Hrudey will surely come and tell you exactly what works and doesnt when he gets time to do so. He's the princeton guru in this game ;)
I wouldn't say that, but since you already did . . .
Anyway, Princeton is a very strange offense. The things I've come to believe about it are (in no particular order) :
1. You don't necessarily have to have great offensive flow (passing/handling), but if you want to not turn the ball over a lot, you had better not have anyone with bad passing or handling playing anywhere. Low passing and handling in this offense is an invitation to the other team to steal the ball regularly.
2. If you have a lot of driving and low inside shooting, many of your non-three point shots will be drives. They will frequently miss, especially if it's your guards and SF. If you have more IS and less driving, they'll try more inside shots, which will then be about as effective as your IS would be in similar circumstances in other non-inside offenses.
3. Unless you're playing a team that is very significantly worse than yours, you will almost always have a six minute stretch at some point in the game where you will score four or less points. And unless you're playing a team that is very significantly better than yours, you will probably have a different six minute stretch where you come close to 20 points. They'll sometimes happen in the same quarter - the number of times I've had 16 points after five minutes and under 20 when the quarter ended is probably close to double digits.
4. Assuming you have a SG with good outside shooting (lots of JR, good JS), you will probably have a few games where he shoots unbelievably well. You will probably have more games where he puts up less than 20% from the field. You will remember those games for the rest of your life, and he will probably have a good calculated PP100. Usually someone else will pick up the slack, but sometimes they won't and you'll be run out of the game.
5. Get JR on your big men, because a 12 JS/8 JR big man shooting a 3 against a typical big man defending him is probably twice as likely to succeed as an "open" shot from your SG/SF.
6. Because it's a slow offense with wild variations in shooting efficiency, if you want to not be a disaster, you need to win the battle of 'extra' possessions - so along with the handling/passing mentioned in 1, you need OD everywhere, and you want to try to win rebounding battles. Shot blocking is also nice (currently I have two players who are in the top 3 of my league in made three pointers and blocked shots, and that's with them playing 48 at PG one game and backup at SF or SG the other).
7. If you want to see your bench players play more than six or seven minutes, you need to either win by enough to trigger garbage time, have terrible stamina on your starters, or play a faster offense or a FCP. With even average stamina on the starter, expect he'll get 40+ minutes. Especially keep in mind that if you're efficient offensively, and there aren't many fouls, often four or five minutes will go by without a substitution opportunity, since a rebound fumbled out of bounds doesn't trigger subs unfortunately. Hopefully that'll happen with your bench players in.
I can't overestimate the importance of not having anyone with bad passing or handling enough. And even then, remember point #3 - there will be stretches where you simply won't score. But the nice thing is that if you can keep it close, sometimes the last minute three point streak hits and you can pull it out. Just hope you don't get the ball only up two, since they'll then miss a jumper. ;)
Last edited by GM-hrudey at 7/25/2017 12:09:55 PM