College Hoops fans its almost that time! My annual "love letter" to college basketball. I dreamed of making it as a college coach one day and while that is not likely a dream ever to come true to me this is the next best thing - it's almost time for Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2024!

Thankfully the world of college basketball continues to change and has given me many things to update over time in the history of the game and this year is no different. For long time players of the franchise you're going to find some fun new and important elements to the game and for all you new kids - well, let's say you're about to enter a world which you may never want to leave if you are a college basketball junkie like myself!

The first thing you will notice is that the UI has gotten a refresh. There's a ticker at the bottom where you will be able to not only catch the latest scores and news but click on those items for more info. The way you jump from team to team has changed making teams easier to find and stand out more (especially if you use one of the fantastic mods done by our community) and for everyone who has struggled with the back button sometimes working/not working...I totally redid it and there is a functioning back button once again (hurrah!). Also you will find some other UI changes that should delight like the addition of your conference standings while simulating so you can see exactly how you are stacking up.

I have taken the time to add some new screens as well.

Under the League Media option you will find choices for the in game magazines as well as a revamped league news/polls screen but also this new addition which basically provides our fictional recruiting service NXT Hoops a place to display its data both on a national and regional level so that you can peruse it in this format and not just via the recruiting grid.

There is also a link on the left side menu now for Tourney Watch. In the past the quadrants screen has been not as easy to find or explained so I've placed it here on its own screen (along with the bubble watch which has moved to this screen) so that you have a one stop place to look at tournament resumes and to see who has the inside track on making it to the big dance.

New screens aren't the only thing to be interested in though - there's also more data coming your way along with improvements to some of the way things work. One new thing for all your historians out there is that once you start your career here DDS:CB24 will track your team's recruiting history so you can go back in time and see things like who was the highest recruit you ever landed or did you ever land one from Alaska.

In terms of improvements to what is already there lets talk about coaches. Now young coaches will improve more quickly to see they can meet their eventual potential and coaches who are not hired at the moment will also be able to improve as they surely would be coaching high school ball or something like that and getting themselves better positioned to coach again in the future at the college level. Also there is now a coaching carousel part of the game (replacing the old job hiring phase). In the past teams with vacancies pretty much just looked to hire out of the unemployed pool - now they're going to be going after other schools and their coaching staffs just like in real life so when you start off looking at a new head coaching job you might want to wait and see if one you are more interested opens up if they have a hot coach who will be jumping to a better opportunity.

As always I've done work on the recruiting and transfer side of things because it's really almost like a game of itself within the game. I have added a new national camp to attend with all JUCO players as an option that might especially be good for smaller schools who wouldn't really get anything out of attending a camp with major recruits - this gives them an opportunity to get a leg up with the JUCO crowd and maybe score a decent player that way. Also there have been changes to improving the transfer portal process.

Speaking of transfers - one of the most requested things in the past was a way to try and stop someone from transferring. Ask and ye shall (maybe eventually) receive. I've removed the "reply to the board email" at the end of the season and placed the board request here as part of these year end tasks but the real meat here is that you now have an opportunity to not only see who will be leaving for the draft but who might be considering transferring and best of all you can make one final pitch to them. Now of course with any positive possibility must come a negative one - do you want to talk a kid out of the draft who is a legit star and risk being labeled with all future prospects as a coach who doesn't want to get them to the league? Do you want to risk talking a kid out of transferring by asking him to move to a different position to get more playing time and then angering someone else who will lose minutes? The choices will be yours to make or you can just let things be as they will.

Of course that's not all new to be found - we've got more places to view stats and advanced stats for the league as a whole, there is a new midrange rating displayed for players, for all you MP league commissioners there is a "vacation mode" where you can temporarily assign CPU control to teams while someone may be unable to participate and some fun new things like the above picture. When you go to read an email about a recruit's decision you will have the choice to simply display the text of the email and see if you were his choice or not OR you could have some fun and watch a short reveal to keep you on the edge of your seat. The anticipation of hoping your logo remains at the end will pale just slightly to that of you waiting to get your hands on this year's version of Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2024.

We'll be sharing more details on our FirstAccess and official release date very soon. Get ready for March, baby!