Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2023

I'm going to give DDS CB 2023 a thumbs up because I think it is a very good sports management game. I've played DDS games for several years, and each year with College Basketball I enjoy the challenge of taking a mid major team and creating a basketball program that routinely competes to win its conference and get to the NCAA tournament. I play using a mod that provides the actual NCAA team names, mascots, and logos. I sim all games. I never play the games out in any sports sim I play, including DDS games and OOTP. I really like to get multiple seasons out of a management game, enough to build a detailed history. For this game there is great detail in the challenge of setting up your budget and your team defensive and offensive philosophies and sets even if just simming games with instant results. Perhaps the hardest part is recruiting. Scouting, watching film, visits, texting players. Starting a mid major you get a lot of "lose my number" responses from good players and have to slowly build up you program and recruiting cred though both regular recruiting and the portal. All those challenges are there in the management portion of the game. Note that I usually buy direct from Wolverine Games and often don't transfer those games to Steam, but I did this year for this one. As for the in-game graphics, I have seen the complaints in other reviews, and the graphics are also a major topic in the Wolverine Studios forum for this game. So I have no argument with those who have reservations about the in-game graphics. If those are important to you, I recommend that you take a look at the graphics in action in some Youtube videos which show the game in action including in-game graphics, and then decide for yourself.

I'm writing a review because I wasted $40 on this game. Yes, we want this game... a college basketball simulator... but this is NOT it. 1. The graphics (both on court and in menus) are painful. Lakers vs. Celtics basketball from 1989 has better graphics and on-court game play than this game. And the court sounds are demonic. Seriously, it sounds like a gaggle of baby demons being tortured. 2. Ok, so you're not buying this for its graphics... You want to create your own universe of college basketball... You want to bring the Fab-5 back to Michigan or pit Lew Alcindor's UCLA against Grant Hill and Christian Laettner's Duke. Don't get your hopes up. As far as I can tell, the editing system doesn't work. The game has a "commissioner" mode which, in theory, allows you to edit players, but it's all out of whack. First of all, you can't just add players. You have to edit existing players. And you can't edit all of their attributes, such as GPA and class year. So you can't even add the Fab-5 to Michigan because there aren't 5 freshman on the roster. There is an option to export/import to SQLite, but the game gives you a warning that imports will cause corruption. I ran multiple seasons with multiple created real-life players. The game automatically redshirted guys who should've been best n the country with the attributes I gave them. I created Willis Reed at Grambling and started him (with the same attributes) multiple times -- sometimes he would score 40+ points per game and other times he wouldn't even make it off the bench. So don't expect to have fun with the creation / universe side of the game. 3. This $40 game doesn't even come with real teams/colors/logos. The mod to fix that is very good, but why are we paying Wolverine Studios and not the modder? The game is ridiculous without the mod. With a price tag on par with Football Manager, the game should have a real world foundation. 4. If you're still reading, here's a bit about playing this as a stock game... like what if you just take a job and work your way up the coaching ranks... Sorry, no, this game fails there too. Since the graphics are so terrible, you either have to sim the games with very little coaching control or you have to painfully watch them and make some minor coaching adjustments. The recruiting system is painfully tedious too. I am a full-time college coach (not basketball) and this game's recruiting is harder and more tedious than what I do in real life. Just give us the recruits... don't make us have stock text conversations with 50 players every day. Yes, it's UCLA... our facilities are awesome and will always be awesome. If this was a first attempt at making a college basketball simulator, I wouldn't be so harsh. But this is a series that has been out for years. Get it together. Make something playable. Or charge $9.99 for this one.

