The AI has all sorts of trouble defending a simple in-bounds pass. You can take your best shooter and plant him somewhere on the 3-point line, wait for the pass, and fire away. Along these same lines, the AI has trouble getting the ball into play at times. It's very easy to defend an in-bounds pass because the AI always tries to hit the same player. It's a pretty cheesy way to snafu the CPU team but the temptation to do so in a close game is there.
More AI issues revolve around the PG. It's way too easy to take a fast PG and run the length of the court along the sideline for a coast to coast shot. It's by no means a money play, but it's just too easy to drive for a good look at the hoop by doing this over and over again. AI holes aside, there is no denying that College Hoops is still a fun, engaging basketball game. It just needs a few more screws tightened.
The game's meaty Legacy mode is improved this year in several key areas. First off, there are no more fatal crash bugs, which by itself make this mode head and shoulders above last year's fiasco. The addition of the post season NIT tourney and a weekly wrap up show complete with highlights gives you the feeling that you are part of a living, breathing, college basketball universe The recruiting model is pretty much the same as always with a few key differences. First off the more you recruit a player the more info you find about him such as what his best attribute will be if you sign him. In addition to deeper scout reports, you no longer can simply sit back and wait for the late signing period to start to snatch up 4-star recruits that failed to sign with a big school. Just because Duke didn't sign a 4-star player doesn't mean he's going to settle on playing for Appalachian State. He'll more than likely end up walking on somewhere else. Because of this, it's tougher to build a small program up from the ashes into a mid-major power.
As deep and as rich as Legacy mode is, a big issue continues to be the fact that the world in which you are playing fails to mirror real college ball. Seeding and polling AI is still a concern as teams with nearly .500 records wiggle their way into the top 20 for no apparent reason. If Wisconsin finishes 16-14 and UCLA finishes 21-9, it's a tough sell that UCLA would be ranked #25 and the Badgers #13.
Ever more annoying are the number of huge upsets you'll see year in and year out. Upsets are a vital part of college hoops; just look at what George Mason did in the tourney last year. But the game is peppered with George Mason-like performances every season. Does anyone really believe that a top flight SEC team like LSU could possibly lose to teams like Wright State, Missouri Valley State and Samford all in the same season? And that's just one example. You'll see things like this for a lot of teams every year. This sort of strange behavior takes the shine off of what is an otherwise fabulous Legacy mode, and keeps College Hoops from being a truly elite level simulation.
The graphics and sound are both solid, although not quite to the level of NBA 2K7 on the 360. The crowd noise deserves special praise as well as the sometimes hilarious "chant creator" but if you've played NBA 2K7 you should expect similar visuals, although without all of the cool personalized shooting animations and player faces. Everyone in College Hoops 2K7 looks pretty generic.
Finally, online play remains a huge boon to the series. Complete with league and tourney play, College Hoops 2K7 is a joy to play over Xbox Live. If you can find a good group of people to join a league with it comes highly recommended.
