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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 21, 2009 22:20:25 GMT
JACKSONVILLE STATE G A M E C O C K S You can blame Moo for this.
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Post by Moo on Mar 21, 2009 22:28:29 GMT
Love the title. Love Randy's pic. Love you.
One of those is not true.
KUTGW! :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 21, 2009 22:41:04 GMT
Try and out stare Randy.
You lose!
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 21, 2009 23:47:58 GMT
"Coach - beginning this week you can officially begin to recruit players for entry into your program next season. Recruiting will take place every week from now until the end of April - remember to set your recruiting instructions every week as they will be cleared out each week (except for your call list). Prior to the season starting your tasks will be recruiting and eventually scheduling practices. To advance through the offseason click on the >> button in the header. All other times you will advance the week either by running the daily schedule or by an e-mail task.
The recruiting page has an option to see a recruiting calendar. That will give you the dates of each recruiting period and their allowed actions.
Also you should visit the assignments page so you can assign the coaches you want to be in charge of recruiting and scouting.
Finally, be aware that the minimum test score for entry into our school is 840. Scores are finalized as of January 28th each year so please make an effort to recruit players who will meet that score and only recruit players at the end of the season who have met that score."
Of course, before I can make wild guesses about which 16 year old boys get to play with my Gamecocks, I need to look at the young boys already here.
I used the attribute masking feature in the game, which ian-terestingly means I know nothing about my players skills until I see them play. Next year.
So I'll be going off my coach ratings for now.
POINT GUARDS The Ray Wilkins of basketball, they wander about, are given the ball a lot and quickly give it to someone else to do something interesting with.
Terrence "Eddie" Murphy Junior - 6-2, 179lbs. Coaches seem to like him, which is good because the fans hate him. Coaches say he has good anticipation which helps him defensively, but his shooting is bad.
Emmett Slater Junior - 6-1, 195. Coaches say he can't shoot or pass, but they do say that "this Gamecock has excellent ball handling."
The game is funnier than I am.
Brian Reese Senior - 6-5, 199. If the scouts have any idea about what they're saying then we'll be seeing a lot of Mr Reese, as they say he can shoot well enough to have a run at the Pros, eventually, and has a "killer crossover dribble" which would impress me more if I had any idea what that meant.
Eddie Henry Senior - 6-3, 218 Another guy the coaches like and they can't be wrong twice, right? Has quick hands and likes to pull the Globetrotter trick of running very quickly toward the basket and then throwing the ball to someone else.
SHOOTING GUARDS Think Pippo Inzaghi - these guys loiter near the basket and aren't at all interested in anything until you give them the ball, then it'll go in the net. Or, more likely, they'll be offside.
They have offside in baskettall right?
Randy Massey Junior - 6-1, 196. Dumb as a bag of hammers but supposedly a good player, except that our coaches say his shooting has gone totally cold recently. Which is fine, because it's the off-season.
Justin Fletcher Sophomore - 6-0, 197. A contradiction in one player because he's great at aggressively charging the basket and drawing fouls, but then terrible at free throws.
SMALL FORWARDS Opinion differs if the "S" in "SF" stands for "Small" or "Shooting."
I thought it stood for science fiction.
They're big guys. Bigger than the guards, not as big as the Center and the other Forward. I guess they're good for getting stuff from high shelves, but not cats from trees.
BJ Gilchrest Sophomore - 6-8, 204. Not great at shooting, or blocking shots, but pretty handy at the bit in between - catching the ball when someone else shoots.
Lazy, which is appropriate for someone who went to a high school called "Doss."
Dahntay West Freshman - 6-8, 241. Dumb as rocks to the point where he'll probably be suspended for failing classes if I try and play him. I'll probably red shirt him this season so I can send him to the classroom.
David Condill Junior - 6-8, 195. Six eight and one ninety five? You scrawny fucker! Supposedly a fantastic offensive player with no defensive ability whatsoever.
Could have a jape by playing him at SG (not Senior Guvnor) in a special Tally-tall lineup.
POWER FORWARD Big fellas who can run a bit, unlike the Centers who are big fellas who focus on getting in the way. Or something. I'm a bit woolly on this.
Marco Wilson Freshman - 6-6, 191. Not only can't hit the basket with the ball, he probably couldn't hit the court. The good news is he's a "dominating defensive performer" so I don't have to fire him yet.
