BuzzerBeater Forums

"Singleblackmale.org" o_o That is all....

Thoughts exactly

Everyone involved in the National team has begun to point out that the prospects we have coming up through the system right now are a little weaker than past years. Where has our program gone south in this regard and as U21 manager, what would you do to turn this trend around?

Partly this is a result of cross-training's effects now being felt with the new age classes coming up. We can't control that aspect, but neither can other countries' teams...so we've got a wash, there. 21 year old players, even if optimally trained, will be 10% weaker from now on.

My observation is that after having quite a few really excellent age classes in a row. we're seeing a slight lowering in the number of optimally trained prospects. I absolutely do not think our program has "gone south" with this. Like I said in the previous post, the offsite scouting is doing their important part of the job as well as possible...every worthy rookie and player 21 and under in the whole US is identified and their owner contacted within a week or two each season. For a specific action I'd like to revamp and freshen up the stickied onsite posts as coach and tout the benefits to lower division managers of training a U21 player. But all in all, the number of trained prospects will fluctuate and I have faith that the current scouting and outreach efforts are the way to go.

So my direct answer to you is this: I see the coach's job is far as prospects is to maintain contact with the scouts and owners as well as possible for directing training for the best possible U21 players. That is what I'll do as coach, as how well I do this is the most important thing I can do for encouraging quality prospects.

Since with the Level of NT and U21 are different, how will you guys *make* the U21 Players *suitable* for the NT? Trying to say what will happen if the U21 Guys are not being trained properly? How will you guys show you got what it takes to BE the manager? Gamplanning? Players and skills and tactics debates? Will yall be taking some ideas from the Community? Or will stick with the Usual Dominant LI?

Hey tough - I think I've answered your NT vs U21 question as well as I know how in my first post in this thread. If that doesn't do it for you let me know.

I mentioned in my speech how I would like to add more details and data than has been done in the past in setting up game planning threads off-site. But I don't have any changes in mind as far as involving the community in game discussions. We've had most of our coaches do a great job encouraging planning dialogues and thoroughly and openly probing the options available. I certainly hope to continue that with little change - the more eyes and viewpoints that are available, the better informed the coach's decisions will be.

Hey tough, sorry buddy but I'm not running this season haha.

Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?

1. What skills are you looking for in your starting SG?


2. In a LI, what kind of SF do you prefer, Marshall Ray type or Herbert Jones type?


3. Whats your gameplan for our epic matchup with Guatemala on Christmas Eve?

1. What skills are you looking for in your starting SG?

OD and PS. And lots of it. Jon mentioned hoping to have more traditional SG builds available. I'm not against having such players as additional options, but my observation is that these type of guards just end up being bad chuckers playing LI. I think, guardwise, the first priority of the U21 coach is to have a stable of players who can play effective LI.

2. In a LI, what kind of SF do you prefer, Marshall Ray type or Herbert Jones type?

Is this a trick question? The Cabal put you up to this? These were both similarly effective players...Ray with better outside skills (OD, HA), and Jones a better inside scorer (IS, DR). But they both were roughly equally effective this season. Offensively both had similar FG%. Defensively Jones was better stopping guys 34% vs 41% for Ray...although that stat is a bit deceptive since Ray defended a ton more IS attempts than Jones. I think having the slight inside/outside contrast with the players was a good thing for tailoring match ups to the opponents. So overall I can't say that I would prefer one of those guys to the other since they seemed to work well as a tandem.

3. Whats your gameplan for our epic matchup with Guatemala on Christmas Eve?

Drinking 8 eggnogs and drunkenly changing the tactics at the last minute to Princeton/FCP because, man, that would just be freaking hi-larious!

1. 14 JS 13 JR 15 OD 12 HA 14 DR 11 PA 5 IS 4 ID 5 REB 3 SB 3 ST 11 FT

2. Great question but I don't think it would matter. They both have good OD but Ray seems to have better ID but worse JS and/or JR. In the end I would pick someone like Marshall Ray because my goal is defense.

3. On offense LI then on defense I would let you guys decide. My objective is to work with our center and power forwards so LI is perfect but defense I'm still undecided so I would let you guys decide that. After we win I'm then gonna enjoy a 10+ pound ham.

1. Ideally a top shooting guard would something like 14/14/14/10/11/10 by the beginning of their 21 year old season. That's basically Lucas at the start of his 21yo season, taking the extra passing and moving it to JR and the extra OD and moving it to JS. Basically I'm looking for more JS/JR. You need a fair amount more, though, or else you get players like Donnie McDaniel, who fewmit was describing when he mentioned "chuckers who play LI". I'd rather have another point guard than one of those players. But a great shooter like Jonathan Yi or Jimmie Brown could be a valuable asset, I think.

2. Jones really wasn't a better defender than Ray on any level. Same IS, -5 OD, +1 rebounding, +1 SB. Not a big difference, so the FG% allowed was definitely deceptive. Jones had +2IS and much better driving, like fewmit said. So Ray's defense and Jones' offense complemented each other nicely. The thing about Jones is, he was 7'0" and started with 4 OD and 3 PA according to (196854.112). He also had at least two 2-week injuries that I can recall, one at the end of his 20 year old season and one while he was on the team. So if he had started with better OD/PA and/or if he hadn't been injured, he could have been significantly better. Overall, like fewmit said, they work very well together and it would be nice to have a player like each of them, but I'm probably more intrigued by the Jones-type player.

Ray also didn't help himself by doing his best to lose us the finals single-handed, chucking up shots and missing them. He had a problem all season with taking threes and jump shots and missing them. Neither Ray nor Jones had great JS/JR, but Jones at least could score inside so he wasn't shooting as many jump shots. A future Ray-type player would probably need more JS/JR and slightly less IS, instead of the jack of all trades, master of none skill set he had.

3. Call up 5 random scrubs (probably all from my team of course) to play so the regular guys can go home and spend Christmas with their family. ;)

To answer your question my criteria for a U21 player will be high so that way when I'm done with the U21 players they'll go right on on the the NT. My managing style will be VERY interactive! I will go with the LI but defensively the USA community will help me. I'm always split between defensive tactics and you guys would help me a lot with that.