College Basketball Manager news & patch notes

 * added remembered-tab system for popup navigation

 * added data export from the legacy menu for all kinds of data

 * Added new "School Fit" and "Max Interest" recruit scores (plus head-to-head "Lead" versions) that you can sort the recruit list by and see on each recruit row.

 * Added the ability to set player practice choices within team templates, allowing you more customization in how players train

 * added recruit fit score

 * can now sort by fit score, fit score lead, maximum interest, and maximum interest lead

 * Players now expect slightly more playing time, with personality-driven types (Volatile, Competitive, Perfectionist, Driven, Confident) demanding more minutes than before.

 * Rebalanced the transfer portal — players now enter more frequently, with a heavier mix of playing-time and contract-driven transfers instead of being dominated by team-performance unhappiness.

 * Recruit generation now uses a right-skewed distribution — average recruits are slightly weaker and elite recruits are slightly stronger.

 * Fixed roster size cap leak where teams accumulated above the 15-player ceiling because walk-on freshmen were unconditionally protected from end-of-season cuts.

 * another balance to overall rating calculations (very small)

 * Fixed an issue where players in older save files all displayed jersey number 0 — they're now assigned realistic numbers when the save is loaded.

 * Fixed a crash that could occur when starting a new season for conferences with unbalanced or misconfigured divisions.

 * Fixed athletic director approval ratings that could corrupt past 100/255, and reworked program-development grading so steady programs are no longer perpetually rated as failing.

 * Capped player contract budgets at each school's revenue-sharing limit

 * slightly balance international recruits to favor going after them more

 * corrected team names so one of the team’s “Austin” becomes “Austin State”

 * Fixed reserved transfer-portal scholarships not being cleared when a user takes control of a previously AI-run team, which silently reduced that team's available scholarships.

 * Unemployed coaches now retire over time instead of lingering in the free-agent pool forever, with younger replacements keeping the hiring pool fresh.

 * Fixed Athletic Director "Program Development" approval that was permanently stuck near zero for nearly every team — it now fairly rewards maintaining or improving your program's standing.

 * Custom matrix rotations now start the game with your designed lineup at tip-off instead of waiting until the first dead ball.

 * fixed bug where game preview ratings on the radar chart would not show

 * fixed bug causing the conference selection to be reset anytime you change the award type in the awards screen

 * added ability to see player stats across the conference and country

 * fixed purpose/effectiveness text for recruiting actions

 * The interest-reduction recruiting skill now correctly unlocks actions inside the recruit popup (not just the quick-action list)

 * The questionnaire's low-interest message now shows the correct threshold (showed as 55, is 30 actually).

 * Junior college recruits are no longer generated as international players.

 * Recruiting-action coach skills (and the reputation-growth skill) now state their benefit applies to your coach only, so players don't assume the bonus is shared across the whole staff.

 * added offer scholarship/contract and official campus visit to quick action bar

 * Fixed a bug where increasing a scholarship offer to a recruit ignored the money already offered to that same player, blocking you from raising offers above your free contract budget.

 * fixed bug where scheduling home and home games could result in earning you money

 * add hotkey for adding/removing from board (space bar)

 * add a checklist for “you have a coaching vacancy to fill”

 * Fixed a crash that could occur when starting a new season if a conference was set to two divisions but didn't have enough teams assigned to each division.

 * International recruits now ignore proximity-to-home, commit more readily, and are actively recruited by AI teams

 * added net rating rank and coach’s rank to each stats page

 * can now see other team’s recruiting classes within recruiting ranks and their team page

 * fixed bug allowing recruits to be at a lower height than allowed for the position

 * added games played stat to pro players

 * Pro player stats now spread realistically — star players post bigger scoring/rebounding/shot-blocking lines instead of every rotation player landing near the team average.

 * added a button to the top of recruiting ranks that lists your team’s rank and if you click it, it will auto-scroll to your team’s place

 * Auto-built practice plans now correctly use the tournament-week template for the conference tournament week(s) instead of treating them as off weeks.

 * fixed bug that allowed the user to overspend their recruiting budget when a player’s expected contract was higher than the available budget

 * fixed a bug that prevented an overwrite on a team practice template when editing from a weekly practice interface

 * made board rank combo box more readable by making it a darker background

 * staff positions budgeted amount no longer limited by the suggested budget

 * Recruits now feel extra wanted when your program is the first to offer them a scholarship/contract, giving a bonus to their interest in you.

 * can filter recruiting class ranks by conference

• Added advanced matrix rotation system — a 20-period grid where users can control exactly when each player is on court and at which position

• Added foul trouble settings to the rotation system - can now set when you want players to sub out due to foul trouble

• Revamped the Game Preview screen dramatically - check it out!

