 |
01-07-2004, 11:59 AM
|
#1 | ||
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
FBCB dynasty - A would-be head coach
This dynasty will attempt to track the career of one would-be coach through the years in Fast Break College Basketball. Instead of focusing on the team that I manage, I'm going to follow and attempt to write up the career of Robbie Smith. He'll start as an assistant but hopefully will become a head coach at some point, he seems to have the right mix of skills for it, someday, if he gets a shot. I won't be able to know much about the strategy that Robbie's teams are using because they are computer controlled, and I'm limited in what I can find out about a computer team, so I'll try to take a season overview approach instead of going into every detailed stat.
Code:
The Beginning Getting off the plane in Wichita was pretty exciting, I had goosebumps just thinking about how I'm going to start my career as a coach. I graduated from Stanford last year (it took me an extra year, guess I didn't hit the books hard enough) and spent that time making connections, trying to get my name out, polish my skills and get hooked up with a program. I tried to play at Stanford as a walk-on, but never got more than a few minutes, so instead I decided that I'd become a coach one day. It all starts now, with my first job as coaching assistant at Wichita State, and pulling down a pretty nice salary too, if I say so myself. Not sure what I'll do in a city like this, after growing up on one coast and going to college on the other. I met with the team's coach, Robert Baker, he's a pretty young guy and this is his first head coaching job, he's been around as a scout and recruiter though, and tried to make me welcome. I have a good long chat with him about what kind of squad we'll be fielding this year. To be honest, it's not good. It's not a deep squad, but there are some bright spots, and we should be able to put up a bunch of threes, if nothing else. Still, I don't think we'll win a lot of games this year with the talent we have. The previous coach had some kind of Canadian connection, we've got two kids from up there on the roster, and both are pretty solid, especially our SG Leonce Cuvelle. I had a chat with the team about their defense, I've worked a lot on my skills there and feel it's my specialty, and a lot of them can use the help! Cuvelle is great at keeping people off guard and missing shots from outside, and our Canadian center Joseph Croy is solid on the post, but the rest of the team doesn't seem to have a clue how to play defense. That's probably a big reason why we're 2-8 by the end of December. |
||
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 12:02 PM
|
#2 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
This job is hard work! Between practices, staff meetings, going over plays, and doing all the errands that seem to fall to a new assistant, I hardly have a day off. I've found a nice little bar down the road from my apartment and met a girl or two, but I don't have much of a social life. My parents keep asking me how life is in Wichita and I don't know what to tell them. It's not Miami, that's for sure.
Cuvelle goes down with a back injury in our fourth game, he's going to be out through most of January. He's mad as hell, since he's a competitor and wants to be out there, but the pain won't let him. It doesn't help that his replacement, Jorge Lederman, is putting up decent numbers and is being a bit of a jerk about it, rubbing it in to Cuvelle whenever he sees him. Those two don't get along, and I've almost had to break up one fight already. Despite our losing streak, we've been getting some great games out of PG Michael Peay, who's putting up 16 points a game. Coach Baker is trying his best to get the team to come together, but it hasn't happened yet, and we're going into conference play soon. Well, it's another horribly cold day in Wichita. I didn't know it could stay this cold for so long! The mood here among the staff is cold too, our team flat out stinks. We're now 3-16 at the end of January, and nothing is going right. The AD says we need to stay out of last place, and we're doing that, but barely. Our 1-8 conference record isn't impressing anyone, even the fans are barely coming to the games anymore. Lederman and Cuvelle really got into it the other day, but we broke them up before either got seriously hurt. The frustration is getting to everyone. Coach Baker never smiles anymore, he's worried. Hell, I am too. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 12:16 PM
|
#4 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Well there's something to cheer about anyway. PG Michael Peay has tried to put the team on his back, leading us with 25 points to a win against Illinois State, and that sparks us to a 3-2 run to start off February, much better than before. As a side note, I've met this great girl, Rebecca, and we've been having a lot of fun together when I am not busy with games. She's never left Kansas and I don't think it's anything long term, but it's good to have someone to ride bikes with, see movies, and just blow off steam when I'm too wound up about this frustrating team we have.
Well this season is finally over. We slumped (is it even a slump when your best performance was 4 wins in 6 games?) again at the end of the season and ended up 7-20, and 5-12 in the conference. This was good for second to last in the Missouri Valley Conference though, as SW Missouri State broke our fall with their 3-14 conference record. We'll see what the AD has to say about that next season, he wasn't looking too happy, but I think he'll give Coach Baker another chance, and he and I seemed to have a good rapport, at least. We graduate PG Michael Peay, our main guy on offense, SG Leonce Cuvelle, PG Michael Robinson, a backup who saw some minutes, and scrub PF Elisha van Houten (Milhouse anyone?) I'll tell you about our new recruits next year, I didn't have too much time to talk to our recruiter this year about who was coming in, and Coach had me focused on the Xs and Os and not trying to look over those guys shoulders in other parts of the coaching game. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 12:21 PM
|
#5 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
We'll see how it goes Herd. I'm worried that I won't be able to track his movements if he changes teams, as assistants don't seem to be recorded in the coaching movements log. This dynasty could end very fast!
|
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 01:53 PM
|
#6 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2003 end-of season bookkeeping.
