AuroraAutopsy - SimulatedSports college basketball dynasty

[hoopsguy]

Recruits are in. Always lots of ground to cover on this topic.

We didn't win the Clarence Currie sweepstakes. I have not done very well on big ties at all over the years:

Seniors:
Thurman - won a 1/1 tie with 109 RPEs (not a max recruit)
Langley - clear lead with 98 RPEs
Bott - clear lead with 48 RPEs
Ties lost: 2/2, 3/3
One clear lead that did not come in, hopefully because of more talented players.

Juniors:
Suell - won a 1/1 tie with 151 RPEs (max recruit)
Roberson - won a 1/1 tie with 42 RPEs
East - won a 1/2 despite only have 30 RPEs on him - leader (151 RPEs) must have landed three better or put priority points down in manner that freed him up Garth
Ties lost: 3/3, 5/5
Two clear leads that did not come in, hopefully because of more talented players.

Sophs: did not capture data before recruits went up

Freshmen:
ToBeNamed#1: clear lead with 109 RPEs
Kevin: clear lead with 87 RPEs
ToBeNamed#2: clear lead with 80 RPEs
Ties Lost: 4/4

The incoming class rates as a +9, replacing an outgoing +9 class. So our level of talent remains consistent, although we lose a little bit of height. We gained some defensive prowess, however. That was a major point of emphasis in recruiting this season. I like to run man-to-man defense and have not felt confident in our team's ability to do this in several seasons. That should (hopefully) not be the case this season.

TBD#1: the computer slotted this guy as our starting shooting guard, but I don't see him taking this role away from Rademaker. But he should immediately take a spot in our backup rotation behind either one of our guards. We have five guards in our rotation, none taller than 6'3. That means we will have a short bSF, but I'll take it given the defensive pressure this group should be able to mount. Likely starter as junior/senior assuming he is productive off the bench his first two seasons.
HS Stats: 13.5 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 1.9 APG, 0.7 SPG, 0.7 TOPG, 5 blocks. Shot 43% from field, 42% from long range, and 64.5 from foul line.

Kevin: Big jump in attributes (+4) from the high school scouting report. I think Kevin will get a crack at the backup SF spot this year, since he is 6'3 and athletic enough to handle the role. Picked up over two steals per game in high school, first guy we have brought in with that kind of performance. Outside shot he could pull down a starting role at SF next year with a productive freshman year.
HS Stats: 14.3 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 1.4 APG, 2.1 SPG, 1.0 TOPG, 10 blocks. Shot 46.4% overall, 35.1 from long range, and 67.1 from foul line.

TBD#2: Satisfactory big lug, needed to bring him in to give us some flexibility for recruiting this season. Will get minutes immediately, hopefully good enough to avoid NA for the duration of his career, but do not really want to see him in the starting lineup anytime soon.
HS Stats: 8.4 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 1.3 APG, 0.6 SPG, 1.4 TOPG, 39 blocks. Shot 42.2% overall, 14.3 (1/7) from long range, and 60.9 from foul line.

[hoopsguy]

Guys we targeted and lost:
Currie - Washington. Slated as their starting PF, recruiting class there is 113/64. His prefs were F- local, N- win, and E+ impact. He didn't stay even a little bit local, went to a team that improved from 5 to 11 wins last year (53-67 overall), and should have an impact on a team with no senior starters this year. Shot 56.5% from field, over 50% from behind arc, and added 20 blocks for good measure. He will be a beast.

Guys we targeted and didn't land (possibly due to us getting better players)
Gregor Senn - Hartford. Assuming we got all the guys we led on, he was the odd man out, losing to TBD#1 and Kevin. Hartford had the #11/#7 recruiting class. The other two guys there are listed as starting guards, with Gregor at bPG. Shot just over 50%, about 44% from 3. Will be interesting to see how he pans out.