• Added conference modding - can now use custom conference files to get accurate conference names

• Added batch recruiting actions — perform a single action (e.g., "Call All", "Watch All Tape") on every recruit on your board with one click

• Added past transfer history tracking — view how players who transferred from your team are performing at their new school, with stats and overall rating updated each season for up to 5 years.Won’t have data for past years on old saves, but will start tracking it going forward.

• Added ability to adjust contract offer to recruit

• Contract updates (re-offering to a recruit) now skip scout/knowledge and adjust feeling wanted based on whether the salary increased or decreased.

• fixed bug where clicking “View Recruits” from a purchased recruiting reports screen did not auto-populate the recruiting search portal with recruits from that report

• Improved AI recruiting to prioritize filling empty positions, preventing teams from getting stuck with no players at a position

• Individual success satisfaction now scales with player stars and overall ability — higher-rated players have higher expectations while lower-rated players are easier to satisfy when performing at their level.

• Added year-over-year change tracking for program subsidy. Will populate after year end

  • fixed bug causing player stats past year 2050 to not be viewable for past seasons

  • Transfer portal players now have boosted pitch importance for the recruiting category matching their transfer reason (e.g., a player who transferred for playing time will care more about playing time when being recruited).

  • Added demand awareness to transfer decisions — low-overall players are now less likely to enter the transfer portal

  • AI teams now re-evaluate their rotations every 4 weeks during the season, adjusting starters, bench depth, and minutes based on player development and game performance

  • AI coaches now periodically evaluate and adjust their gameplan preferences mid-season based on team performance stats

  • Transfer recruit scouting now uses familiarity tiers — players from your conference or schedule are more revealed, nationally known players moderately so, and unknown transfers are mostly hidden, with coach scouting ability influencing all tiers.

  • Added option for elite CPU head coaches to be hired by professional teams based on reputation, postseason success, awards, and coaching ratings, thus making it more likely to have a job opening at elite schools

  • CPU teams now actively hire assistant coaches each week when they have open, budget-approved staff positions.

  • Record-setting achievements no longer fire during the first season when all records start at zero.

  • Added support for setting separate offensive and defensive positions for players.

  • fixed bug causing at-large selection for playoffs to overweight preseason polls

  • fixed bug preventing any accumulation of game-to-game fatigue

  • fixed bug allowing redshirt no matter how many games the player has played

  • Added automatic jersey number generation for players joining teams via recruiting, transfers, or walk-ons

  • Fixed a bug where coaches would leave elite programs for inferior ones

  • Coach AD winning approval now factors in the head coach's historical winning percentage at the program, rewarding proven winners and penalizing consistent underperformers

  • Reworked team overall calculation so bench depth and minute allocation affect component ratings

  • added checklist entries for a staff member joining your team and when a staff offer is declined

  • Rebalanced budget surplus growth to remove the hard ceiling, increase per-year growth caps, and shift surplus allocation heavily toward contracts and staff over recruiting.

  • Program subsidy is now recalculated when a team's cumulative deficit is forgiven

  • Fixed bug where AI teams paid non-head-coach staff members the head coach's salary instead of the approved position budget.

  • Added new grade components (turnovers, steals, offensive rebounds, conditional 3P%) to individual success grades for C/PF/SF/SG

  • Recruits now keep their assigned position when becoming players rather than automatically being assigned their highest overall position

* Added international recruits from 22 basketball-producing countries, making up ~7% of each class with authentic foreign names, limited initial school knowledge, restricted recruiting actions (no game scouting or in-person visits), and an international recruiting report

* Added personalized coach recruiting strategy for each AI coach, making schools a little different.

* Increased per-role staff budget caps with day-one headroom, fixed a bug where the staff budget bonus didn't propagate to individual role caps, and removed the automatic 3% staff budget inflation.

* Added a teammate chemistry system that tracks pairwise minutes between every pair of teammates, builds career-long bonds that persist when players reunite at new schools, and influences in-game assist/turnover/defense rates plus team-wide chemistry ratings.

* Added a Dream Jobs feature — star teams from their popup to get a weekly checklist alert when their head coach position opens.

* fixed crash caused at the end of season by not having enough college players declare to go pro

* fixed bug with not being able to offer contract from the recruiting actions screen

* fixed bug with being able to adjust the offer contract over and over again in the same week

* AI teams now cut surplus players down to 15 each offseason (strongly preferring to cut walk-ons and end-of-bench upperclassmen, while protecting true freshmen and rotation regulars)

* walk-on initial overall quality was slightly reduced

• added new recruit filter that allows to set minimum player ratings for each type of rating to search for each recruit

• adjusted functionality for the rotation to help prevent players from consistently exceeding their assigned rotation minutes.

• removed some possibilities for infinite loops causing rotation freezes

• updated the height values for starting players for each legacy to prevent SF, PF, and C from being too short. This won't affect existing legacies, just when you start new legacies.