Southern Illinois won the MVC this year with a 27-7 record, and made some noise in the NCAAs, going to the Sweet Sixteen before losing to Texas, the eventual national champions. Well, my career at Wichita State was fun while it lasted. The AD kept Coach Baker on, but someone had to go, and that someone was me. I'm heading home to regroup for a few days, and will try to get organized to pursue another position this year. 2004 - A new beginning Well I get the call I've been waiting for, another assistant position offered to me, this one at Boston University in the America East conference. I have a feeling I'll be travelling plenty in my first few years! I get a slight cut in pay but I'm grateful to just have a job at this point. The team was 11-19 last year under head coach John Jenkins, who is only 26 and even more defensive minded than me! (His stats are 17-84-17-82!) Our AD is telling us that we need to contend for the conference championship this year, but it will take a major improvement for us to do that. The returning players are led by SG Michael Woods, a lanky kid with a sweet jumper and good ability at putting back his own rebounds. He averaged over 10 points a game last year, but I think he could do better with a less defensive minded coach. We have a slew of 5 incoming freshmen, and some of them will get some minutes as we're pretty thin at several positions. I jump right in and get started, working with Coach Jenkins who has developed some of the most elaborate trapping systems I've ever seen. He keeps me busy learning the ins and outs of his system, and getting to know a strange new city is a whole other problem. November 30, 2004 We only have two games this month, so I've been able to relax some. I am really impressed with some of the freshmen we have this year. C Roman Jackson is a top #300 prospect who has a great inside game and is excellent with the rebounds. He's already getting a lot of playing time and I think will provide a real spark for us. We've won both our games this month handily against weak competition. This team is a lot better than last year's record, and could do some damage this year if things break right. Well, back to practice! December 31st, 2004 I guess I spoke too soon. We just started getting outclassed once we played some quality teams. We're 3-9 now and most of the games haven't been closer than 10 points. Coach has been shuffling the lineup and giving some of the the freshmen a chance, just to get something going, but nothing is working. To make things worse, C Roman Jackson is out with a broken leg and could be gone for the rest of the year. Our starting SF Sam Bagley was also hurt for several games, and we have missed his 16 ppg average. The replacements for these guys did less than nothing with the minutes. I've been going over and over the plays with the guys, but once they get out on the court they seem to want to go their own way, tossing up bad shots and getting burned on defense. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 01:54 PM
|
#7 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 31st, 2005
What a month! We turned things around in a big way behind the hot shooting of SF Bagley and the strong contributions of some of our bench players. While our overall record is still 9-11, we're 6-2 in conference play! The only down note for me this month is having to deal with this Boston weather. I'm just not cut out for this kind of thing. Plus my car got trashed in an accident, so this wasn't the best month for me personally, but I couldn't be happier with the way the team is playing right now. Sam Bagley is second in the conference in scoring and leading the conference in rebounding, he's the key to our success. February 28th, 2005 I had a long talk with Coach Jenkins, it seems that he is pretty happy with how I've done my job this year. I feel like the year in Wichita has helped me get a better understanding of how things are done. He can't make any promises about next season though, we'll have to wait and see. We had a lot of tough conference matchups this month and have not been up to the competition. Overall we're 12-16 now, but we're 9-7 in the conference, good enough for third place, barely. We got C Roman Jackson back from his broken leg, only to lose him a few games later to a broken cheekbone. He's looking like a bad luck player, but he has a great attitude, and I think we'll see good things from him. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 01:58 PM
|
#8 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
March 8th, 2005
We lose our final OOC game to finish 12-17 and fifth in the conference, barely missing the conference tournament due to tiebreakers. Some good conference play but we need more playmakers overall, we don't have a lot of good options besides Bagley and PG Raines who has good hands and led the team in assists. Luckily both of them will be back next year. I hope I will be. Vermont wins the regular season America East title, but Maine gets it done in the conference tournament. Cincinnati edges Duke for the NCAA title. I get to keep my job at Boston University for next year, hopefully we'll see the team improve. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 03:12 PM
|
#9 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2005 season - beginning
I'm less than impressed with the three incoming freshmen we have this year. Between you and me, recruiting is not Coach Jenkins' strong suit. The guys we have coming in here have very minimal skills and there's only one player, SF Porfirio Nieto, who shows signs of any potential. Unfortunately he is struggling in the classroom. (Three one-star prospects, ouch! On the other hand our top guy Bagley was rated one-star coming in too...) Well, I'm still working with them and we'll try to get them acclimated and get them worked into our system. With our returning starters and Freshman All-Conference PF David Speck in the lineup as a starter, maybe we'll be able to break into the ranks of a winning record this year. November 30th, 2005 Two games this month against weak teams, and we win both. We get two nice performances from SF Everett Royster, who played well in very limited time last year. He puts up 20 against Central Connecticut. Coach is really keeping me on my toes this year, lots of player substitutions, lots of defensive sets to keep track of. This month I also meet a great woman named Jessie, we really hit it off and are seeing each other now. I'll never get used to these Boston winters though, no matter how long I'm here. December 31st, 2005 I'm about to head out with Jessie to a New Year's party, but I'll write down these notes. As we did last year, we followed a good November with a bad December once we started playing real teams. We go 1-7 in a horribly disappointing month. Coach Jenkins was getting so frustrated at one point that he had to walk out of practice before he really let one of the players have it. SF Sal Williams is leading the team in scoring coming off the bench, he has a dominant inside game that works well when the defenders are tired. He's been stealing a lot of minutes from Bagley. Williams, Bagley, PG Gerard Raines, and PF Everett Royster are all above 10 ppg, though. Lack of offense isn't our problem, it's our unfamiliarity with the concept of defense. Coach's elaborate sets just won't work when our players don't have the defensive skills. We're keeping our fingers crossed for some improvements as we head into conference play. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 03:14 PM
