NCBCA Wiki:Newcomers

Hey there! If you've come across this page the chances are you are new and interested in joining the NCBCA. But before you request a team it is important that you know what is going on. Below is everything you need to know to get started so you can get on your way to building a dynasty and bringing a team to the national championship.

What is the NCBCA?
The NCBCA is a multiplayer Zen GM College Basketball Coach league with 80 real life college teams in 5 conferences each controlled by a coach who controls his or her teams dynasty by battling it out for recruits, signing sponsorship's and much more. The NCBCA has an active community on both reddit and discord where you can see the latest news, exports and chat or ask questions with other coaches. We also have an experienced commissioner and helpful moderators who are your number one go to guys with any questions you have.

Judging Panel
The Judging Panel is a group of mainly coaches who decide where players will go. They factor in how well a pitch is written and values. To avoid repeating myself over and over again, below is a short list that consists of sections on this page that are decided by the judging panel.
 * 1) Recruiting
 * 2) Graduate Transfers
 * 3) Cut Players Recruitment
 * 4) Declaring For Draft

The people who are currently on the judging panel are:
 * Hazyel (Stanford)
 * AC23 (Two Time Champion) (Indiana)
 * El-Random (UConn) 75-15 / 1xCOTY
 * H੦ZΛNΣK (Boston College)
 * Brent (Mississippi State)

Recruiting
Recruiting, like in real life, takes place during the off-season after the season has taken place. Due to the in-game recruiting system being inefficient the in-game budget is completely ignored. During the recruiting period each team creates pitches to try and convince a student to come and play for their school. These pitches can be written and presented almost anywhere including adobe spark, google docs, and powerpoint. These pitches are posted in the recruiting threads on reddit where they will be judged by the judging panel. The judging panel decides where a recruit goes due to a number of factors. This includes how well written the pitch is and values. Be aware that once a recruit has received an offer from a coach, all other teams will have a time period to respond which varies depending on the recruits star rating. You can read more about this in the star ratings section.

School and Coach Visits
Each recruiting period you are given 5 school visits and 3 coach visits to use on recruits. These factor heavily into a player's recruiting and can be the decisive factor in a player's school of choice. You are only given a few so make sure to use them wisely and only on players you think can make a significant difference on your team.

It is important that you know that once you offer a visit, you can not edit it out of your pitch. However, you can edit a visit into your pitch.

Star Ratings
5-Stars: #1 - #25 ''After receiving an offer, all other teams have 16 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added. ''

4-Stars: #26 - #110 ''After receiving an offer, all other teams have 24 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added. ''

3-Stars: #111 - #150 ''After receiving an offer, all other teams have 16 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added. ''

2-Stars: #151 - #290 ''After receiving an offer, all other teams have 16 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added. ''

1-Stars: #290 - #350 After receiving an offer, all other teams have 16 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added.

0-Stars: #351+ ''After receiving an offer, all other teams have 16 hours to make an offer. Each time a team makes an offer, an additional 16 hours are added. ''

* The above links are only for reference and are from a previous recruiting period.

Scholarships
Scholarships heavily factors into a students decision and are essential to luring in students to come and play for your school. Each team has eight scholarship spots that can be used at a time. After successfully recruiting a student with a scholarship they take up one of the eight spots which they will occupy until they leave the team.

4-star recruits are unique in the fact that they require a scholarship. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Here are the two ways you can avoid offering a 4-star a scholarship. All other star rated students do not require a scholarship. However, not offering a 5-star student a scholarship extremely reduces your chances of successfully recruiting them.
 * 1) Have at least 6 scholarships spots occupied on your team; This means that if you have 6 scholarship players on your team, then you're qualified to offer a 4-star a walk on spot.
 * 2) Once 3 days have passed during recruiting week; This means that once its been at least 72 hours since recruiting has started, then you're qualified to offer a 4-star a walk on spot.

Values
Just like in real life each player is unique and has his own interests when choosing a team. Below is each value with a brief description of its meaning and how it factors into recruiting.

Location: Location is how close in proximity you are to a student. For example, if your school is in California and the student you're interested in has a 5 for location and is located in New York it would reduce your chances of successfully recruiting him.

Pro Potential: Pro potential is how likely a student is to make it to the NBL (Our version of the NBA).

Playing Time: Playing time is how interested a student is in playing. For example, if you have two point guards who are both above 70 overall and you are interested in a 58 overall point guard with a 5 for playing time. It would be very unlikely you could offer him enough minutes to successfully recruit him.

Winning: Winning, much like its name implies is how interest a student is in winning. For example, a team who can barely manage to win 10 games a year will have a tough time recruiting a student with a 5 for winning.