• fixed bug that didn't flip home/away for Home and Home contracts

• fixed bug that prevented recruiting/contract budget from increasing when you are running a total budget surplus

• added a couple hard exclusions for personalities on the extreme end of work ethic (so a driven player won't have terrible work ethic, and a complacent player won't have great work ethic)

• fixed bug that disallowed substitutions during game management when there is a fouled out player

• fixed UI display bug in rotation when swapping out the C position

• fixed bug with checklist notification for possible job openings

• added finances overview to each team’s popup

• if your finances are in a surplus, your team is likely to receive budget increases for contracts, recruiting, and staff

• if you are in a surplus and haven’t opted into revenue share (player contracts), you have a chance for your program to opt in and get player contracts

• Fan support ratings now decay more aggressively during the offseason (stronger base decay, win-percentage penalties for losing records, and prestige-anchored mean reversion), postseason results directly impact fan ratings (from -1 for missing the tournament up to +8 for a championship), and the win/loss weekly swings are better balanced to prevent indefinite upward drift.

• rebalanced boosters’ donation amounts

• Fixed away/neutral game attendance flooring at 0 by enforcing a minimum of 75 attendees, and prevented hardcore fan base from fully eroding by adding a floor of 2 to fan rating decay

• Steepened the TV deal revenue curve so Power 5 conferences retain most of the TV money while mid-major and low-major schools receive reduced payouts.

• fixed UI issue with staff management screen showing a position as offered when it hasn’t been

• slightly adjusted hiring logic when doing an internal promotion - more likely to be accepted now

• added a “projected” ticket sales to the finance overview screen

• rebalanced fan support - previously it was too easy to get to an A+ rating if you were even mediocre. Slightly more difficult to build fan support now

• adjusted calculation for yearly recruiting budget. Previously it was too harsh on small programs

• added tooltip descriptions to each line item in the finance overview screen

• fixed an issue that was applying the shooting close rating to mid-range shots and the shooting mid rating to close-range shots

• Updated player rating tooltips for Offensive Awareness, Defensive Awareness, Athleticism, Free Throw Shooting, and Ballhandling to more accurately describe their in-game mechanical effects.

• updated tooltips for the gameplan screen

• Rebalanced player contract satisfaction expectations — freshmen and new arrivals are now anchored to their accepted contract value, with expectations gradually changing as they get further away from the initial contract signing. Added absolute gap dampening to contract satisfaction — small dollar shortfalls no longer tank morale even when the ratio looks unfavorable.

• Playing time satisfaction now rewards players who exceed their expected minutes and is more forgiving for small minute shortfalls; high-pace teams have reduced playing time expectations (softened by player stamina) so players aren't unreasonably unhappy.

• updated staff role tooltips to more accurately represent their actual mechanical impact in-game

• Added budget health as a factor in staff position approval — the athletic director now considers both how much free room is in the staff budget and the program's overall financial stance when deciding whether to approve new positions.

• fixed bug related to transfer not giving scholarship back

• Individual success satisfaction now requires meaningful playing time before penalizing players — small sample sizes no longer produce misleading grades

Today I'm releasing my hobby-dev passion project on Steam in early access.

I've been working on this in my off time for the past four years. I've spent tons of time thinking about the game, developing the game, and testing the game (with the help of my playtesters!).

This is a text-based college basketball sim/manager in which you control all aspects of a college basketball program - recruiting, gameplanning, scheduling, finance, in-game management, player satisfaction, staff management.

I'm releasing into early access to get further feedback, from hopefully a wider audience than the playtest offered, on the current features as well as some features I've yet to finish - including rivalries, athletic facility buildout, conference invites, and coach recruiting networks.

Monthly Newsletter - June/July '24

Closed Beta Launch!

Progress Report

• 100% (ready for playtesting and future feature/QoL expansion)
• +5% since last update

• 90%
• +15% in June (add in very important quality of life features, and added in recruiting action time cost)
• Currently working on sway mechanics (ability to change a recruit's mind about the importance of certain pitches)

• 100% (ready for playtesting and future feature/QoL expansion)

• 100% (ready for playtesting and future feature/QoL expansion)
• +5% since last update

• 85% (AI teams will offer and receive applications for head coaches, but not support staff yet. Also need to add a UI for user coaches to receive offers and send applications)
• Playtesting is currently just for the demo version, where hiring/firing at year end isn't super important
• +5% since last update

• 100% (ready for playtesting and future feature/QoL expansion)
• +25% since last update

Quick Update: Recruiting Board

• Execute game plans through a dynamic simulation engine, boasting an array of offensive and defensive strategies.
• Recruit high school players to bolster your team, crafting compelling pitches to sway recruits and outmaneuver your rivals in recruiting battles.
• Develop your players both during the season and off to align with your playing style and gain a competitive edge.
• Level up your coaching skills.
• Comprehensive stat tracking for every player and team.
• Dive into team and league histories, past game results, awards, coaching careers, and records with just a click.