|
#10 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 31st, 2006
This was a great month for me personally. I got some time off and took a vacation with Jessie up to Montreal, it was relaxing and good to take a break from the hustle and bustle of college basketball. Jessie's a b-ball fan too, but since she graduated from Boston College, there's some rivalry there. I dream of BU's program being anywhere near as good as BC's. We had an up and down January, some good games and more bad ones, we go 4-5 on the month, and end up 4-4 in conference play. We're still getting scoring across the board, except for C Roman Jackson who is a disappointment in that phase of the game. He is leading the team in rebounding, but with a pathetic 5.6 per game! I think that tells you the kind of problems we're having right there. We're giving up 76.2 points per game and only a potent offense is getting us some wins right now. February We started this month on a tear, going 4-1, all conference games, and just cruising to wins, except for a close loss to conference leader Vermont. Incredibly, we finish the month just as hot, going 8-2 in February! Both our losses were to Vermont, who are fielding a very solid team this year. This month's performance has boosted us to 14-14 on the year, we're just ecstatic over how well the team has played. We're 10-6 in conference play and solidly in third place. With a win in our last game with Stony Brook we can clinch third place and a spot in the conference championship. March 2006 We did it! We cruise to a win over Stony Brook, finishing the regular season at 15-14, and 10-6 in the conference. Conference powers Maine and Vermont finish ahead of us. Unfortunately we have to face Vermont the very next day in the conference tournament. They dominated us twice this year and I expect the same thing a third time. Our team steps up big time, however, and defeats Vermont 64-55, getting big games from Everett Royster and Sam Bagley. Super bench player Sal Williams took a severe injury earlier in the season and is gone for the year, so we're having to make do. We lost starting PG Raines to a broken finger in the Vermont game, he's back but not 100% for the game against Maine, the conference champion. Maine, though, is also gutted by injury, having lost their starting center and PF in the last several weeks. We beat Maine twice in the regular season so our confidence is sky-high! Unfortunately Maine beats us with a buzzer-beater jumper to win 77-76 in the conference championship. We're still pretty happy with our season. 2005 season wrap-up Upset-minded Oklahoma State wins the NCAA title, coming in as a #7 seed. There is a controversy over this as it seems they were substantially underseeded, thanks to Big 12 strength with Texas and Kansas #1 and 2 respectively going into the tourney. Everett Royster wins 1st team all-conference honors, with Gerard Raines on the 2nd team. Last edited by Peregrine : 01-08-2004 at 07:40 AM. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 05:05 PM
|
#11 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2006 season – beginning
After our improved performance last year, it didn't surprise me to see some coaching changes. Coach Jenkins quit to take the head coaching job at Loyola-Chicago. He asked me to come along with him, and I agreed. This is a big jump for us, up to a much more prestigious team that has had good success the last few years. L-C has gone to the NCAAs twice in the last three years and has not had less than 22 wins in any of the three seasons. I'm excited for this new opportunity, and a chance for a little more national exposure. I'm just as excited that Jessie agrees to come with me, so I'll have one familiar face in the new city. Loyola is a team stocked with talent, though they have lost some starters. They have the Horizon League Freshman of the Year, Brian Sabetto-Davis, an excellent SG with a great three point shot who averaged over 14 ppg for them last year. Also returning is quality center and excellent rebounder Paco Merino. Our AD expects us to compete for the conference championship, and I think we can, even though we'll be starting some younger talent. November 30th, 2006 I'm starting to question how much talent we really do have on the team. Apparently the two departing seniors from last years team were very good. We've come out of the gate flat-out terrible, losing our first four games (which were all on the road) by horrible margins, and not scoring more than 58 points yet! A barrage of early season injuries has gutted us, knocking out star Sabetto-Davis for close to a month, as well as our starting PF Chris Tong. With those players out for another 20 days or so each, we don't have a lot left, and Coach Jenkins is going to have to make some major adjustments. SG Carothers has stepped up as our only offensive option so far. December 2006 At the end of the year, I'm glad I can say we started playing ball in December. If we had kept up at our earlier clip I think Coach might have been fired outright. As it is we're 5-6 after an 0-4 start, coming off wins over Purdue and Central Michigan. Both our injured players are back in the lineup and Sabetto-Davis started immediately producing, scoring at a 13 ppg clip. C Paco Merino is playing well with an impressive 9.3 rebounds a game. In other news, I proposed to Jessie and she accepted, we're going to be married in June! My parents are thrilled, and came up for a visit recently. At least we won a game for them! I need a visit home to Miami, first Boston, now Chicago? I'm not cut out for this kind of weather! Last edited by Peregrine : 01-08-2004 at 07:40 AM. |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 05:18 PM
