for the players, so I expect a lot of those two. If I had a viable 3-2 zone, I'd run that 30-40% as it is said in the description that it is effective against High Post and I have found that to be true. But I don't have it trained at all yet, so no dice. On defense, they are almost as good at 1-2-2 zone, so I expect a lot of that, too. The rarely press part will likely be true, so I don't have to rush the ball up. We'll walk it up and set up the offense.

So how do we match up? Defensively we are shaky, and we lack scoring ability. So taking time off the clock and working the ball inside seems like a plan. I decide on Shuffle, Princeton and 5 Out (already 24 for most players!) and Inside focus.

On defense, the training is working. We'll go man 50, 1-2-2 zone 40 and 3-2 10.

So far, so good. Won both home games, dropped the road:

Beat Prairie View 78-68
Lost at Grambling 78-89
Beat Liberty 93-73

Not playing enough 5-Out or the four zones yet but that will be rising as the team learns the sets. I did notice the player I asked to get a tutor for a month has the lowest ratings for the new systems, so that is as designed.

I moved the back-up PF, a frosh, to start and he put up 28 against Liberty, with 4-5 from three so he will make a good 5 OUTer I hope.

I'm upping the new system sets about 10% each for the fourth game so we'll see. I am 'Favoring Inside' in all the sets.

We finished up the pre-conference in a typical DDSCB season: 6-0 at home, 0-5 on the road.

Then disaster struck as the team's starting C, 6-10 Jr Jacob King, despite two months of a tutor, flopped to 1.8 GPA. He's out for the rest of the season.

With that, I simply shuffled the lineup and went with same game plans. Total disaster. Three straight hidings.

At Md-BC lost 74-91
home to Albany lost 70-81
at Hartford lost 72-97

So time to go new. Checking the skill sets after the last practice session I noticed distinct improvement. Triangle, 5-out and the three new zones all 35 and up. With 1-2-2 already at a high level, I decided to drop man altogether and go 40% 1-2-2 and the other three 20% each. The offense is now 35 shuffle 35 triangle and 30 5-out.

Brilliant move, Four straight wins!

Home to over Maine, 78-61
road over last place Binghamton, 85-79
home over UMass-Lowell, 99-81
road over Vermont 91-88

So eked out on the road and thumpings at home.

Odd note is the PF I promoted to the starting lineup in game 3 has had difficulty staying out of foul trouble in the new system. In his first 14 games he had 32 fouls. In the four new system games, he has 14, reaching 4 three times. His DISCIPLINE is low, but IQ is higher than average for us. So I'll keep an eye on him.

We are second in scoring, but second bottom in defense. First in FT attempts, ordinary in 3's taken, but tied for FG % lead. Our turnovers are 13.9 by us, forcing 13.2 so not so hot, but average for the league. We're snagging one more rebound than our opponents, so good there.

We'll continue to move to 5-out as the system is learned.

I'm shutting this one down for several reasons. First, all-zone and 5 Out at the same time is a bit hard in that a player suitable for 5 out might not be the better defender, too.

Second, recruiting at a lower prestige school means its hard to get the types of players needed. Often the players interested aren't suitable for 5 Out

Lastly, I'm confirming that there are really EIGHT different kinds of offenses with the eighth being heavy on transition offense. Indeed, I continue to think that this choice is the most important offensive setting, not so much the type of offense.

So look for DePaul, which starts out with a great Knowledge of 5 Out soon.