Tactics, Sets, and Game Strategy

[thedrdrive]

Hi all,

I am just getting back into the game after an 8 or so year hiatus! Congrats to Gary and the dev team for all the improvements to the base game since.

I started a new career with the New Mexico Lobos (using the NCAA mod), and am looking for advice as to how folks successfully manage their tactics, sets, and game strategy.

I don't know too much about the tactical aspects of basketball, so I thought my approach was reasonably conservative: I basically maintained the default sets (mostly 5-out with some flex and shuffle). My starters had the greatest familiarity with those anyway. I structured practice time accordingly. During the 2D games, I am content to just take a backseat; I set AI to manage substitutes, and generally don't mess with the sliders.

And...I lose! I lose a lot. I've got a pretty poor record, and am losing against teams I'm favored to win against. Not sure what is going wrong.

I would love any advice and help on a few things:

1. Am I making any obvious mistakes or just getting unlucky?
2. How do you choose your sets/strategy? Do you just optimize for familiarity, or stick with a preferred style? How do I know what styles work best for my players?
3. How do you approach in-game adjustments? I have no idea when to do things like increase defensive intensity or crash boards.

Cheers - any help would be so appreciated!!

[Billdozer]

A few questions.

1. What is the scouting ability of your scouting assistant? Sometimes your scout is wrong about your chances of winning. Sometimes upsets happen and your team has foul trouble or a bad game. Winning on the road in conference tends to be very difficult. Scouting assistants are aware of home vs road games but it feels like they often underestimate the benefit of playing at home.

2. 5 out and Shuffle provide opportunities for Power Forwards and Centers to shoot from the outside. If your big guys are all good at Inside shooting and are poor outside shooters an offense like Motion or Triangle might fit them better. I am not very familiar with flex offense

3. I used to play my games but now I simulate. I think if you make too many drastic changes all at once in-game it mostly backfires and confuses players. A few minor adjustments can be beneficial though.

[thedrdrive]

Thanks for the ideas @Billdozer!

To your questions...

1) My scouting assistant has a pretty weak 2 stars in that department...so that's helpful to know he could be getting it wrong.

2) This is very helpful guidance, exactly what I was missing.

One question - How should I think about the "scoring" vs "shooting" metrics? For example, my guards are awesome outside shooters (90+), but both have dreadful (<15) "Scoring". So...should I run an offense through them, or not?

I'd best describe my current starters as follows (https://imgur.com/a/Nh9qULD):

-Guards are excellent outside shooters, with my PG having reasonable passing skills too. Both pretty well sized too
-Forwards reasonably big and with great rebounding stats. OK shooting but somehow much higher "scoring" than my guards
-Center just seems like a rebounding asset

Any ideas or recommendations?

Thanks again!

[NCAAhoops]

Couple things I notice from the pics you posted.
1. Not very athletic so they will not be real good at creating their own shot (at least those two players) and I think you said they were your best scorers. So you most likely need to run sets. I would slow down the pace but you need good passers and handlers to slow the pace and I only see one of the guards. But then run a good practiced set at a slightly lower pace and they should pass the ball around and find an open guy as they are not athletic enough to create their own shot.
2. You are better practiced against Zone offenses than your main offensive sets. I would adjust practice time down for zone offense and up it shuffle and flex and try to get one or both of those up near 100% and run them at a high %. If the rest of your team is not athletic then offensive freedom will work against you as they are not good enough to get open a lot.

If you have watched some of the tournament this year and seen upsets the big thing that should stand out. Those teams don't have better players or even better athletes but they know their offense 100% and run it very well and don't freelance a lot.
That's the style you want to duplicate. If you want post the other 3 starters pics and maybe have more idea's.

Without seeing the entire team and going by your post this is my best guess. I would be curious about the rest of the starters before giving any other input.

[thedrdrive]

Thanks @ncaahoops! That guidance is very useful - good catch on the athleticism.

Here is a set of screenshots with all my players with attributes, tactical familiarities, and detailed screenshots on my starters.

https://imgur.com/a/a5rkyqT

A few specific questions that I had reviewing your advice:

1. I really hadn't thought much about the specific set %, so that is a clever point. I'm guessing if a team has high athleticism + high IQ I can give them more freedom and fewer sets?
2. You're right, makes sense to practice more on those primary offensive sets if I want to run them more often
3. How should I differentiate between the "scoring" skill and the "shooting" skills (e.g. outside shooting). I have a few players with very high outside shooting but terrible scoring....I imagine I shouldn't plan on them scoring much despite their shooting ability?
4. Exactly right on the last point - I'd love to figure out a style and then (especially for this lower-athleticism group) commit to it with higher sets.

The trouble is just choosing the right set! How do you think about whether to focus more on shuffle vs. flex vs. princeton vs. others?

Thank you again. Both you and @billdozer are giving me lots to think about!

[Wildcat18]

Thanks @ncaahoops! That guidance is very useful - good catch on the athleticism.

