Hello everyone!

Excited to be joining this forum. I'm Zach (or Zingo if you prefer usernames). Big fan of the sports management genre, just recently discovered the Draft Day franchise and started with this game (despite being more of an NFL fan, I just enjoy the thrill of college basketball, especially tournament play). I recently started a new game, with the realistic teams mod, starting unemployed the first year as a Rookie coach (Elite potential) and just took my first job with San Jose State following the 2020 season (unemployed, journeyman save, looking to jump in a year or two).

I'd appreciate some tactical advice if anyway has anything. Just knowing how to set strategies, which tactics to pursue, etc. I've been watching Cards' Games on the General Manager Games YT, which has been entertaining but I'd appreciate some additional advice on what to look for when setting team tactics. I also tend to sim games over playing them if that impacts anything.

Thanks and I'm exciting to be joining such an engaged sports community!

Zach/Zingo: Welcome to the DDSCB world. I think you'll find that there are a lot of different ways to play this game and there will be a lot of different opinions on how to set your strategies. Here's my 2-cents on it though:

Most people implement 2 or 3 offensive strateties and a m-2-m defense and one zone defense and one press defense (but some have success doing differently).

First read the descriptions for each of the offenses and defenses and take note of what skills are needed for each...and also which strategies YOU prefer.

Second, take a look at your roster and where do you feel the strengths are (particularly passing and inside vs outside shooting capabilities) and see how this aligns with the various strategies.

Third, since you're a new coach at a college, check which strategies those players who were with the team in prior seasons have the most proficiency with (can easily see this on the Offensive and Defensive Strategy screens. If there's a good match with your team's strengths and your preferences re the various strategies, it might be good to use some or all of these since your non-freshmen players already have proficiency and experience with those.

Fourth, be sure to set your practices to match the strategies you will be implenting.

If you're going to sim the games, the AI will implement the strategies approximately according to the percentage usage you have chosen.

Hopefully others will provide their advice and you can choose which makes the most sense to you and works best for you.

Enjoy the game and good luck with the Spartans. Looking forward to your input here on the forums.

Thank you for the taking the time to write out such a detailed response and for the welcoming remarks.. The current years have been rough so far with only 12-13 wins each season and first round conference championship exits (about to start my fourth season with the team). The Mountain West is killing me, although have a solid, top 100 recruit who was brought in this year so I’m hoping he can push us over the top in a few games to finish just over .500. It’s the last year of my starting contract so I think I’m leaving regardless, even though my job security is still 100%

I think I need to incorporate more diverse defensive strategies because currently I only have M2M and Full Court M2M but the team is just so bad at zone that it is hard to justify. Will they get better at it over time? And is there a max percentage you’d recommend as a “ceiling” for any given tactic? Thank you again.

Either implement and practice it and start with running it a low percentage of the time and increase the percentage as your guys get more familiar with it...or just add it to your practicing and when your guys have a bit of familiarity begin using it (probabiy at not too high a % of the time).