Sven Huffman - Pueblo. Went to his leader, we were a clear 2nd on him. Tossed in 26 per game in HS, but not a particularly good defender or passer based on attributes and stats. The class is listed as 71/88, with Sven slotted at bSG. Sven shot 57.1% from floor, 38.2% from long range, but only 68.9% from foul line. Dude should take long 2-pt shots his entire college career as a deadly 6th man.

Tandre Froman - Oakland. A backup big man that we pursued late, were 2nd on him. No idea if Oakland was the leader. He is listed as NA here on a class ranked 211/205. Oakland has won their fair share of games as of late, so he might not be a total stiff but I'm glad we didn't end up with him based upon limited data. Stats show a little better shooting numbers than TBD#2, but this guy is not a difference maker at all.

Moses Minor - Gulf Shores. Smart guy (4.0 GPA, 74 exam) who could play D, was another backup recruit where we were 2nd in RPEs. Moses finds himself as an NA for a class ranked 68/72. Team has won 48 games over last three seasons, but dropping two (18/16/14) each season. Not much of a shooting stroke; 40.8% overall, 35.1 from three, 50.5 from foul line. Given that we are talking about a guy who didn't have size or considerable defensive gifts I don't think we missed out here either.

Darren Napper - Daytona. We were 3rd on him, another guy we chased late after not being happy with the early recruiting lists. Daytona has been off-the-charts-good the last couple of seasons, finishing a combined 43-5. Darren is NA here, part of a 107/84 class. If given the chance, I think I would have taken him over TBD#2, but not a lot of separation. He turned out to be a pretty rotten shooter, but did put together 35 blocks.

[hoopsguy]

I'm scared for our conference - the recruiting results were just dismal all around.

Listed in order of final power ranking last season:
Aurora - 70/53, 1 starter, no NAs
Denver - 220/206, 0 starters, 2 NAs
Aspen - 114/182, 1 starter, 1 NA
Aberdeen - 126/70, 3 starters, no NAs
Boulder - 181/193, 1 starter, 1 NA
Fargo - 223/238, 1 starter, no NAs
Boise - 216/203, 1 starter, no NAs (FYI: last years class was 254/255, so the NAs are both sophs)
Keystone - 251/249, 1 starter, 1 NA (229/232 class last year)

Note: Starters and NAs are based upon computer-slotted lineup, which are often dismal. I do not expect to have TBD#1 as a starter this year, but the computer says I should go for it.

Bottom line: Boise and Keystone look to be just horror shows for the next couple of seasons based upon their underclassmen. Both of these programs beat me out for in-conference recruits I wanted badly (not any of their underclassmen) so I don't feel a bit sorry for them.

Denver's coach was pretty optimistic going into this weekend about his ability to stay tough despite losing Denney. I'm wondering if these recruits are what he had in mind. They can score, but to be ranked that low I'm guessing they have some pretty serious deficiencies in the rest of their collective game.

Aspen looks like the team that will push us this year, if anyone. But I'm not sleeping on Denver quite yet ... too much respect for that coach and the analysis of another guy that I chat with about SimSports from time to time. He said last week that there is a big talent gap between Aurora/Denver and the rest of the conference. This is based on a number of the statistics he collects; stuff that is deeper than my surface-level evaluations.

[hoopsguy]

We have entered a preseason tournament that looks like it will be terrificly hard. It is the Area 51 tournament, an annual tournament that invites Top 75 teams from previous power rankings (as they sit after 15 games, I think) to maul each other. Twelve teams, you play two from your division and one from another division.

Monday: Oxford Frontrunners
Wednesday: Madison Mandalorians
Friday: Phoenix Eunuchs

Oxford is the game we should hope to win here. They have posted back-to-back 17 win seasons, but their incoming talent is rated as average.

Madison might be a little less scary now that they graduated a +17 class, but they brought in three freshman who all have more steals than turnovers, all shoot at least 49.5%, and two of them have combined for 88 blocks. The third is projected as a starter, with one of those big lugs listed as NA. Yikes.