Here is a set of screenshots with all my players with attributes, tactical familiarities, and detailed screenshots on my starters.

https://imgur.com/a/a5rkyqT

A few specific questions that I had reviewing your advice:

1. I really hadn't thought much about the specific set %, so that is a clever point. I'm guessing if a team has high athleticism + high IQ I can give them more freedom and fewer sets?
2. You're right, makes sense to practice more on those primary offensive sets if I want to run them more often
3. How should I differentiate between the "scoring" skill and the "shooting" skills (e.g. outside shooting). I have a few players with very high outside shooting but terrible scoring....I imagine I shouldn't plan on them scoring much despite their shooting ability?
4. Exactly right on the last point - I'd love to figure out a style and then (especially for this lower-athleticism group) commit to it with higher sets.

The trouble is just choosing the right set! How do you think about whether to focus more on shuffle vs. flex vs. princeton vs. others?

Thank you again. Both you and @billdozer are giving me lots to think about!

For No. 3, shooting is their actual ability to put the ball in the hoop, scoring is their ability to create their own shot/willingness to shoot. A guy with high scoring and low shooting will be next to useless unless he has a very high draw foul rating, as he’s going to shoot and miss a *lot*. A guy with lose scoring and high shooting can be useful as a tertiary option, like a traditional PG, if they have good ball handling skills or defensive skills. If they dont, however, they can create a lot of turnovers by their unwillingness to shoot. Your best players will have high shooting and high scoring.

You absolutely need at least 1 person with a high scoring rating and at least an acceptable shooting score to have a functional offense. If you don’t, your team will be prone to turnovers, either by bad passes or shot clock violations.

As for high offensive freedom, while better teams will be more capable of pulling it off, I have found a scenario where it works great for a low-prestige team - specifically, if you can get one guy capable of taking over a game on his own and dropping 30+ pts a night. Kind of a “give him the ball and get out of the way” strategy. When I started my Fordham save last fall, I had a guy like that at the start - 10/10 outside shooting, 6/10 scoring. Shot 40% from 3 in his two seasons with me, dragging the team kicking and screaming into the tournament one year as a 16-seed.

[Billdozer]

You're welcome. I would also recommend upgrading on defense and try to find players who can shoot and score. Your guard scoring 12 points a game looks like a decent player and the Center can rebound. Yes, I agree ncaahoops about real life march madness.. That was really a big difference in the Loyola-Chicago vs Illinois game. Loyola passed the ball and ran their system. Illinois played a lot of isolation basketball and were frustrated on offense.

[NCAAhoops]

If they have low athleticism your not going to have many fast beaks and lots of offensive freedom will not help a low scoring player if he can't get open. Also Shuffle Offense is players in constant movement and fast cuts that's where I'm
concerned in the lack of athleticism. Also you should have good passing skills to run that offense and with constant movement and sharp cuts a lack of athleticism by guys running it most likely not result in good shots.

thedrive. It appears you have decent players they are just young an inexperienced. If you get your offensive sets practiced along with defensive practice I think your team will improve later in the year and you should get better each
year as your guys are going to be around several years. Your team is young. I would reduce zone offensive practice down to 5% each and with your good outside shooters I would keep the 5-out offense as your main focus and may try Outside focus with the shooters you have and keep the other offenses as a change up in case you hit a real good defensive team shutting down your 5 out or you will have to live and die by the 3 point shot and you will have off nights shooting.I
depends how consistent you team is.
Your team is not overly athletic so I would keep offensive freedom below 50%. As they get better with their sets later in the year I would slow the pace some and lower freedom more. Watch the turnovers to find a sweet spot with pace as you do not have a great pass-handling team either. I would use the Exhibition menu to test things and see what works.
I think if your patient by year 2 or 3 you will have a pretty good team as you appear to have a decent base of players that are going to improve over time and when their 5-out set get up near 100% they are going to be pretty good.
Think Loyola this year. Solid but not great team but knows how to run their offense. Also watch emails for any issue with players and handle immediately to keep all happy and I think you will do well. My guess is next 1 or 2 years a conference champ and then an invite to NCAA. Good luck!

C is a SR but you have a FR in waiting
PF is a SR but you have a FR waiting that looks like he may be good with time. You need to recruit a PF as a backup as the only one you'll have after this year is a walk on.
SF No problem there you have a couple young guys in waiting
SG is young and will be around
PG has another year and another in waiting. I would try to recruit a back up PG soon in case the one in waiting isn't as good as his ratings show and you still will need a backup once your current one graduates. Of course I believe in
having a good point guard with good pass-handle to break presses, reduce turn overs and give me high assists.
I would also look at one of the SF with good pass-Handle if not too tall like Rowles (if 6'6" or under) maybe as a SG. He's athletic and a scorer. I would play him late if winning to get him experience. That is if you don't get one recruiting.
Best of luck.I like your team and their Logos.