After Playing A lot of the 2022 version I had high hopes for the 2023 version but those hopes quickly faded as the game for the most part is the same. The addition of more preseason tourneys is nice but outside of that none of the other changes really matter too much. The NXT Recruting ranks do not really bring anything new to the game, the new in game display is way to slow to really be used often, the addition of budget allocation is nice but it does not really change the game in any real noticeable way. So are there changes from he 2022 version? Yes, but none of the changes really enhance the game or make it feel very different at all. The most annoying thing to me is that the strategy has remained the exact same as it was last year. Its still incredibly basic and you can't really control if your team does good or not, it feels like it's completely luck. If your coach has 100 in all stats that team can still be horrible regardless of how good the coach is. In this game a "Well Coached Team" just cannot exist as the best teams are the ones with the most 5 stars and that is how it is every single year in the game. On top of all of that there are a few bugs that just make the game a lot harder to enjoy. For instance, recently I got fired from one school so I went and signed with another one but the game never registered me as signing with the other school so I cannot control recruiting, lineups. strategy, literally anything even though I am the coach and have all the setting on manual. Overall I really wanted to like this game but after over 40 hours of playing it I have come to the conclusion that it is basically the same as 2022 and all the changes seem rather unimportant. This game just is not as fun or engaging as it could be so I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a fun entertaining college basketball game

I REALLY want to recommend this game because I think that at its core, and when looking at its guts this game once again delivers. My problem is with the "in game" portion of the game. The new "2D" is more of a poor attempt at a "3D" view. Every shot is a line drive, and at speeds that make the game not feel like it drags on and on, the ball becomes hard to follow, often appearing transparent on the players. The new view is a great feature to have and to offer for those who want to see it but it feels incomplete. The old 2D "chalkboard" view should still be available. If that was available, or if it got added back into the game as part of a patch, I would 100% recommend this game but as of right now, I just feel myself waiting for the in-game portion of the game to be over. Its not fun, its not engaging, and it doesn't add anything to the product.

This is being written by someone who is new to the sports management/sim genre. I came from OOTP 23 and I discovered Wolverine Studios when I started looking for other games to scratch the sports sim itch. Before '23, I probably put 30 to 40 hours in '22. I was on the fence on whether I should pick this one up and I'm glad I did. I've enjoyed the updates to recruiting. You can now see what other schools are offering scholarships and where recruits have visited. For me, it's definitely more immersive with the NCAA mod which can be found in the forums of Wolverine Studios. This game doesn't have nearly the options that OOTP did but it's a good entry into the genre. This game also isn't perfect by any means. This is a franchise that has a ways to go in improvement but I think they are moving in the right direction. In the past, I've thrown money at AAA games yearly to only watch them get worse or stay stale. For now I would happily throw money at Wolverine Studios to support their efforts.

This game makes little sense. Tired of players that started the whole season, in their preferred position, transferring because..... they want more opportunities to play in their preferred position. Tired of players transferring because 1 more is brought in at their position, bringing grand total to 3. Tired of players transferring because of bad relations with the Head Coach. I guess 100% is bad in this game. Basically, the whole transfer system is flawed to where it is frustrating. I figured the draft process would have been fixed by now. Nope. Have a top 3 player in the game, never gets drafted if at a smaller school. Assistant coaches have minimal growth, even when young. Head coaches at higher-tier programs don't get fired until after 6+ mediocre seasons. Basically, not a very good simulation. Last version I buy.

Download the mod for accurate teams/logos/leagues/etc, very easy to do and the info is on the DDSCB forums. The game is a bit pricey for what it is, it's truly a spreadsheet game. I love the high-level roster building and management, so this is perfect for me. But if you're really interested in managing each game, you can definitely still do that but not sure if that aspect of the game is great. Best aspect of this game is that there is some actual difficulty in building a powerhouse. Recruiting is not a cakewalk if you have your coach ratings not maxed out! One major improvement I'd like to see is the transfer portal. Right now, you're given a huge list of players and their counting stats, nothing else. No idea who was a former top recruit, no ranking of top transfers available, and if you want to scout players you probably won't land them because they will commit that same week. Hoping this can be addressed in an update or mod. If you're a fan of OOTP or other sports management games, definitely give it a try, especially if you've been missing the college sports genre!

Great game! I wish the transfer portal were easier to work with, but overall, this game is addicting and super fun! I would recommend it to basketball fans and strategy games.

I am huge fan of most sportsmanagement games for over 30 years. Normally I can get the grasp by playing, but there's so little explanation and intuitive playing that I still feel lost after 11 hours of playing and on the verge of giving up. So only buy this if you're willing to read the full handbook and don't mind an insurmountable learningcurve! OR maybe im just not that smart.......

if you like sim games and gm games this is a good one couple of things could be improved but very good