|
#12 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 2008
Well the buzz from my engagement has worn off, and it's too bad, because our team is awful. Former Loyola coach Wade Tracy who moved on to Dayton is looking smart now. We are 1-7 in conference play and in last place, and 6-14 overall. I wouldn't have believed that a team with this kind of talent could play so badly! Starting PG Mancuso went down with an eye injury (third fractured eye socket this year, what are the odds!) and can't play for a month. We are rebounding well, but that's about it. Carothers and Sabetto-Davis are still scoring at more than 10 ppg but we're not getting any help for them, and our defense is letting in points by the dozen. I'm having to hide my head as I walk around campus, it seems like everyone has some advice for us. At least I don't get yelled at in the media like Coach Jenkins, the fans are really letting him have it, and the AD too for hiring such an unproven coach. March 1st, 2008 Things have not gotten any better. We're still losing games and losing them bad. We're now sitting at 8-20 overall, and 3-13 in conference. This from a team that was 15-1 in conference just a couple years ago! We've become the laughingstock of the Illinois basketball world. The university is embarrassed and Coach Jenkins is looking like the wrong choice for this school. He appears lost when it comes to recruiting, doling out heavy responsibilities to his recruiting assistant. Injuries still plague us, SG Carothers, one of our few decent players this year, is out for several weeks with a stress fracture. We've gotten clubbed by weak teams like Wright State, home and away. Thank God this season is finally over. Jenkins is walking on eggshells. He's a good guy and I get along with him well, but I'm not sure how cut out he is for big-time coaching. I guess we'll see if we'll be back next year, I doubt it. Season wrap-up Kansas wins the NCAA title. Interestingly, they were not ranked at the beginning of the season, and their first game was against us, They ended up going 37-3 including all the tournament games! |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 10:23 PM
|
#13 |
|
College Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
|
Interesting idea! Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I take it Robbie hasn't had any level improvements yet, eh?
|
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 11:08 PM
|
#14 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Iowa City, IA
|
very interesting stuff. I'll be reading!
 |
|
|
|
|
01-07-2004, 11:40 PM
|
#15 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Nope, GB, no level improvements yet. In fact, I'm wondering how the game gives level improvements to assistants. If it's the same as regular coaches, I'll need experience and some successful, conference winning teams. It's interesting to play the game this way, by far the most annoying thing is if he gets fired, I have no good way to find out where he goes, except to manually go through every team and look at their coaching staff. Ouch, my eyes!
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 03:09 AM
|
#16 | |
|
College Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
|
Quote:
As far as I can tell from my game, whenever I've gotten a level improvement as a head coach, the entire staff has gotten one as well. I think getting a "Conference Coach of the Year" award does it (maybe given to the coach of the team with the best overall record?), or if you win the conference. There may be other things that do the trick as well, but I haven't run into them yet. |
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 03:39 AM
|
#17 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
I thought it might be something like that. If so, it really makes a difference how good the head coach is for Robbie's advancement. I was not happy with Jenkins, his horrible recruitment rating meant a slow death in my opinion. The new guy at our new school (will post the details when I get off work) seems better.
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 07:31 AM
|
#18 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2007 season beginning (got a bit mixed up on my years, sorry)
Loyola's AD doesn't fire Jenkins, but they do chew him out and make it clear he's on very thin ice. They want one more year for him to prove they didn't make a big mistake. However, they did have to make an example, and so I was fired. Privately the AD told me they weren't that displeased with my performance, but with the politics of the situation...well, I was kind of pissed off after this, but after I thought it over a while, it could turn out for the best. As much as I liked Coach Jenkins, I wasn't sure I'd ever go anywhere as his assistant. Fired twice in four years though, I'm not sure I like this precedent. Still, I start making some calls, hoping to hook up an assistant job somewhere. It worked, I got a job working as an assistant at San Francisco in the West Coast Conference. I couldn't help thinking it was a downward rather than upward step on my career path, but at least I was back in California and the weather would be nice! Last year SF was 8-21. The head coach, John Poling, is very solid in recruiting so I'm hopeful that he'll get some solid recruits in and improve the program. He's an older guy, 60 years old, who coached Sacramento State for many years before coming to SF. Right up front he let me know that the AD's been riding him because of last year's performance. We're asked to put up at least a .500 record in conference play. To do that, we're going to have to compete against conference power Gonzaga who has dominated the WCC over the last few years, as well as Pepperdine and Santa Clara. Last edited by Peregrine : 01-08-2004 at 07:35 AM. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 08:32 AM
|
#19 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Looking over our roster, I can tell we have a challenge ahead of us. We return only two starters, rebounder and solid defender PF Moorer, and C Dean Martin who has a decent inside game and can rebound. Junior PG Michael Profit put up some big scoring numbers last year off the bench and should be a solid starter. Freshman SG Jack Jimerson is a great recruit and can really shoot the three, we should see some good play from him. If it all comes together, we should be able to improve on last year's horrid performance at least.
