Hoops dynasty - Tufts DIII

[shug94]

I have been following Joannes' adventures on here closely and decided to get my own team.

So, at the start of the current season, I became head coach at Tufts University in World 2 of Hoops Dynasty. We had 8 open scholarship positions, with only 4 returning Juniors, and only one of those was starter quality.

I started out this season by losing both exhibition games.

I then lost all 10 non-conference games. I knew that this would be a rebuilding year, but I didn't think it would be THIS tough!

But through all of that my freshmen trained and got better, and my team got better at running my offense.

I am now sitting at a record of 5-6 in conference play, and things are looking sweet for next year!

I will keep you all updated in more detail throughout the last few games of the regular season, along with the conference championship.

[joannes3000]

Looking forward to the updates!

[skankin_richard]

haha, tufts! nice! My girlfriend goes there.

As for hoops dynasty, is it worth the money? I've wanted to get into it for a while, but I'm wanna be sure its more than just an internet version of College Hoops 2k7's dynasty mode

[shug94]

I enjoy it a lot, and it isn't really a lot of money.

Plus if you are reasonably successful then you get points which can be spent on additional seasons. I have paid for my first two seasons, I hope next year I can get a couple of rounds into the national tournament.

[shug94]

We played two of the top three teams in the conference in the last three games.

My win loss record before these two games was 5-16

First up was Trinity (CT) (21-3), which was favoured by 13.5 points. They emerged victorious, 68-51, beating us by 17 points and showing that our youth still has a lot of growing to do.

Next up was Wesleyan (18-4) on their home court. They were favoured by 15 points. We were tied with them at half time, 41-41. But our hot three point shooting did not continue, and ended up losing by 9 (at least doing better than Vegas expected).

Tommorrow our game is against #24 Connecticut, which is another of the top three teams in our conference. The spread favors them by 18 points, but I think we can give them a run for their money, as they are primarily an offensive team, and we can match their style with our up tempo motion offense.

Our star Fresher PG - John Champagne - will be academically ineligible for one more game before returning to the team for our final two games against league lightweights Colby (4-18) and Sim AI coached Amherst (4-19).

I should be able to win those last two games, likely giving me a 7-10 conference record before the NESCAC conference tournament starts. I have an RPI rank of around 300, so I will need to win my conf tourney to advance. That is unlikely this year, but with 8 freshman on my squad, I expect huge performance in the next three seasons, and to challenge for conference and national tournaments before this group graduates!

[shug94]

We played #24 Connecticut, and while we were the first team to hold them to below 100 points in their last 8 games, we were unable to salvage a win against a ranked opponent.

Final score 95-74.

Next up on the schedule is Colby, which is an even money bet with vegas. But I feel confident.

P.S. Does anyone know if revoking scholarships results in less players wanting to sign with you?

[shug94]

To make a long story short, I lost to Colby in overtime, at home 109-102. I beat Amherst 86-63 to at least end the regular season on a high note.

But then it was conference tournament time. And who did I draw in the first round, it was my arch-nemesis Colby again. This time they beat me 91-77 at their homecourt, and now I am out of the tournament.

We did well though. My star Junior Center Alan Quintal averaged 15.6 points and 10.5 rebounds to lead my team in those categories, while leading the conference in rebounding. My other three Juniors were passable, and of my 8 freshmen, three played really well:

Richard Haskins, a 6'2" shooting guard from NY averaged 10.3 points, 1.9 assists and 1.5 rebounds.

Christopher Levin, a 6'0" small forward from New Hampshire averaged 10.1 points, 0.8 assists and 4.9 rebounds.

Jacob Bledsoe, a 6'6" power forward also from New Hampshire averaged 9.9 points, 0.8 assists and 5.8 rebounds.

I expect big things from them next year.

I plan on perhaps revoking the scholarship of one of my excess small forwards so that I can sign a freshman center next year to learn behind my two senior centers next season. Cause I don't want a hole in the middle the year after that.

[shug94]

The NESCAC Conference awards have been announced.

Woo!

Freshman of the Year:

Jacob Bledsoe (9.9 ppg , 5.8 rpg, 1.4 bpg) PF - Tufts University

Go team! I figured that three of my guys were contenders for Frosh of the year. Good work Bledsoe.

Also, my star Center Alan Quintal ended up as center on the all conference third team. But he was the only junior center selected, the two above were seniors.

I am really excited about next season, I should get some improvement from my guys, and I will dump one of my crap players to spend all of my recruiting budget on one star freshman. Let's see if I can win Freshman of the year two years in a row!

[drzachary]

Quote:

---

The NESCAC Conference awards have been announced.

Woo!

Freshman of the Year:

Jacob Bledsoe (9.9 ppg , 5.8 rpg, 1.4 bpg) PF - Tufts University

Go team! I figured that three of my guys were contenders for Frosh of the year. Good work Bledsoe.

