Hi All, I am struggling to understand prestige and what helps/improves it -- I started at a small school (Rice) and I've certainly had some success over the past three seasons -->

2 Seasons Ago: 24-9, Won conference tournament, lost as an 11 seed; Prestige moved from a 22 to 27
1 Season Ago: 26-9, At-Large Bid, pulled tow upsets as an 11 seed to make the sweet 16; Prestige moved from a 27 to 33
Current Season: 24-10 At-Large Bid, won in round 1 as a 9 seed and then lost the 1 seed in round 2; Prestige moved down from 33 to 31.

What is going on here! 3 straight tournament appearances at a lowly C-USA school and I just won a game in the tournament, yet my prestige is moving down. Does anyone have any idea on what else has a material impact on prestige? Do I need to get closer to 30 wins and win tournament games to move above 40? Or is there some "baseline" prestige for Rice that I'm buoyed to?

I don’t have an answer for you but I wonder if your scheduling could help.

It’s hard at a small school but maybe beating a major conference team or two in-season could help? Winning a pre-season tournament. I also wonder if real success in the NIT would help more than a win or two in the NCAA. I wouldn’t think so but not sure how the game determines that value

Every school has a historic prestige. You’ve had some good seasons, but your 3 seasons are a blip in the history of Rice. Continuing to improve on your seasons, better opponents, Sweet 16 or better in NCAA, will improve it over time. I have 40+ year save with UC San Diego and they’re 80ish prestige (longer build as I started as a 0 rated coach on max difficulty). It’s a grind to raise prestige at a small school but it can be done.

Very interesting! I guess the historic prestige makes sense, but my main point of confusion is making the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament and prestige moving down. The baseline expectations for a 33 prestige school can't be a sweet 16, otherwise everyone would crater every year, right?

My guess is your seeing total prestige both "current" and "historical" added together. Historical moves slowly but Current can be significant change. Not winning your conference tournament probably was a hit to your "Current" prestige thus showing the drop.
Just as an example lets say Rice starts with a 20 Historical and 3 Current prestige's for a total of 23. You have a couple of good seasons winning your Conference tournament your current prestige moves up by 6, say 5 current and 1 historical to 29. Then you have another decent season but did not win your tournament but did make the Sweet 16 so say another 6, 1 historical and 5 current for total of 34. Then you did not win conference tournament and went out of the big Dance in round two. Your current might be 3 and historical did not change thus the drop. Your historical most likely stayed the same but the big drop in current caused the appearance of a drop you do not expect. The good thing is you have been adding to your Historical which is a slow change but your current can change a lot each year based on how you did. You get most points for Conference tournament win and going to Sweet 16 on up to national champs. So no worry's another good season and you have a higher historical base to build on and then a nice current rating and you'll see another big jump as current swings significantly year to year based on results.
Hope that makes sense....

I completely agree with NCAAhoops comments. In the example you posted, I was actually a bit surprised by how much your prestige rose in the first 2 years in that example.,,so as they'd say in Australia, "Good on ya, mate!" And then having a worse W-L record, not winning the conf touney, and not making it as far in the NCAA Tournament in your 3rd year as you did in your 2nd year were likely major contributors to your slight decrease in prestige after the 3rd year.

So if you want to see your prestige increase significantly, take on a strong schedule and win games against top-ranked opponents, have a very good winning percentage, get a good ranking in the polls and a strong NET, win your conference tourney, and go deep in the NCAA tourney....and do it year in and year out. (Not asking much, huh!)

PointGuard wrote:I completely agree with NCAAhoops comments. In the example you posted, I was actually a bit surprised by how much your prestige rose in the first 2 years in that example.,,so as they'd say in Australia, "Good on ya, mate!" And then having a worse W-L record, not winning the conf touney, and not making it as far in the NCAA Tournament in your 3rd year as you did in your 2nd year were likely major contributors to your slight decrease in prestige after the 3rd year.

So if you want to see your prestige increase significantly, take on a strong schedule and win games against top-ranked opponents, have a very good winning percentage, get a good ranking in the polls and a strong NET, win your conference tourney, and go deep in the NCAA tourney....and do it year in and year out. (Not asking much, huh!)

How hard can that be when you can only get 1-star guys to return your calls and you need them to get 1100 on the SAT, seems easy!

TripLykely wrote:Every school has a historic prestige. You’ve had some good seasons, but your 3 seasons are a blip in the history of Rice. Continuing to improve on your seasons, better opponents, Sweet 16 or better in NCAA, will improve it over time. I have 40+ year save with UC San Diego and they’re 80ish prestige (longer build as I started as a 0 rated coach on max difficulty). It’s a grind to raise prestige at a small school but it can be done.

Hey, have you been able to successfully raise your budget? To mirror a base game 80 prestige?

cbraddy wrote:

TripLykely wrote:Every school has a historic prestige. You’ve had some good seasons, but your 3 seasons are a blip in the history of Rice. Continuing to improve on your seasons, better opponents, Sweet 16 or better in NCAA, will improve it over time. I have 40+ year save with UC San Diego and they’re 80ish prestige (longer build as I started as a 0 rated coach on max difficulty). It’s a grind to raise prestige at a small school but it can be done.

Hey, have you been able to successfully raise your budget? To mirror a base game 80 prestige?

I’m not exactly sure how the current budget compares to a base 80 prestige school but I’ve successfully raised it multiple times. It’s currently enough for a good staff, national and regional gold reports, and visiting all regional camps plus Indy Elite. Should note your facilities degrade over time, so you’ll need to upgrade them. Generally I alternate between facilities and budget unless facilities are A+.