Phoenix, with their 4/2 incoming class of guards, must be pretty savage. I don't think I have ever seen a class ranked that high without a big man. Oh, and one of the guards is projected as NA. Their sophs are 18/8, so look for this team to compete for titles in the near future.

We aren't bad, but I don't see us as any better than 15-30 (power rankings) material, and very possibly worse than that. This competition should make sure my expectations going into the regular season are very low.

[hoopsguy]

I'm not going to continue calling the two new freshmen TBD1 and TBD2 the whole season. I would like to use the names of some of the posters here who take the time to read this rather than the computer generated names. But if there aren't takers today then I suppose I'll have to fall back on the computer names.

Also, I'm happy to have any kind of discussions on SimSports basketball here alongside my ramblings on Aurora and League 15. It felt like initially there were some posts in that direction, but I think I'm now on a 30+ post dola-marathon in this one. And it is hard to have a conversation when there is only one person doing the talking.

Finally, game recaps wil be a little shorter at this point as we are headed for exhibitions and regular season. Not every game is going to be particularly epic; our blowout of Keystone will likely get less "press" than the two showdowns with Denver.

[RPI-Fan]

Woot! Got my team... actually looks to not be totally devoid of talent, including a respectable +8 freshman class, and a dominating sophomore bigman. I'll be on AIM if you want to chat it up (I still am going to be confused with all the new options, etc., I think).

[hoopsguy]

Team Ratings, using the +/- system:

SHT: +3/-1
DEF: +9/0
HAN: +7/0
REB: +6/0
INT: +5/0
ATH: +8/0

Overall: +38/-1

The distribution towards defense and athleticism makes it a team that is more consistent with my "winning" formula than last years team. We will need for our guys to be able to make some shots despite our relatively low ranking. We lost two guys who shot 50% last year in Fall and Allen. Langley, Rademaker, and Suell all hit around 50% last year so hopefully the additional year of playing together helps them out a little bit. In particular, I would hope that Suell's PG play helps create more opportunities for the offense as he continues to mature.

Projected Starters:
SHT: +2/-1
DEF: +4/0
HAN: +3/0
REB: +4/0
INT: +2/0
ATH: +4/0

Projected Reserves:
SHT: +1/0
DEF: +5/0
HAN: +4/0
REB: +2/0
INT: +1/0
ATH: +4/0

Projected NA:
All 0/0 except INT which projected to +2/0.

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Team Ratings, using the +/- system:

SHT: +3/-1
DEF: +9/0
HAN: +7/0
REB: +6/0
INT: +5/0
ATH: +8/0

Overall: +38/-1

The distribution towards defense and athleticism makes it a team that is more consistent with my "winning" formula than last years team. We will need for our guys to be able to make some shots despite our relatively low ranking. We lost two guys who shot 50% last year in Fall and Allen. Langley, Rademaker, and Suell all hit around 50% last year so hopefully the additional year of playing together helps them out a little bit. In particular, I would hope that Suell's PG play helps create more opportunities for the offense as he continues to mature.

Projected Starters:
SHT: +2/-1
DEF: +4/0
HAN: +3/0
REB: +4/0
INT: +2/0
ATH: +4/0

Projected Reserves:
SHT: +1/0
DEF: +5/0
HAN: +4/0
REB: +2/0
INT: +1/0
ATH: +4/0

Projected NA:
All 0/0 except INT which projected to +2/0.

Wow. Your team seems to truly have no weaknesses.

edit: Except maybe putting points on the board. But it seems to me like your turnover margin should be among the best in the league, along with your scoring defense.

[hoopsguy]

I expect that our defense will be very, very good next year or the season after that. I have a ton of defensive talent locked up in our underclassmen. Our scoring punch is found in the upperclassmen right now.