Joey Strohm Junior - 6-7, 231 The coaches tell me he has "big strong hands" which is exactly what I want on my Gamecocks.
CENTER Yes, t-e-r. We'll have no French spelling around here, thank you very much.
Big fellas who stand under the basket at both ends of the court and take half an hour to run around. Shaquille O'Neill is a Center. Everyone knows Shaq, right?
Joem Butler Freshman - 6-10, 276 Can jump very high, which I imagine is the least you'd expect from someone who's six foot fooking ten.
Mack Felton Sophomore - 6-10, 263 Apparently he has an ability to create opening for himself off the dribble. Which sounds messy.
Emmanuel King Sophomore - 6-10, 270 Nice porn name, buddy. Mr King can't move, but he can shoot, defend and "attack the glass", but I'm sure I can help him with the drinking problem.
Derrick Hughes Sophomore - 6-8, 277 The coaches say "A good defender" and that's it. Clearly they couldn't be bothered with any of that scouting nonsense by this point.
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Post by Sonic on Mar 22, 2009 9:12:55 GMT
Nice. Sounds like your in for a rough first season. Ah yes, and it's all down hill from Emmett Slater too :humb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 22, 2009 15:13:04 GMT
Handily, before you get to your first game, you get to do your first recruiting season and so I could spend time looking for future help for my team. The benefit of the recruiting class would be pretty small however, regardless of the quality found there, as I only had one scholarship to offer this year. While there were plenty of gaps in the team talent wise, there wasn't really any hole position wise, so I decided to just throw out the $50,000 I'd been given for recruiting purposes and see who was the highest ranked player I could get to show any interest in the team regardless of whereabouts on the court he wanted to stand. Eventually our choice narrowed down to Shooting Guard Brent Lampley and Point Guard James Hall. I wasn't sure we needed a Point Guard as we seem to be fairly well stocked there, but I could always redshirt him. Neither wanted to speak to me when I first called, but after I called back ten to fifteen times both relented, if only to get me to go away and after a few minutes of heavy breathing and shouting "GAMECOCKS!" they both seemed to get rather more interested. Over the next couple of months either my coaches or I would call them both every week for a chat and then I started to go watch their highschool games and finally, as the end of September rolled around, I started to visit their homes - sometimes even telling them I was there instead of just hiding in the bushes. At this point I got into a bit of a quandary as it was clear that Hall was going to be the easier sell as he's from Gamecock home-state Alabama, but for some reason his parents really didn't like me and weren't impressed that he was thinking about come to Jax to play with my Gamecocks. Meanwhile my other target; Lampley, wasn't getting any problems from his Ma', (his Dad was around, but had fooked off when he was a bairn so had no influence), but he was from Louisiana, which meant it would be awkward to pitch our team as "local", but the good news is that after a bit more investigation it became clear that both Lampley and his Mother like "discipline." After a couple of weeks dressed in a PVC thong and a leather mask, living in a baggage trunk at the foot of Mrs Lampley's bed, Brent's interest in coming to Alabama peaked noticeably and he eventually signed a "letter of intent" stating "this piece of paper is legally indefensibly and, therefore, virtually worthless, but if it makes you feel better I'll say I'm coming to your school and sign it." As soon as the press found out, Lampley fell from the 177th rated player in High School to the 344th, which should say a lot about Gamecock basketball. He looks angry.
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Post by Moo on Mar 22, 2009 16:11:10 GMT
That looks like Vernard Benoit, my Centre from Maine.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 23, 2009 0:52:20 GMT
| Jacksonville State Gamecocks @ Sacramento State Hornets | Cocks and Hornet, eh? Do your own jokes, I'll wait.
My first game in charge and for much of the time I'm a bit baffled by what's going on. I see my team scoring some points, but I couldn't tell you why we went on a run that put us 13 points ahead, then in the second half something clearly changed, but I couldn't tell you what.
This is how Kevin Keegan must feel.
One thing that was abundantly clear pretty quickly is that the coaches don't really know what they're on about. Brian Reese, supposedly the best thing since sliced cocaine according to our coaching staff, put in four points and three assists in 17 minutes on the court, which isn't setting anyone alight, to be honest, especially considering he only hit on two of seven shots. I could do that. With a ladder.
The good news is that wannabe porn star Emmanuel King threw in 11 points off the bench and grabbed six rebounds to lead the team in both of those categories.