Loyalty: Loyalty is how interest a student is in your loyalty. Loyalty is a rating of how you follow-up on your promises. For example, if you have made promises such as making a player a starter and not starting them or cutting a scholarship player, it will effect your loyalty rating. A player with a 5 for loyalty does NOT want to play for a liar.

Prestige: Prestige is how interested a player is in your teams prestige. Prestige is an in-game rating that essentially rates your teams history. A player with a 5 for prestige doesn't want to play for a team with low prestige.

Education: Education is how interested a player is in your education. A player with a 5 for education does not want to play for a team with a low education rating.

Education is the only value that differs depending on the students star rating. 5-stars with a 5 in education find education to be important while 5-stars with 1-4 have no preference.

Campus Life: Campus life is how interested a player is in what goes beyond the court and classroom. Niche is a good website to use as a reference for this value.

Graduate Transfers
Like in real life, Seniors who have graduated still have one year of eligibility left meaning they can transfer to a different program. Successfully recruited transfers will only be playable for one season.

Cutting Players
During the off-season, you are allowed to cut players with the only exception being if you will go under the minimum 10 players. Likewise, if you are above the maximum 13 players allowed you will be forced to cut a player from your team. Players cut from your team will be available for recruitment for other teams during cut player recruitment.

Cut Player Recruitment
After a player is cut they will be available for all other teams to recruit. Just like regular recruiting you will be able to offer school visits, coach visits, and scholarships.

Redshirt Freshman
Redshirting freshman is just as important in game as it is in real life. Redshirting allows you to extend a players eligibility to further develop a players overall, however, the redshirted freshman will not be able to play for the entirety of his freshman season. Any freshman can be redshirted as long as they are '''under 60 overall. '''Teams are limited to just two redshirt players per season.

Declaring For Draft
Players who declare for the draft will be removed from your team and free up their scholarship spot (if they were on scholarship). The chances of a player declaring for a draft depends on factors such as how they performed during the season, ratings (overall and potential), and others.

Lineup Preferences
Setting up a lineup can be essential to a teams success due to how bad the auto-sort feature can be at times. If you would like your lineup to be customized, you should post a screenshot of it on the lineup preferences thread. If you do not want a customized lineup don't post anything and your lineup will be auto-sorted.

Brands and TV Deals (Sponsorships)
Brands are a feature that allows each team to be sponsored and make money doing so while getting their own unique, customized jerseys. Each brand is controlled by a brand ambassador which are the spokespeople for the brand. To get a sponsor, you must contact the commissioner Hazyel on discord and request a brand (This is only temporary as Brent who runs the brands is currently on vacation).

TV Deals are a feature much like Brands, however TV Deals are decided by each conference with each team within the conference making the same amount of money from the contract.

Currently, brands and TV deals do not have an impact on the game and have no other use than for our own enjoyment. You can see the TV deal and brand contracts here.

Exports
Exports allow you to download the league and view the standings, records, stats, future recruits, and much more. Here is a link to the most recent export. After downloading the export go to collegebasketball.zengm.com and go to: Create New Association --> Customize --> Upload Association File --> Create New Association.

Team Reservations
Now that you understand what the NCBCA is and how it works you are ready to begin your coaching career. Below is a list of teams that are available and are in need of a coach. Some teams require an interview which will be done over discord. The above link will take you to a thread where you can request a team. If you aren't ready for a team yet you can simply request to be put on the waitlist. After requesting a team the leagues commissioner (hazyel) will give you your reddit flair and assign you your teams role on discord. You are now officially an NCBCA head coach with a long road ahead of you. Good luck on your journey and most importantly have fun!

Reddit and Discord
If you do not have a reddit or discord make sure to go and make one. It is free and only takes a minute of your day.

Reddit
Reddit is where you will find the conference awards, interviews, recruiting threads and much more. As a side note, it would be wise to both subscribe to the reddit and bookmark it so you can easily access it in the future.

Discord
Discord is where you will get announcements, live tournament information and much more. Discord will also allow you to communicate and chat with other coaches. Unlike many other leagues, we are very active and our discord has many text channels all of which are active.

Keep in mind once you join our discord you will be rolled as a newcomer and only allowed to chat in our newcomer chat and your conference-text-channel. This is only temporary and used to judge ones maturity and to see if they are ready. This is only in use due to us receiving very immature and rude people who we swiftly banned.

Still Have Questions?
If you have anymore questions please don't hesitate to ask on discord. Ask the commissioner (hazyel), a moderator, myself (hozanek) or just simply in the discord discussion text channel. We would be happy to help.