Way too many free-throws

[Qnextdoor]

I play the 3D sim and I noticed that a lot of free-throws are being taken. My team is a very good defensive team with high disciple, but for some reason we can't keep the other team off the line. I have 3 defender types and all players in the game has a 45+ defensive rating. Teams with worse defenders are commiting less fouls. I checked the other player's draw-foul ratings, most of them have very low ratings. My defensive intensity is at normal. It doesn't feel like I'm losing to better teams, It feels like a battle between free-throws. Here's the number of free-throws attempted and makes from my current season.

Colorado: 26/53 FG, 32/51 FT
Denver: 23/59 FG, 13/16 FT
Texas-San Antonio: 16/51 FG, 25/34 FT
Middle Tennessee: 26/61 FG, 16/18 FT
West Virgina: 26/64 FG, 17/24 FT
Iowa: 36/76 FG, 13/14 FT
Minnesota: 24/50 FG, 23/29 FT
San Jose: 17/49 FG, 19/23 FT
Indiana: 28/68 FG, 16/24 FT
Eastern Kentucky: 27/65 FG, 14/16 FT
Lafayette: 26/58 FG, 13/21 FT
Wyoming: 25/47 FG, 22/27 FT
Vanderbelt: 18/60 FG, 19/26 FT


I'm open to hearing any advice on how to limit free-throw attempts.

[PointGuard]

In real life NCAA last season, the average number of FTA/g was 17.9 with the team with the highest number of FTA's averaging 25.4/game (and DDSCB2023 has been very close to those same averages). So while you're within the RANGE for FTA's, you're definitely at the top of the range. Of course that first game with 51 FT's sort of threw things askew. If it had been more of an average FT game, your average FTA/game would have been about 23/game, which is still high, but not horrible. The number of FTA's in the other 12 games are pretty normal both for real life NCAA and within DDSCB.

Not sure what else you can do to cut down the fouls against your team and resultant FTA's taken by your opponents. Be sure you've set an adequate amount of your practice time to devote to the defensive set(s) you're employing for your team so they become as experienced with them as possible. If this is your first season with the team and you're only half with thru that season, maybe your players are not yet all that proficient with your defensive sets (same could be true if you have a large number of freshmen, incoming JC players, and incoming transfer players). That could mean that fouls will decrease a bit as your players practice the sets you're using more and become more experienced with them.

[Qnextdoor]

I just played a couple of games and the last couple of game my team had 5 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game. During one of my games, we had 7 fouls 5 minutes into the game. What can I do? I'm losing the free-throw battle almost every game. 30% of practice goes towards Man-to-Man and my players are very good. How can I play Defense without fouling?

[NCAAhoops]

Make sure your game is up to date. Version 11.7 see 2nd line.

Version 11.7 (11/28/23)
-----------------------
- fixed issue where sometimes strategy and depth chart would not properly load
- addressed issues with rare foul differences between sim and coached games

[Qnextdoor]

My game has the latest update. I don't understand why I still have problems.

[PointGuard]

Yeah, my opinion is that DDSCB23 tends too frequently have too many fouls EARLY (first 2-5 minutes) in the game, but the total number of fouls for the entire game on average comes out very near to what has been the case in real life. Due to the early fouls, I sometimes have to sit a starter (if he picks up his 2nd foul early in the first half) until later in the half or until the 2nd half...similarly to what occurs when a guy picks up his 2nd foul ealry or midway through the first half in real life. My experience with CB23 is that usually the guy doesn't foul out of the game, though.

My TYPICAL (although of course it depends on the game situation) approach has been that if a guy picks up his 2nd foul early or midway thru the 1st half, he's going to the bench...Same approach is he picks up his 3rd foul early in the 2nd half or his 4th foul prior to the last 5 (or so) minutes remaining in the game. From what I've observed many real life college coaches do something sort of similar.

I know that Gary has been trying to address the early fouling issue within his DDSCB2024 development. I'm not sure how difficult correcting this is. Once CB24 is released we'll see how successful he has been with fixing it.

[Qnextdoor]

I usually sit my players after their first 2 fouls, then put them back in 1-2 minutes left. I would end the game with at least 2 starters over 4 fouls. Maybe i should just sit them for the rest of the halfand not worry about minutes. Thank you for the advice.