November 29th, 2007 PG Profit has come out on a tear, putting up 26 and 30 points in our two wins this month. He's got a natural feel for the game, just one look at a play in one of our meetings and he can go out there and execute. If only all our kids were like this, Coach wouldn't need an assistant! I have my hands full anyway just settling Jessie down, our wedding and honeymoon over the summer were great, but she isn't too happy about my constant moves. I think she'll really like San Francisco though, she's got a great job at a public relations firm. End December, 2007 Another New Year's rolls around, and I think I'm cursed in December. My teams never seem to play well in this month. We finish 4-7 after starting the month 2-1. The only good news is Michael Profit, playing at SG, who is pouring in points at 19.8 per game. We're getting a lot of scoring support from Chris Pena at the point who's over 15 ppg and really hitting the threes. But they haven't been enough to overcome a lot of sloppy shooting in general and poor rebounding, except from center Martin. How can some of our stats be so good and yet our results so poor? Scheduling in part, we've had a couple of tough nuts on the schedule this month. Well, onward and upward into 2008. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 08:33 AM
|
#20 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 30th, 2008
Things are looking up for us. The power of our guard play is just too much for some opponents, we're getting great backcourt scoring from Profit and Pena, and we go 5-3 this month, including 3-3 in the conference. Profit is averaging 23.6 points per game, 5th in the country right now, and has just taken over in some of our wins. It's a joy to watch this kid play, I tell you. We're averaging over 38 rebounds a game, and it's only our continued sloppy shooting, especially from beyond the arc, that's holding us back. I've mentioned this to Coach Poling but he seemed to think I should focus on the Xs and Os of the playbook and let him make those kind of decisions. I don't get along with him nearly as well as Coach Jenkins. But I've been doing a good job here, I think, and I'm enjoying San Francisco much more than Chicago. End February, 2008 A pretty good month, at least in terms of satisfying our athletic director. We go 5-3, and going into March we're at 14-13 overall and 8-6 in the conference. Quite an improvement from last year. In the conference, Pepperdine is pulling away with an 11-2 conference record, and Gonzaga is having an off year, only 15-13 (8-5), barely ahead of us. March 8th, 2008 We play our last regular season game today, coming off five straight conference wins. We drop it to Santa Clara, ending the season on a sour note and knocking us out of conference tourney contention. But still, we end up 15-14 and 8-6 in the conference, not too shabby for a team that couldn't buy a win last year. Profit's impact can't be overstated, he was simply a scoring monster for us, ending up third in the nation with 23.9 points per game. Santa Clara goes on a run, winning the WCC championship. End 2007 wrap-up Lots to report here! Pepperdine gets into the NCAAs as the #11 seed in the Midwest, playing against USC in the first round. Santa Clara gets the #12 spot in the West, playing a strong Miami team. Loyola-Marymount and Gonzaga head for the NIT. It's strange, I don't know how to feel, but my previous school Loyola-Chicago had a huge season, going 21-10 and winning the Horizon League tournament to go to the dance. They lose to BYU in the first round though. Santa Clara continues their unlikely late season run by beating #5 Miami in the first round before falling to Arkansas. Not bad for a team that finished 4th in the WCC! Gonzaga also makes noise, going to the final four teams of the NIT before losing. Georgia beats Notre Dame for the NCAA title. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 08:35 AM
|
#21 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
April 2nd, 2008
I'm so depressed as I write this. I've been fired again, this time by San Francisco. After all the good I helped to do there last season, all the improvement, I was rewarded by being told they were looking for a more capable (and expensive) assistant to help their bid for a conference title. I guess this is a good time to take stock of where I've been: Code:
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 12:56 PM
|
#22 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
I seriously consider just throwing in the towel after this. It's starting to seem that I have little chance of ever becoming a head coach at this rate, and that I have good odds of being fired no matter how my team does. I decide to give it another shot, but this time things don't look good. I get a late start at networking and teams don't seem to be calling me. Finally I decide to take the only job offered to me, recruiting coordinator for the Lafayette College Leopards. It seems pretty obscure, and I'm not sure how well I'll do with recruiting. I've gone on some recruiting trips before of course, but I've never had it as my main focus. Lafayette is in Easton, Pennsylvania, near the NJ border, it's not an area I'm familiar with. I don't know how long I'll be there, so Jessie decides to stay in San Francisco for the time being. She'll join me out here later if things work out.
Lafayette has had some good seasons, finishing second in the Patriot League to American last year in the regular season. The AD is telling Coach Hodges to do it again, and hopefully we will. Since I'm the recruiting assistant I won't be as involved with the action on the floor anymore, I'll definitely miss that. Coach Hodges is excellent at recruiting though (100 ranking!) so at least I'll be in a position to learn from him. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 12:59 PM
|
#23 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Note -- I'm not really sure what to do about this season. It makes sense to track the game performance of a team when Robbie is the coaching assistant, but when he's out recruiting? The problem is that since I can't see messages or Lafayette's recruiting screen, I don't know what kind of updates I can do. I could take over the team but that would feel like tainting the dynasty. Anyone have any ideas? Could I take over the team but let the computer handle the recruiting somehow? Not sure if there is an option for that or not.