Also impressing, statistically at least, are BJ Gilchrist who scores 10 points in 17 minutes and Center Derrick Hughes, who surprises me with an impressive 10 points in just 12 minutes.
So all of that was nice, but for some reason after a dominating first half, we really fell out of the gates to start the second and before I knew it Sacramento had reeled us in from a nine point deficit to lead by two and from there the rest of the game was really tightly contested.
With a minute to play the lead was flipping backwards and forwards, when we finally got a double whammy, with Small Forward Dhantay West landing only his second basket of the day, then following that with his second steal, flipping the ball away to a sprinting Randy Massey to slam home and open a four point lead.
Sacramento tried to come back with the boring fouling and quick shooting that plagues the end of baskettall games, but that doesn't seem to work too well when your team sucks, so we won our opener.
Considering the Athletic Director had been on the dog the day before to give me the team's objectives for the season and had said only "don't come last", that's not a bad beginning. | Jacksonville State Gamecocks 79-76 Sacramento State Hornets |
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Post by Sonic on Mar 23, 2009 9:15:01 GMT
Cocks eek Hornet in a squeaker?
Nice opener there for not knowing what your doing :thumb:
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Post by Moo on Mar 23, 2009 9:54:45 GMT
It takes a while to get into this, s1ut, I'll grant you that. However, it's annoying in that you would rather click the buttons and play the game than write up about it. Just like FOF. TBH, I can see the game lasting longer than the thread. KUTGW! :thumb:
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Post by elth on Mar 23, 2009 18:27:23 GMT
He'll get bored when MARCH MADNESS is over, or he runs out of dick jokes.
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Post by Narcizo on Mar 23, 2009 18:47:07 GMT
Never, then.
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Post by Moo on Mar 24, 2009 9:32:47 GMT
He likes his cocks, he told me so.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 27, 2009 19:13:21 GMT
Well this is horrible then. The school gave me some fairly unambitious goals for this season, namely to win 10 games and not to finish bottom of our league. When we won our first game this seemed like it was going to be fairly comfortable and even when we dropped a very lopsided second 76-51 defeat to New Mexico at home, I wasn't that concerned. However, when we went to the University of North Texas and turned a 55-39 half time advantage into a 79-83 defeat I was annoyed to the point that I couldn't find any humour in a scoreboard that looked like a part completed game of adult hangman as it showed "COCKS - UNT" Then we lost 84-70 on the road against Florida International before finally righting the ship with a 71-50 victory back at home against Colorado State. Our one consistency thus far is an utter lack of consistency. We have no solid performers on the team, with two players seemingly chosen at random each game to massively disappoint and one other chosen to play at a level so far above his regular standard that it'd be like Stephen Hawkinge being introduced as fifth man on the Harlem Globetrotters. As predicted by the coaches, Brian Reese has been our best scorer at a fraction over 10 a game, but he also turns the ball over three times a game, which isn't so hot. By contrast, our best defender steals the ball once per game, on average. Attitude wise, my only problem so far is Power Forward Marco Wilson who clearly hates my guts. In the space of five games his relationship meter has dropped by half, possibly because I shouted at him in the game where we binned the massive lead against the UNTs. The thin-skinned poof. On the positive side, coming up I've got a game against Colgate.
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Post by hornet on Mar 28, 2009 10:26:10 GMT
You should be able to brush them off.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 29, 2009 18:23:04 GMT
I'm thinking of nominating them as my non-conference rival to set up a game every season for some sort of championship plaque.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Mar 29, 2009 18:52:41 GMT
Our next game is on the road against the Charleston Southern Buccaneers who have had a decent start to the season, what with them being 5-0 so far.
In the gap between the last game and this one I'd called in Point Guard Brian Reese and told him I was moving him to Shooting Guard, where he'd have less pressure on him to create and could just focus on his shooting. I also told him to shoot more three pointers, as we seem to be involved in two types of games - ones where we're so far behind it doesn't matter if we go for lots of low percentage shots and ones where we're so far in front it doesn't matter if we go for lots of low percentage shots.
I then fielded a couple of phone calls from Power Forward Marco Wilson who essentially just wanted to call me a git and tell me how much he hates playing for the Cocks, which is great. He's a Freshman and might sod off somewhere else for next season, but I can't recruit a replacement until he does leave, which could see me a bit short (hoho) at Forward next year.