Also, my star Center Alan Quintal ended up as center on the all conference third team. But he was the only junior center selected, the two above were seniors.

I am really excited about next season, I should get some improvement from my guys, and I will dump one of my crap players to spend all of my recruiting budget on one star freshman. Let's see if I can win Freshman of the year two years in a row!

---

Glad to see you're enjoying it. Hoops Dynasty dominated my life for a while until I quit cold-turkey. I had a few nice runs though, in Div-III and Div-II. I'm sure I'll pick it up again someday after a major update.

[shug94]

yeah, I can see how it becomes an all consuming passion.

I try to only check it once per day now. But recruiting was crazy.

[shug94]

Last season was my first at Tufts, and while we had some troubles ( going winless in nonconference), we ended up doing pretty well in the conference games, winning 30%. We fielded a team of four juniors and 8 freshmen, and inexperience was a big problem. Now we have 8 soph's and four seniors, and everyone's talent level (as well as bball IQ) is greatly improved. I foresee some great games this coming season.

First, the starters:

PG - David Nash (So) - Managed to wrestle the starting job from John Champagne in the middle of last season, and is both the defensive backcourt specialist and the best distributor on this team.

SG - Richard Haskins (So) - This guy has silky offensive moves, and shot over 80% last year from behind the free throw stripe. Averaged just over 10 ppg last season, but now he knows the offense and so he should do even better.

SF - Christopher Levin (So) - This kid from the suburbs has the type of work ethis that I have rarely seen. He rebounds well from the small forward position, and has both low post and perieter shooting skills. Something of a jack of all trades, he is like my teams white, less skilled, shorter Shawn Marion.

PF - Jacob Bledsoe (So) - Won the NESCAC rookie of the year award last season, and with his length and skills, he should easily average a double-double this season.

C - Alan Quintal (Sn) - Was the teams lone representative on the All Conference teams, a former conference rookie of the year winner, and he led this team last season in rebounds, points and steals. Tufts will do well if Quintal does well.

The backups:

PG - John Chapagne (So) - a great ballhandler and scorer, his defense cost him the starting job. Has weak academic skill and will struggle to remain eligible.

SG - Adam Maxwell (Sn) - very high percentage 3pt shooter, jack of all trades.

PG/SG - Edward Bell (So) - Good work ethic, bad defense, bad durability.

SF - Raymond Castellano (Sn) - Good rebounder and defender.

SF - Charles Winchester (So) - Very poor player, with poor work ethic and barely saw the court last season. Recruited him to ensure that there was a warm body at practise.

PF - Tony Wadsworth (So) - Solid rebounder, great shotblocker, efficient scorer, but hasn't quite grasped the concept of passing yet.

C - Lloyd Johnson (Sn) - Great rebounder, defender and shot blocker. Lacks some low post skills and doesn't have the overall athleticism of Quintal.

The season following this one will feature all of my current soph's, but my all conference center tandem will have graduated. So I decided to be pro-active and do something about it now. I have cut Winchester, and I plan to sit and wait until the end of recruiting before picking up a high work ethic center who drops from division II so that I can stash him on the bench for a year and then not have interior weakness the following season.

I have also red-shirted Edward Bell so that he can work on the holes on his game and to give him one more year of eligibility than his peers.

I am trying desperately to spread out my team amongst more than just two classes, so that I don't have to fully rebuild every four seasons and I can just reload every year.

I will keep you all posted on the recruiting trail!

Go the Tufts Fighting Elephants!

[drzachary]

Cool, keep us posted! Once the crappy SimAI recruits start cycling out, you will notice that you can win most of your games

[shug94]

The search for a Freshman Center continues.

I have four likely candidates:

Brunon Kujawksi, a bruiser of a player from the Romanian Junior National Team. I cannot call him, nor do I have the budget for a school visit, because it is so far away, but after sending him information about my program, this was his reply:

"Tufts no basket me play there.

Brunon Kujawski"

Do you think this means "Tufts knows basketball and I want to play there" OR "I will not play basketball at Tufts". I may have to contact his coach and hope his communication skills are better.

The other three are Mark Horner (who is now considering another school, so I suppose I am out of the running), Luis Lopez, a Puerto Rican bigman with awesome work ethic, low poast and rebounding but no defense; and Matthew Frary, a 6'6" Center from Pennsylvania, who is pretty much the front runner right now. I might throw some money at Frary and Kujawski and see what happens.

[shug94]

The reply I got this time from the honorable mr Kujawski was a little more clear-cut:

"Me no likey Tufts

Brunon Kujawski"

Hehehe, that is just hilarious!

I think I may just target my PR prince, Luis Lopez.