Last edited by Peregrine : 01-08-2004 at 01:00 PM. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 01:04 PM
|
#24 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Dola - At least I found out how to find out where Robbie went without searching manually through every team. I can output the Coaches text report and it lists who all the coaches and assistants with every team are.
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 01:42 PM
|
#25 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Well I decided that to continue the dynasty in its current form, Robbie needs to be a coaching assistant. He had better ratings in all areas than the coaching assistant they did have, so I simply switched the two of them.
|
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 10:31 PM
|
#26 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
I got some good news from Coach Hodges! Apparently I'm going to be doing the coaching assistant job after all. They weren't happy with their previous assistant so they moved him over to the recruiting job. Coach doesn't need much help in that area anyway. I'm excited. Looking at our team, we return three starters from last year, led by three year starter and 1st team All-Conference last year SF Toney Gupton. He can score on the inside, rebound, and is a good defender. The team has no less than five freshmen, and I like the look of some of them, especially PG Tucci who has a great jumper. I think he'll do well for us and most likely start.
November 2008 We start out with a low scoring win against Penn State. Their team has really struggled to put together any kind of winning record, and it feels good to get a win over a big conference team. We can't buy a win the rest of the month, however, finishing 1-3. Playing top 50 teams Seton Hall and Georgetown contributed to that though, we were never in those games. SF Gupton has been excellent, driving through the paint and putting up over 14 ppg so far, as well as a few rebounds. December 31st, 2008 No one in the Patriot League is doing much in their OOC games. We're 4-7 and we're in second place to the 4-5 Navy squad. We put together a solid win over Valparaiso, but lose to my old team Boston University on our floor. Gupton is still leading our team but we definitely need more support if we're going to win games. Our defense has been terrible, giving up over 65 points per game. I'm not very happy with this town, especially with Jessie gone. I was able to go back home to SF and see her once this month, but our schedule won't be taking us anywhere near California this year. |
|
|
|
|
01-08-2004, 10:31 PM
|
#27 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 2009
Well this month things took a turn for the worse. We're not competing well in conference play, and we're 6-12 overall. The AD is pretty steamed that this is how we're playing coming off a 20 win season last year. Of course that is without graduated star SG Mojica who really lit other teams up last year. We need a good performance down the stretch or I could be looking for yet another job. Navy is on fire in conference play, 7-0 currently, and they haven't even played us yet! Just as a note, SF player Michael Profit from last year is leading the country in scoring so far this year. No doubt he'll be making quite a profit next year in the NBA. March 4th, 2009 Well this season is finally over. We crashed and burned, pretty much. Too many freshmen players who had to be integrated into the team, not enough defense, and anemic scoring at times doomed us. We end up 9-19 (5-9) and that's not going to be good enough for our boss. Navy wins the Patriot League regular season title at 17-10 (9-4). 2008 season wrap up We start the conference tourney off against American and beat them pretty badly. Then we beat Holy Cross to go to the conference championship against Navy! We can't pull the upset though and get beat by 20 points. Navy just crushed conference opposition this year and finished 20-10. They beat UConn in the first round of the NCAAs, then lose to NC State. Duke beats Notre Dame for the NCAA title, that makes two years in a row that ND has lost the title game. SF Gupton wins 1st Team All-Conference. I'll be staying on at Lafayette for next year, but the AD has warned Coach that if we don't see big improvements we're both gone. |
|
|
|
|
01-11-2004, 07:38 AM
|
#28 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Taking a bit of a break from this dynasty for a few days, but will be back.
|
|
|
|
|
01-11-2004, 12:23 PM
|
#29 | |
|
Go Reds
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Bloodbuzz Ohio
|
Quote:
Pere, you can just go to "Edit Current League" and go to coaches and sort by name to quickly find him and see his new team. |
|
|
|
|
|
01-11-2004, 11:30 PM
|
#30 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Yeah Shorty, I discovered that, and that you can also output the Coaches Report from the Text Reports list to show the same info.
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 08:31 AM
|
#31 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Time to bring this dynasty back to life. Our assistant coach Robbie Smith is coaching at woeful Lafayette in the Patriot League. His career has been going downhill for some time. What will happen next?