Turnovers - if I run slowdown then we have done a very nice job of keeping those in check, even against good teams. And I can have very manageable turnovers running Normal in conference play. But Normal against good teams has led to some problems, so I'll probably end up reverting to slowdown when the postseason comes around, assuming we are in the NTT. If we are in the PTT (or worse, gulp) then I'll be in full-blown experimentation mode.

[hoopsguy]

Aurora suffered a tough, tough loss in the opener of the Area 51 tournament, 67-68 to the Oxford Frontrunners. We jumped them in the first quarter, running out to an eight point lead but gave it away steadily in the second and third quarters. There were multiple lead changes in the fourth quarter, but we got shut out the final two minutes to surrender the lead.

Noah Langley led the offense with 21 points. He just killed a freshman starter from Oxford, who fouled out in 26 minutes while scoring 3 points. But the good balance we had in the first quarter gradually disappeared as Langley was called upon again and again to bail the team out.

Kevin had a very nice debut at bSG. He played 12 minutes and scored 8 points on 3-5 shooting. He also collected one board to go with one turnover.

Bust of the game goes to our starting center, Garth East. Garth shot 1-7 from the floor, only collected three boards, and turned the ball over four times. Just not the kind of performance that we can accept. I'll see if going away from man-to-man and back to our Normal D helps out here. I've had better success rebounding in Simsports hoops when running zone, less with man.

Finally, I've scheduled a ton of scrimmages against 15-18 win teams from last year for this week. I'm looking to take advantage of these games to see where we stand versus an array of teams that should win between 12-20 games this season. If we are able to bank more than half of these games then we should be in good shape for conference play.

RPI, I'll have some info on Madison for you after tomorrow nights game. Will probably post on that next week as I'll be out of town Thursday - Sunday for New Years.

[hoopsguy]

We hung tough with Madison for almost three quarters before handing the game over to the better team. Richie Rademaker had the game of his life, going for 25 points against a tough, tough defensive team. He was basically half of our offense in good and bad times, as we let a 50-43 lead with 13 to play disappear into a disappointing 67-59 loss. After posting the seven point lead Madison just locked us up defensively, rolling up thirteen straight points. We were never able to battle back to a point where we seriously threatened in the closing minutes.

Center Garth East continues to shoot the ball too often and too miserably. An 0-6 night is just not what we want to see on offense. I can't push his shooting tendencies down a whole heck of a lot lower than they are right now. He did contribute ten rebounds and four blocks, which is exactly why he gets minutes. That, plus his defense. Opposing center Vinnie Stiles shot 1-10 from the floor. We outrebounded Madison 41-27, got seventeen more shots than them, but made two less shots (26-72 for the Autopsy). We didn't even make free throws, only knocking down six of thirteen.

The scrimmages were a mixed bag, as we won three and lost three. One of the losses was a double-OT affair where foul shooting caught up to us again.

Kevin scored 4 points in nine minutes against Madison. I upped his playing time on the settings, but it looks like the computer was smart enough to leave a white-hot Rademaker in for extra minutes.

RPI, I accepted the scrimmage against your guys. The results were not particularly pretty, but I expect you will have that team headed upwards pretty quickly.

[hoopsguy]

Phoenix has a scary-good offense. Or else we were just abyssmal on D. I'm hoping it is the former, as we got gunned down 91-69. Our offense was actually clicking for the first three quarters, but we just could not stop this team. And the 4th quarter was a horror show which skewed all of our stats towards hideous.

Garth stopped shooting, but also stopped defending as Phoenix got a combined 31 points between their two centers, 17 from backup Lashon Yeager. I felt a little better about this after learning that Yeager was a starter last season, averaging 14 per game in 24 minutes. We actually hit the glass hard this game, outrebounding the Eunuchs 37-27. But they converted 30-52 shot, including a sick 12-26 from behind the arc. There was no stopping this offensive onslaught.

Walker Clayton started out very aggressively on offense, scoring ten points in the first five minutes. Unfortunately he only scored two the rest of the way.