Off we went to Charleston then for an anticipated drubbing and everything looked set for a humping, sans lube, when we trailed 16-2 after 10 minutes and 25-6 after 12, but then I noticed the Buccs had put out some sort of Circus midget at Shooting Guard and so I threw the slightly knackered Reese back out there after he'd got off to a thoroughly uninspiring start to the game.
I called a timeout to do it, called a specific play designed to get Reese open for a three pointer and then gave him some praise to build up his confidence and 10 seconds later he sinks a shot from about a mile away. Then we get the ball back and does it again.
The game then devolves into a crazy three point shooting exhibition as both teams forgo defence to just throw in three point buckets. After scoring 18 points in the first 10 minutes, the teams combine to add another 52 in the next 10 to go to the half with the Buccs leading 38-32.
We need a quick start to the second half and we get it as Reese lands another three on our first possession after the reset and when the game enters its final ten minutes we've closed the gap from six to just one, but then we miss a shot and the Buccs run the floor to ram the ball home and earn a free throw to make it a three point play, then land another three of a steal to push the lead back to seven and I'm thinking that that's the end of our comeback.
But no one told my guys... they went mental for the final six or seven minutes blocking shots, stealing the ball and sinking threes and drawing fouls. The Buccs look shellshocked and start fouling to try to stop us, but they can't do that for long and while Reese continues to drop in long range bombs for a game-leading 23 points, unsung squad players Dhantay West and Mack Felton also have great second halves to finish with 14 and 13 points respectively as we crush the previously undefeated CSU 86-70.
We'd come back from 19 behind at one point to win by 16.
After the Buccaneers come the Hampton Pirates, then the Colgate Raiders.
Not safe to go to sea in this league.
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Post by Moo on Mar 30, 2009 7:40:06 GMT
I'm thinking of nominating them as my non-conference rival to set up a game every season for some sort of championship plaque. Arf!
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Post by Moo on Mar 30, 2009 7:42:33 GMT
Nice victory at the end there, fella. :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Apr 10, 2009 18:59:33 GMT
After winning the tough game we were supposed to lose, we then go on the road for two games we should win and, predictably enough, lose both.
In the first we were hammered by Hampton 71-57 in a game in which we had the lead once, at 2-0, and my boys couldn't see the basket, let alone put the melon in it. The Colgate stuck it up us, 64-61. They led 60-47 with just over two minutes to go, so the final flatters us somewhat and shows what a problem we're suddenly having with shooting.
Then we welcome in the North Colorado State Rams and after another really slow start to the game, (six points between the teams in the first seven minutes), we exploded to hit a string of three pointers for a 20 point lead at the break.
I won't say a comfortable 20 point lead, because defending 20 points seems to be almost fucking impossible in this game and in the second half we're just caned left and right, regardless of what I call on offence or defence.
Eventually a string of three timeouts called back-to-back-to-back, all of which are used to "Scream" at my team seems to wake them up and they barely cling on to turn a 40-20 halftime lead into a 65-61 win, thanks to a three pointer in the last 25 seconds.
I desperately need some new staff who are good at training people, because none of my players are very good yet at the offences I want to concentrate on.
Still, next week we're up against Alabama who are only the 14th best team in the country. :cab:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Apr 10, 2009 20:03:21 GMT
Simmed the 'Bama game and they gave me the expected humping, (Elephants hump Gamecocks... sounds painful), running out 80-60 winners in a game where I didn't have the lead even once.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Apr 11, 2009 1:01:04 GMT
After Bama I got a game against the 9-1 San Diego Toreadors who beat me and then the 7-2 Tennessee State something or others in my first conference game and they beat me too. 71-56.
Only managing 56 points is quite the feat and came about courtesy of Derrick Hughes who managed to repeatedly miss wide open shots, (11 of them, the coont), and then after the game he got suspended for failing his exams and will be gone the rest of the year.
Needless to say I am not exactly thrilled with Mr Hughes.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Apr 11, 2009 2:04:20 GMT
So we're at the start of 2009 now and I thought I'd revisit the roster. I'm still paying for the mistake of picking masked attributes early on, thinking it would show only a few attributes that filled in over time like FM, when in fact it means I see nothing at all, having to guess how good my guys are by watching them play.
Guards I've lumped the guards together, because the rare success I've had this year has featured a Point Guard playing at Shooting Guard.
