my previous experience with DII taught me that figuring out what coaches were doing at this level could be quite challenging. for several teams, we will only know their true strength come playoff time. but for now, some strange things from the first game for all teams caught my eye:
-- Valhalla plays 5 guys the first game. and wins by 33.
-- Ron Swanson plays 5 guys the first game. the result was not as favorable.
-- Visionaries and The King and I won with free throws. Both teams hit 20 more FTs, helping the Visionaries to win by 20 and The King and I to win by 4. Only time will tell whether this involved "one of those nights" for the losing teams, or if they were helplessly fouling because they could not keep up defensively.
-- i'm not saying a thing about Kentucky except they dumped $250,000 in salary in one sale, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. i remember having entire teams make less than that. and i wonder how many sales go through where the sales price is less than the salary level?
for myself, i like the first two games because you get a clear idea of a players base skills without the complication of GS or ENTH. for veteran players, i will often look back at these games later in the season when i am looking for clues about a player's range of skills.
and for first impressions, Visionaries and Atlanta had impressively deep set of game ratings. and Black Wall Street won going away with a trainee at PG.
we are on our way, and good luck to one and all.