After spending a good majority of my time playing March Madness the past several weeks, my passion for college basketball and basketball in general has been rekindled quite a bit. My latest labor of love would be the Long Island Blackbirds, and I'm learning very quickly the ins and outs of building a college basketball program once again.

LIU was in a tough situation when I came in: They had a D+ overall rating, the program was coming off a .500 season and, in general the team was consistently mediocre. In the digital world, this is the perfect situation for arm-chair athletes, and so it was time to work a miracle.

I firmly believe that if you are playing things in the most realistic way possible it would take 3 years to turn around a faltering program like LIU and propel it to the top of its conference, then a few more to build it into a powerhouse. My plan from the very beginning was to bring LIU up to prominence in 3 years, which given my plan of attack seemed very reasonable.

Year 1

The first year is more or less a feeling out year, figuring out what you are going to need in the coming years and attacking your weaknesses via recruiting. I won games my first year as well, which helped my cause on the recruiting trail. If you are playing March Madness, be sure to get as many points out of recruiting as possible and minimize discipline and gameplan because either I had the best behaving players, or those two options in the pre-season really aren't worth anything. Let's bet on the latter.

My goal going into the year was to win games and fill key holes that would be opening the next year. My first year I needed to replace a lot of my front court but could rest easy as my two best players were my SG and PG and both were younger players who would be sticking around for awhile. Going into the year I had 4 scholarships to offer, so my plan was to get a pair of big men and another guy that could play inside or out. My fourth scholarship was to go towards a guy for the backcourt depth.

The result of my first year was a fairly successful 20-12 season with a semifinal loss in my conference tournament. It also saw me recruiting a four star center who would change the face of the program for the coming years. While recruiting the guy I found out he had one of the best shots in the country, but his only deficiency was his terrible defensive play, something I figured a coach like myself could remedy with a few training sessions with the young lad.

The rest of my recruiting class was 2 and 3 star guys; they wouldn't be instant impacts but rather guys who I would potentially see the results of in year 3 or 4. While on this topic, I find being impatient is a trap a lot of guys fall into when they are rebuilding a program. They want instant results in year 1 and 2 and they don't focus on getting wins when they can get them. If you are playing the game on an adequate difficulty level, it will take at least 3-4 years to reel off 24-5 seasons in a rebuilding effort.

So how does this story apply to your dynasty in March Madness (or even College Hoops)?

Simply put I think there are important lessons you can learn from my year one: The first lesson you can learn is that you simply shouldn't go for the best players on the recruiting trail with a college basketball program. You need to get guys that will fit in the program, especially in one short of talent. If you don't, you will have some huge glaring holes your opponents will exploit time and time again.

Secondly, you need to realize that winning now is not as easy as it looks. I finished 20-12 my first year, but that was largely a result of a lot of luck and a lot of work in the coaching ranks while playing games. My guys definitely overachieved, I won't deny that.

Thirdly and most importantly, you have to develop a system of play that fits your current players and the recruits you are bringing in. If you want to take your program to a full court run-and-gun style but you only got the guys for a half court game, you are then going to have to recruit faster, more athletic players and gradually shift the program’s strategy as you get the players to fit that system.

Later on this week I am going to go into year two and also into the specifics of the system I run. This article was meant to be an overview and not the most in-depth article for a reason, as it is setting up future articles on the subject. So until next time, happy gaming!