2009 season start We have an incredible 8 freshmen on our roster this year! Needless to say, several of those are walk-ons. Our best is probably C Adkinson, who is a big guy at 6' 11” 257, and can play good defense and rebound. We'll see how he develops. We don't have a lot of scoring threats on this team, so we're going to have to make do. Looking at our schedule, I predict another difficult season. The AD has decided in the offseason that we need to compete for the conference championship, and I'm not sure we will, so this could be a dangerous season for us. We don't have a lot of returning starters, but considering how bad we were last year, maybe that's a good thing! November 30th, 2009 Our returning SF Roane is shooting fairly well, over 10 points a game, but that's about all I can say. Not many games this month, and that's a good thing. We lost all 3 of ours by more than 20 points. I've heard a rumor that Coach Hodges is discreetly looking for another job on his recruiting trips. I just got back from a visit with Jessie, this long-distance thing is really straining us, that's about all I can say. |
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 08:32 AM
|
#32 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
End December, 2009
Ugh. The less said about this month the better. It's clear that despite all I and Coach can do, there's little talent on this team. Recruiting errors by previous coaches have left us far too young and with far too many walk-ons. I just have to shake my head here. 1-11 after this month. Incredibly, our only win came againt top 50 school Oregon State at the end of the month. Maybe a sign of better things? I hope so. PF Romero, a freshman, is rebounding well with over 8 a game. We don't have any consistent offense, which is our main problem. January 30th, 2010 Well it's past the New Year, and we did start winning a few games in conference play. Emphasis on few. We're 2-4 in conference and a horrible 3-16 overall. This team is not going to contend for any championship. At this rate they won't have to fire me, I'll resign for my part in this disaster. Want to know about bad offense? We're scoring 54.1 points a game, good for 326th in the country. Only UC-Riverside in the entire nation is saving us from last! (OOC note for GB: UC-R has never won more than 9 games in a season, ouch!) |
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 08:45 AM
|
#33 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2009 season end
Well this season is finally over. The butcher's bill was 6-22 overall, 4-10 in conference. This from a team that won 20 games just two seasons ago! Holy Cross won the regular season Patriot League title. Just not enough talent on the roster, we couldn't score, I felt like I was teaching twelve year olds to play ball out there. In an upset, 18-13 Bucknell went on to win the Patriot League tournament. Navy and Holy Cross get NIT bids. In the Big Dance, Missouri beat UCLA for the title, a matchup of the #3 and 4 teams in the country. They don't even wait till May to tell Coach and I we're fired, but we already know it. If I'm lucky, I'll be coaching somewhere else next year. Off-season Coach Hodges can't get hired as a head coach at high schools after that season. He pulls some strings and gets a job as recruiting coordinator at Iowa where an old friend is coaching. Pretty good move as they are preseason #7 in the country. As for me, I get lucky. Very lucky. Not only do I get a new assistant's job, I get to move back to San Francisco to Jessie. I'll be the new assistant at Pacific University in Stockton, California. We find a nice place to live that will split the difference for my commute, but I'm on cloud nine at this point to be back on the West Coast. Pacific is also a much higher prestige team than those I've been struggling with. Bill Templeton, an old friend from Stanford, got me an interview for the job and I guess they were impressed. I just hope I don't screw this one up! Pacific has been solid the last few years, winning NIT bids two of the last three, last year they were 17-14 (10-8). The AD is looking to improve on that and asks us to compete for the conference championship. Adam Rosen is the head coach and this will be his third year for the team. |
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 09:12 AM
|
#34 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2010 season start
We have a solid roster to start the year out, despite returning only two starters. C Stacey Griffin is a solid scorer with an excellent inside game, we'll be counting on him a lot. SF Elvin Minnich just gets things done on the court. Coach Rosen is an excellent scout (100) with an eye for talent, but relies heavily on his assistants for game management (25 offense, 2 defense coaching skills.) I'll get a real chance to make a difference here with a quality team, and I can't wait. We'll have to see how the new players mix in with the returning ones, but I like our chances. November 29th, 2010 We start out hot at 3-1, including a win over my old team San Francisco. We're getting some great play from senior PG David Reese, who's been a three season player but never seen significant time, or done much with it. Now he has his shot, and in the first four games he's scoring over 16 points a game. We have four players scoring in double digits over this first stretch. Quite a change from Lafayette! Let's hope to keep it rolling in December. End December, 2010 Wow! That's all I can say. We are on fire, and just tearing into our opponents. We go 7-0 this month, including two conference wins, and are rewarded with a #22 in the country poll ranking, my first ever ranking! Of course we have tough division competition, as conference opponent Utah State is #3 in the country right now, and UC Irvine is at #11. Quite the murderer's row of teams for the Big West conference! PG Reese continues his outstanding play, putting up over 15 points a game and leading the conference with over 5 assists a game. C Stacey Griffin is one of the top rebounders in the conference. We can't get too cocky, we're starting full conference play against some very tough opponents! Code:
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 09:31 AM
|
#35 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
January 31st, 2011
I have some good news, Jessie is pregnant! She's going to deliver in August, we hope, and I can't wait. Being back with her all the time is wonderful, plus having a job at a great school that is doing well is incredible. I've gotten so much support from the staff and fans at Pacific, it's unbelievable. Our team continues it's run this month, going 5-2, including wins over both Utah State and UC Irvine. Unfortunately, Utah State is getting all the recognition, and is now the only ranked team in the conference, at #21 despite our win. We dropped a winnable game at UC Irvine to end the month, but we're still third in the conference behind Utah State and Long Beach State, and we'll see how it goes. I feel confident taking our team against anyone in the conference. February 5th, 2011 We beat Utah State again tonight, on our home floor. We've got eight games left, but five of them are on the road, so this is going to test us. End February, 2011 We went 4-2 the rest of February, dropping consecutive games on the road to UC Santa Barbara, and of all teams, UC Riverside! We just went in way overconfident to their court, had foul trouble, and they came out with the win. We have two games left, both on the road, and both critical if we want to win the conference. As you can see, it's very tight. Our RPI is 56 at the moment, which is as high as Pacific has ever been. With two wins we might be able to win the conference. Keeping my fingers crossed... Code:
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 09:49 AM
|
#36 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
If anyone's reading this, let me know if you'd prefer to see format changes, etc. I've decided that including the conference standings and other stats adds to the dynasty, so I'll be doing that from time to time.