So we drew a pretty brutal three game schedule in the Vegas tournament Our opponents finished with a 7-2 mark; the losses were by 1 point and by 10 to the defending champs. Backup center Burt Thurman seemed to play hard off the bench, collecting six points and six rebounds in 10 minutes. Kevin struggled off the bench, with 4 points and 3 turnovers while surrendering a big night to his heralded freshman counterpart, Bruno Milan.

Hopefully the start of the regular season provides an opportunity to slowly rebuild our confidence with a win or two before the start of Conference 21 play.

[hoopsguy]

Cheyenne came into the game off a perfect preseason. They were 10-14 last season, their first losing season in L15. Their freshman class pulled down a 57/33 ranking; two of them were in the starting lineup.

The game was a thriller, going to double-OT before Cheyenne finished us off 99-92. Both teams hit buzzer-beaters to force an OT. Their PG, Montell Napier, converted the first one with 0:05 to play in regulation. Up to that point, neither team had scored since the 2:42 mark. In OT Cheyenne took a four point lead with 0:16 to play, but our PG Joe Suell drained a three with 0:10 to play. We then fouled immediately, only allowing one second to escape. Cheyenne converted both free throws, and we pushed the ball up court for our center (who can't shoot a lick) to bury the game-tying three to force OT #2. Of course, we laid a turd at this point to keep our overtime misery intact. We are now 1-8 in these games over the last 3+ seasons.

Our Normal D was ineffective again, so I don't see us playing this again anytime soon. This was our defense for most of last season. But Cheyenne shot 38-68; coupled with Phoenix shredding the D I'm done with this. We were tough on the boards, holding a 43-28 edge. We had four starters in double figures, led by PG Suell with 19 points and 5 assists. But 20 turnovers (7 by East) and no D were enough to overcome a pretty solid offensive effort.

By the way, the only starter not to hit double figures was senior SF Noah Langley. Since we expect him to be our leading scorer this year, this is a pretty major disappointment. He was a bust on Monday. With a capital B.

Kevin played 18 minutes, collecting four points (2-5 shooting) and 4 rebounds.

Cheyenne's freshman SG went for 28 points. He averaged 24 in HS last season. I'll be following his performance this year to see if that was fluke or if he is going to be a stud in this league.

Next up is Camden, who won their opener. I'm expecting a win in this game; if this does not come to pass then we may have to push the panic button early. Camden has some good young talent, but we should have the more mature basketball team. I've also seen good things in our scrimmages, indicating to me that we are more than capable of competing with teams in the 20-50 range in last years power rankings.

[hoopsguy]

The second leading scorer in HS basketball resides in Aurora. Here are his numbers:

Armon Esterle: 5'11 3.3 GPA 50 Exam
Good Scout HS Position: PG
Local: F+
Win: F+
Impact: F+

Attributes:
SHT: GOOD+ DEF: FAIR HANDS: GOOD+ REB: POOR+ ATHL: FAIR
PPG: 32.5 RPG: 2.5 APG: 2.0 SPG: 1.2 TOPG: 1.0 BPG: 0.0

I'm not really looking for 5'11 shoot-first PGs, but I do need a legit scorer. The F+ Local/Win/Impact aren't really a detriment or an enticement for pursuing him. I've got to believe that there will be a medium sized tie on him if I do chase, given that he is scoring this much and that everyone can download the spreadsheet to see this.


Beyond Armon, I'm looking at a few big man recruits with Local preferences that are advantageous for us (high local for nearby conferences, None/Poor local for distant conferences). Looking for guys with size who can score, don't stink at D, and won't be colossal ties. Not easy criteria at all ...

[hoopsguy]

Results are up early tonight. Aurora picked up their first win of the year in a grind-it-out 64-54 victory against the Camden Crumb Bums. The game was even through the first ten minutes, but the Autopsy began to pull away in the 2nd quarter and extended the lead to double-digits early in the 3rd quarter. The margin got as large as 18 in the fourth quarter before our team lost interest.

