I meant to post something about UC-Riversim before the last games of the conference season, but I did not check the schedule to see when those would be. The conference season is over. Have no idea what UC-Riversim is? It’s a team I’m managing in another college basketball website’s simulation game (heatcheckcbb.com is the site) with the only goal of mine being to win as many NIT’s as possible over the course of the simulation’s life in order to bring glory to Joe Kelly’s alma mater.
If you’ve missed the previous posts, here you are:
Now, conference play.
It started with disappointment. Remember how I was recruiting some high school guard? Santorio Mendenhall, maybe? Well, no dice:
Nothing there (alphabetical list by school). And damn UC-Irvine taking my man.
Again, pretty sure this is because I budgeted all my program’s recruiting energy on transfers rather than high schoolers, which might be smart in the long run, but is pretty boring right now.
Thankfully, even with recruiting making me nervous, the Season 1 team raced out to a strong conference start:
Furious about that UC-Irvine loss, of course, especially since they might be UCR’s natural rival (I have no idea). But still, strong start. And I let the media know (without, you know, letting the media know):
Sorry, folks. No pet rocks here. And I am a little superstitious. So that means we’ve gotta read.
The second round of conference games went comparably decently.
Well enough, and also not well enough, such that I went into the sim league’s spreadsheet, found my schedule, and transcribed it in my own documentation so I could check things out.
Thankfully, we had the head-to-head advantage over Northridge if we could take ‘em down at our place. Also, no home losses. Solid.
There was one recruiting period left. It felt like I should try to get at least one recruit, since rosters can hold eight players and mine for next year only has six and two of those guys are transfer risks and while I think the simulator will make sure I get transfers to fill the gaps I don’t know that for sure.
So I decided to change up the approach, aim lower, and go for a JuCo guy, trying to fill a slot while also getting better at the point:
Now, this is where it becomes relevant that I didn’t know when conference play was going to end. Because conference play ended Sunday night and I was wholly unprepared. Opened up the email and, well, found a whole lot of results:
Only one loss…not bad. But was it enough?
You bet your simulated ass it was enough. UC-Riversim, Big West Champions, front row ticket to the NIT as long as we can lose in the Big West tournament. Which is…today:
Yes, today’s the moment of truth. We’ll see how it goes. Check this space for an update tonight or tomorrow or maybe later I don’t know. If you’re really looking for results I mean the url’s right there (also thank you for your investment in this team of mine which takes me ten minutes three times a week to manage).
Before the tournament, of course, I had to deal with the media again:
Really hard to answer some of these in a way that says, “I’m trying to lose so we get an automatic bid to the NIT as the Big West Regular Season Champions,” but hey:
No one said coaching is easy.