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 09:51 AM
|
#37 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
March 5th, 2011
It happened! We won both our games on the road, and to help us out, Utah State crushed Long Beach State in the final game of the year. Pacific wins the regular season Big West title with a record of 23-5 and 14-4 in conference games. This has been such an amazing run after the losing seasons I have been going through lately. Jessie has been able to come to many of the games and is just as excited as I am. Now for the conference tournament... Well we just couldn't execute when it counted. We lost to UC Santa Barbara, who went on to beat Utah State to win the conference championship. All was not lost though, our great year didn't go unnoticed and we received a #11 seed in the NCAA tourney, though unfortunately in the East bracket, making for long travel times. UC Santa Barbara for their tournament win got a #12 seed in the West. Utah State got a #8 seed in the West, and were still ranked despite have a worse record than us! We play Temple in the first round of the NCAAs. Everyone's very nervous, and excited to be playing in Greensboro, NC. Temple has a strong team which plays behind sophomore sensation SF Joe Gross, one of the best players in the country, who is 5th in the country in scoring and is heading for the NBA after this season. Luckily for us their second leading scorer is injured and will miss the game, but I'm not sure we can contain Gross. I just have to show you Gross' stats, look at all the awards for two years! Code:
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 10:16 AM
|
#38 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2010 - offseason
UC Santa Barbara continues to peak at the right time, knocking off the #11 team in the country Texas in the first round. Those painful 5-12 games! Utah State handily beats their first round opponent. We don't have as much luck. We just didn't have an answer for Gross, who sliced through our double teams like they weren't there. It ended up a rout, Temple 109, Pacific 69. Gross had 34 points. Still, I'm happy that we were there at all, it was a great experience for me. Both our other conference teams lost in the second round. Tulsa out of the WAC won the title, beating Duke! PG Reese won Conference Player of the Year, and Coach Rosen won Conference Coach of the Year! I like to think I had a part in bringing that about. Pacific really made some noise this year, and I hope we can continue. I also feel like I really made some strides in my coaching abilities this year. Coach Rosen let me share in a lot of responsibilities and I think it's made me a better coach. Code:
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 11:50 AM
|
#39 |
|
Go Reds
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Bloodbuzz Ohio
|
I like just how it is, keep it up!
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 02:15 PM
|
#40 |
|
College Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
|
What Shorty said. I'm enjoying it as it is.
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 02:44 PM
|
#41 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Willow Glen, CA
|
Yeah, it's good as is...as long as UC Santa Barbara keeps getting mentioned
 Good luck!
__________________
Every time a Dodger scores a run, an angel has its wings ripped off by a demon, and is forced to tearfully beg the demon to cauterize the wounds.The demon will refuse, and the sobbing angel will lie in a puddle of angel blood and feathers for eternity, wondering why the Dodgers are allowed to score runs.That’s not me talking: that’s science. McCoveyChronicles.com. |
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 03:24 PM
|
#42 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
Yeah Vince, UC-SB was unbeatable at the end of the season, right when you want to be I guess. Meanwhile, since Robbie got his first coaching upgrade and is playing for a solid team, I'm much more optimistic than I was even last year. I think a head coaching job might be in the offing somewhere after another good season or two.
|
|
|
|
|
01-16-2004, 03:49 PM
|
#43 |
|
Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
|
2011 -season start
We return 4 starters from last year's Pacific team, but we'll be badly missing the presence of Conference Player of the Year Reese. We had a bad recruiting class, so I'm hoping someone can step up to lead the team from the PG spot, probably three-point shooter James Tracy will move back to his normal spot from SG last year. Our whole coaching staff stays together and the AD is happy. He wants another conference title and we'll do our best to give it to him. Utah State's roster is again strong, and they start preseason #25, despite returning only one starter from last year's solid squad. November 30th, 2011 In a light month, we go 2-1, though two of the games are tough ones, a close win against Gonzaga, and a loss against ranked Miami. Remember when I said we needed a new 5th man to step up? Well so far it's been junior SG Albert Williams, a sub for the last two seasons. He's killing teams with his outside shooting, good for 23 points a game. I'm sure he'll calm down from that torrid pace but with his scoring, we could be just as good this year, I hope. End December, 2011 We slumped a bit this month, maybe my expectations for this team were a bit too high. We went 3-3, including an easily winnable loss to Cal-Poly in conference. SG Williams and C Griffin are certainly putting up the points, but we're allowing over 70 points a game and our defense has yet to come together. January 28th, 2012 It's been great to be home and spend time with my daughter Sarah, did I mention her? Unfortunately our team isn't doing so well, we continue our bad defense and mediocre play. A barrage of injuries including a season-ending one to PF Chilton and ongoing nagging ones to SF Minnich hasn't helped either. We're missing Reese on defense more than on offense. It's a topsy-turvy season in the Big West, with many changes from last year's play. Code:
|
|
|
|
 |
| Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|
