"Our coach got a one-game suspension from Conference USA for letting all that fighting go on in our last game. So she said that if she was being punished, we were going to be punished even more. I don't want to tell you what we did before the Iowa State game, but she worked us so hard we almost puked. She wasn't even going to come to the Iowa State game, saying that she had to work with Mackie (Immaculata Suarez) and Martie (Marta Jaworoski) - they got a double dose of suffering.
So Coach Goldsmith was going to be our coach for the Iowa State game. What Coach Ballard did to us during the week must have toughened us up, because we jumped out to a 14-2 lead to start the game. And those girls were big girls! Their center got hurt early on, so she came out of the game and we could keep up with them on the boards. They caught up with us a couple of times and even went up by one point in the second half. However, the other players decided to play like individuals instead of a team. I could hear their coach yelling at them from our bench.
In the second half, we pulled out again, they got into foul trouble, and it was all over. We're still playing in an empty arena, but the people who showed up screamed their hearts out. We upset the mighty Iowa State! I got seventeen points. Good times, babee!"
- Brenda Dean
This was the first game I played where I thought I had it all right. I was recording assists, steals and blocks even though it looks like there were few assists on the Iowa State side - did I miss something? I managed to keep track of who was substituting for whom, which is pretty difficult in the Statis Pro Game. I knew how to deal with players forced to play that had run out of stamina points. (There will be another image later.)
I regret the fact that there's no way to record turnovers. Turnovers, along with shooting percentage, rebounds (I don't distinguish between offensive and defensive boards) and field goal percentage are the real keys to the game.
So what happened to Iowa State? Three things:
1) They lost their center. Iowa State's starters are rather dominant over their bench,
2) They had a player get a "forced rest" result on a Z result in the ACTION phase, and
3) They just didn't shoot very well - UTEP shot 43 percent to Iowa State's 35 percent.
4) Foul trouble - three Cyclone players would foul out in a foul-laden game.
Add the six Home Factor points, and we were able to steal a win. In general, you want to use Home Factor points to avoid forced rests when they concern your best players. I ignored two first rests in the first half. At the end, they lost players due to fouls and they had more than one player playing with no stamina. A player who has no stamina (at least in my game) cannot shoot, and therefore Iowa State had to move the ball around more.
The next game is against Cal State-Northridge. As it turns out, CS-Northridge comes from a weaker conference than Conference USA, so UTEP will adjust its stats upward for the next game. More on that later.
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