This is the kind of defensive performance I've been looking for, especially after a couple of poor efforts against quality teams last week. We held Camden to 21-53 shooting. The only player on the roster who gave us trouble was their starting center, Reece Curry. He was a force all game long, going for 18 points, 9 boards, and 4 blocks. Those numbers are in keeping for what he posted last season (17/7).

Offensively, Joe Suell was the main man. He was picking up fouls all night long, restricting their starter to 19 minutes before fouling out. Suell had 16 points and 3 assists. Clayton and Langley were both in double figures, with 12 and 10, respectively.

Kevin was a major contributor off the bench, going for seven points in 13 minutes. He also added a steal and was a big part of our surge in the 2nd quarter.

The offense overall was pretty ugly, only shooting 23-56 while collecting a miserable six assists. But the turnovers were down (7), the rebounding was decent (32-28 edge), and we protected our lead. This is how I'm used to seeing my teams win basketball games. I'm going to be surprised if this is a team that shows any real ability to run and hide from a quality opponent.

Aberdeen is the only team in our conference to start off with a 2-0 record. They have been a pretty consistent team in our conference, with last years 13-11 mark representing a down year. They look to have a decent big man combo at PF/C with seniors Robbie Weldon and John Prescott teaming up to average 32 points and 13 rebounds so far this year.

[hoopsguy]

So we maxed three recruits, one of which is Armon Esterle.

The other two are big men from bad conferences with mediocre rankings but strong blocked shot numbers, preferences that favor us, and stats/scout that suggest that they may be better than their scouted attributes

"Big Lug #1"
Height: 6'11
HS Position: C
Scout: F- (a favorite of mine, tend to be completely wrong)
GPA/Test: 3/50
Local: F Win: G- Impact: N
Attr: SHT: F DEF: P HAN: P REB: F ATH: F
Stats:
PPG: 14
RPG: 10
APG: 2
SPG: 1
TOPG: 1
BPG: 2

"Big Lug #2"
Height: 6'9
HS Position: C
Scout: Good
GPA/Test: 3.5/55
Local: N Win: G Impact: G
Attr: SHT: F DEF: F HND: F REB: G ATH: F
Stats:
PPG: 11
RPG: 8
APG: 2
SPG: 1
TOPG: 1
BPG: 2

These guys are not dominators, but they will give us some beef inside. With Thurman a senior and East a junior, we need to bring some big bodies into the program. If there was someone worth taking a shot at in conference with good prefs we would go for the gold. But I'll be happy to bank one of these kids for this season and sift through the safety net.

I didn't prioritize a guard in this class, but I'm drawn to a 30PPG guy in my own town. Hopefully we can bring him in to add some scoring punch.

[hoopsguy]

Aurora came out hot, scoring the first nine points of the game and never letting Manassas get their offense going. We shot lights out, they shot terribly, and the result was a 70-45 laugher.

Walker Clayton hit 8-10 shots from the floor en route to 17 points. He also had 9 rebounds. My biggest complaint with this game is that we left the starters in for too many minutes. No one is set to "SUB LESS", we were winning by 15-20 most of the 2nd half, and yet we had four players in there for 31-33 minutes. We were lucky enough to avoid injuries all of last season and I would like to keep that intact as long as possible.

I'm seeing that our team is not nearly as fierce on the glass while in Normal D, but we aren't allowing points either. Still working with a small sample set for these observations, but I would feel better about the Man D if we forced a few more turnovers. On offense, we are pretty balanced with four guys capable of going for 15-20 on any given night. I would love to see someone on the bench emerge as a consistent scoring threat to complement the starters, but will settle for good defense if that is their lot.

I'll post some of the early stats later tonight.

For those following this "dynasty" what kind of content would you like to see me bring out going forward?