[drzachary]

Hahaha, I never got that reply. They must have added some new ones. Here's my all-time favorite:

"SHHH-BANG! That's what I'm talking about! I was so excited to see you at the house, my momma had to hose down the carpet three times. She said she hadn't seen anybody so excited since the day they delivered grandpappy's Russian mail-order bride. She didn't speak a lick of English, but grandpappy didn't seem to mind. I'm not sure what she saw in him, but she must've seen something 'cuz they would go at it like two gophers at a carrot. Grandpappy died of some heart mischief later and his bride got all his belongings and money to soothe her aching heart. She's living in Beverly Hills now. She seems to be doing fine, but she won't return our calls anymore. Speaking of calls...how come you haven't returned any of my calls. I tried to call every hour to check on my status. I even found your home number, but something must be wrong, because it says its disconnected now. If you're having trouble paying those folks at the phone company, never you mind.

Why, once for about three years we had no phones 'cuz daddy couldn't get off'n his lazy butt to go get a job. He even tried doing one of them Wal-mart jobs of saying 'Hey, welcome to Wal-mart', but he kept messing it up. Momma had enough of that. She went out and got herself a new daddy. I don't see him much, but I think he must work all day, since he only comes by at night to call on momma and they go at it like pappy use to with his Russian gal. Funny though, he always sounds different, but momma doesn't mind only seeing him for a few hours every night. One time someone asked her what she did for a living and she said she was in the oldest profession - so I think she's a secretary or something. Anyways, you stop back, okay? Momma would love to talk to you again. She kept ranting about your pretty eyes, but I told her she must be crazy. I'll talk to ya later - when you get your phone undisconnected - and I can't wait to play for you and York.

Love ya, man!"

[shug94]

That was the most hilarious thing ever! You actually got that?

[shug94]

I didn't sign any of my top three guys.

But I did get James Tilson, a 6'9" C from Iowa.

He is pretty average across all areas, but has no holes in his game. Oh yeah, and he has insane work ethic. I will just sit him behind my big two for most of this season, and he should be ready to start next season.

Although I *DID* promise him 20 minutes a game. But he can backup the PF spot a bit too!

Can't wait for those exhibition games to start!

[shug94]

I had scheduled two exhibition games, against Bethel and Blackburn, two SIMAI schools of similar average player rating to me.

The Tufts Fighting Elephants managed to pull out a couple of resounding victories.

We were up by 5, 39 to 34 at the half, against Bethel. We came out firing, and feeding the ball inside to Bledsoe and Quintal for easy scores, leading to a 93-68 win. Last Years' NESCAC Rookie of The Year - PF Jacob Bledsoe led all scorers with 20 points and 7 rebounds, and was ably helped out by Senior Center Alan Quintal with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Our game against Blackburn was even more of a blowout. We led 52 to 28 at halftime and finished the game with 96 points versus their 60. Quintal once again lead Tufts with 20 points and 15 rebounds. A very nice little line.

Our freshman center prospect, James Tilson, made a good showing scoring 2 points against Bethel and 5 points with 2 rebounds against blackburn in limited minutes off of the bench.

Next up was our first non-conference scheduled game of the season against St Norbert. We were favoured by 7 points going into this game. We won by eight. 58 - 50. It was a low scoring affair, but Quintal was still good for 17 points and 8 rebounds. 1-0 in the games that count! Go Tufts!

St Norbert was ahead 27-18 at the half, but Haskins came out in the second and hit some three's to get the blood pumping and we never looked back.

The next three games will be against: #4 Cabrini, Suffolk, and Wisconsin-Lutheran. #4 Cabrini will be the big test of this non-conference season. If I win this, then I could go a long way this year, but I figure a close fought loss is more likely.

[shug94]

Wow, I haven't update this for a while!

I ended up going 6-4 in non-conference (matching my wins total for all of last year).

Then I was up against last years conference tournament winner Worcester St, a team that has been in and out of the top 25 all season. The spread was even, so apparently the bookies were giving me some love. However I expected to go down by around 15 points. We ended up pulling out an 83-73 win, led by our 54-6 free thow advantage, and everyone my team scored a lot. Star center, senior Alan Quintal had 15 points and 11 rebounds.

My next couple of games were against teams that I would have considered easybeats, Bates and Westfield State. We won against Bates, behind 28 points and 24 rebounds by Quintal. I was feeling confident against Westfield, as they were on the bottom of my conference and I was on top, but they managed to pull off one of the upsets of the year. They beat me 92-82 and the difference was their 3pt shooting accuracy. They hit for 40%, but my guys had an off night and only hit 20% of their shots from behind the arc.

Next up is league lightweight Amherst. I have had emails from my backup PF and C, complaining about minutes. I have moved them up in the rotation for this game. I hope they get enough minutes to keep them happy, while still pulling out a win.