Brian Reese is the man in question as he's averaging 14.6 points a game which is five points higher than my next player. His best effort was a 26 point game and he's been player of the game three times. He's listed as a Point, but I've been playing him at the Shooting position.
With Reese out of position Terrence Murphy has been playing on the Point and has started to throw in a lot of assists.
Eddie Henry has been up and down on the point, while Randy Massey started well at the Shooting Guard position, but has fallen apart recently and now couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.
Most of the others have varied between routinely useless and completely useless.
Small Forward B.J. Gilchrist started well and, as a result, started, a lot. Then in the last game he didn't because like much of my team he's forgotten the entire point of the sport.
Gilchrist's lack of form cleared the way for Dahntay West who rewarded me for the 17 minutes of play I gave him with one sodding point.
Davind Condill is crap.
Power Forward Joey Strohm has been the key at Power Forward and has six games with double figures for points and he averages over 5 rebounds a game.
Marco Wilson has been garbage, so I was using Derrick Hughes at this spot, before he got himself suspended for one hundred and twenty six days for not doing his sums.
Center With Hughes in detention I have three Centers, two of whom are any good. Emmanuel King is very up and down scoring a few and catching a few rebounds at time and he was one of the few players to have a good game against Alabama, but usually I have to sit him down early on as he doesn't seem to start well or gets into foul trouble.
The other guy who's getting more time these days is Mack Felton who isn't exactly the sort of guy you want to pin your hopes on.
Essentially we're vaguely passable at Guard and Small Forward, mediocre at Small Forward, bad at Center and dream of being bad at Power Forward.
The one Guard I've got coming into the team next season isn't going to sort all of that out on his own.
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Post by Sonic on Apr 11, 2009 3:47:15 GMT
I think you need to tell your shooting coach to stop telling the players they'll shoot better by staring at the sun for half an hour as a warm up. If attribute masking is this good with your own players, I can't wait to see a what happens when you start recruiting
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Apr 12, 2009 13:59:28 GMT
For the first time last game I felt like I was managing instead of merely moving sliders and instructions around like some form of drunken ape with a love of swearing at pixels.
We'd spawned our way past Eastern Illinois 107-105 in triple overtime in the game that seemed like it would never end, which was another classic where we were expected to walk over our opponents, had a 20 point halftime lead and binned it quickly before spawning a win when most of our opponents' players hit the fouls limit and couldn't play any more.
Then came a tough match at home to Eastern Kentucky in which I decided to try a different tack, setting the team to run one style of offence only, but increasing their offensive freedom, so that they could choose something else if they saw the need during the game on individual possessions.
Then I contented myself purely with messing with the speed of attack slider and the options for changing whether we tried to attack the basket down low, or stick outside for long range shots.
Leaving the base the same and playing with the options in that fashion seemed to not have much effect early on, but then I found that putting out my best two three point shooters at Guard (Reese and Massey) and then telling my team to attack the inside a lot worked some holes in the Kentucky defence as they didn't know whether to fall back or push out and we eeked out an eight point lead at the half.
Of course, leading at the half in this game seems to be suicidal, so Kentucky pushed back strongly to start the second and came within two points when I called a timeout.
I'd drifted away from the heavy inside attack because Kentucky had started to adapt to it successfully, but now I went back to it, throwing on Guards Eddie Henry and Justin Fletcher who aren't great, but both are listed by my scouts as people who like to drive to the basket to draw fouls.
The good news is that that worked, so from here we started not only extending the lead a bit again, thanks to my Guards being fouled while shooting, earning the extra free throw, but we also started to put the opposition into foul trouble and eventually they had to sit their best Guard to stop him from fouling out early.
When Kentucky had to sit their second best Guard too, it was time to go back to the Reese and Massey combo for my guys, so I could put my #1 and # Guards on their #3 and #4 players and quickly Reese and even cold-shooting Massey sunk a pair of threes each and we established a comfy lead going into the last two minutes, allowing me to stick out the wasters like David Condill and Marco Wilson to get some time, as we finished with a 71-56 win.
The win improved our record to 6-9, but the important part - the in-conference score - is now 2-2.
Reese's 15.8 ppg is the fourth best in the conference, while Terrence Murphy who didn't play much in the Kentucky game is second in assists with 5.1 per game.
Derrick Hughes was doing very well in the Blocks-per-game standings, before he was suspended for being a ninny.
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