SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game
In SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game, you get to start your own college basketball program!
In the game, there are multiple leagues each filled with 256 teams. In some leagues, like League 15, there will be close to 256 people controlling the basketball teams. In others, some of the teams are computer controlled.
Once you have your college basketball team, you are responsible for coaching your team. Also, you’re responsible for recruiting high school seniors for next year’s team.
Coaching in SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game
You’ll have 12 college basketball players. Each is rated in 6 categories. The categories are Shooting, Defense, Hands, Rebounding, Intelligence, and Athleticism. Based on these ratings, you assemble a lineup. For instance, you will want your shorter players who have good hands and high intelligence to play point guard. You will want a good shooter at shooting guard, and you will want taller rebounders at power forward and center.
You also control your team’s tempo: Slow, Normal, or Uptempo.
You get to choose your defense style: Man-to-Man, Zone, or mixed.
You choose how often your team shoots 3-pointers.
Finally, you get to choose what your team will practice. Whatever skill your team practices, each player will get better in.
Once you’re finished, you submit your coaching instructions. Then on Monday night, your team will play a simulated basketball game against another team. Your settings will affect how your basketball team plays. For instance, if you run uptempo offense, your team will take quick shots, which means you’ll have more possessions and a higher scoring game. But this also means you will turn the ball over more. Team talent, along with effective coaching, will affect whether you win or lose. After Monday night’s basketball game, there will be another game on Wednesday night, and a third game on Friday night.
The regular season lasts 15 games, or 5 weeks in real life time. After the regular season, there is an 8-team conference tournament. The winner gets an automatic bid into the NTT (the equivalent of the NCAA Tournament). The rest of the 64 team NTT field is filled based on a power rankings system. If you don’t make the NTT, there will be another post-season tournament for you. The entire season, including the postseason, lasts 24 games, or 8 real life weeks.
Recruiting in SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game
You also decide recruiting actions once each real-life week. There are 768 high school players that each college team is trying to recruit. You are free to recruit whichever players you want, but you are limited in the number of players you can attempt to recruit. The recruiting game is amazingly strategic.
The high school players play their own simulated basketball games, so you get to follow their stats throughout the season. Also, each player is scouted by a scout. Some scouts are very good, so their ratings are a sure thing. Others are not so good, so you have to do more guess work based on the player’s stats and team.
You want to find good high school players, but you also want to find players that the other teams overlook and choose not to recruit. For instance, the sure thing best players will be recruited by lots of college teams. The more college teams that are trying to land a recruit, the worse your odds of landing him. There’s a delicate balance that even veteran SimulatedSports.com players sometimes struggle with. Recruiting is an art and a science that never gets old.
Also, each high school player has personal preferences. Some players want to go to college close to their hometown, while others want to go to a college away from home. Some want to play for winning teams, while others want to play for a basketball team where they’ll make an immediate impact. You have to match these preferences with your college team’s situation to give yourself the best chance of landing the recruit.
At the end of the season, recruits chose which college team to sign with. Then the recruiting classes are ranked by two virtual magazines. The better your recruits, the higher ranked your recruiting class will be.
And then the next season begins, but now with your seniors replaced by your high school recruits. You try to win the NTT Basketball title again, while recruiting a new set of high school players.
My Opinion on SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game
I love this free college basketball game. It’s simple enough that you can play it with a small learning curve, but then becomes extremely complex. The game is so complex that it doesn’t get old. I’ve been playing for a few years now and still have yet to win an NTT title. The game is a blast. And best of all, it’s totally free! I strongly suggest you try SimulatedSports.com’s Free College Basketball Game, which I believe is the best free game on the Internet.
