Game Ten: UTEP 74, Missouri 60

"We played our last home game of the season before going to New Mexico for their tournament. We know that Baylor is coming up next. We're not supposed to talk about it until after this game, so we wanted to get this game out of the way.

Missouri is around the bottom of the Big Twelve. If we couldn't beat the Tigers, we weren't going to beat Baylor, no way.

I don't know what it was, but I just had...swagger. I was c'mon-c'mon-c'mon-let's-play-this-game! I guess there was something really evil inside me because I caught the eye of #55 (Wanette Preus). Missouri was the opposite of Utah. A bunch of black girls and a few white girls. I said, "Hey #55! Mustache!"

She had a mustache. I can't deny it. She looked at me like, "say, WHAT?" And she walks toward me but the other girls pull her away.

I smiled. I got inside her head. #55 played about two minutes before they sat her ass right on the bench. She kept trying to find me and go after me, and her coach sat her down. We built up a big lead on Missouri, and we knew were were going to win. All of those Missouri girls went right after me, determined to teach me a lesson for hurting ol' #55's feelings. Bump and claw, bump and claw. #11 (Nita Clinger) said something to me before the half that I don't think I've heard anyone said. I was "#13! #13, you bleeding c__t!" The referee turned right around and slapped #11 with a big fat "T".

The second half we coasted. We were up by 20, but I shot for shit. 8-for-30 shooting. Those Missouri girls were wearing me out. We were up by over 20, Coach put me on the bench. Late in the game, Missouri turned on the press, and they kept it on. We sort of wore out at the end, but we were up by so much that the Tigers couldn't come back. We won by 14.

After the game, Coach looked at me and said, 'You better pick and choose your moments, Brenda.' I don't know what to make of that."

--Brenda Dean




I thought Missouri was going to be a lot tougher - Big Twelve team vs. C-USA team - but they proved to be surprisingly lightweight. Part of it was that Missouri got hit with two quick forced rests and one of them was Wanetta Preus, one of their better, high-stamina shooters. Missouri's lack of depth hurt them.

I remember a comment by Frisco Del Rosario when he wrote about an NCAA player that averaged over 6 turnovers per game. Unfortunately, Statis Pro Basketball does not factor a player's tendency to turn the ball over into the game. It sort of assigns turnovers equally, or at the least, turnovers are motivated more by opposing steal factors and random chance. Nothing inherent in the player's card tilts a player's chances of turning over in any particular direction.

The next team up is Baylor. In my universe, I have four teams invited to the fictional New Mexico Classic - UTEP, New Mexico, Idaho State, and some other low-ranked, unnamed team. However, the other team bailed out and there was a chance for New Mexico to get Baylor. So the question was: play the traditional New Mexico-UTEP game or give up the chance for Baylor.

Result: Baylor will play UTEP and New Mexico will get Idaho. New Mexico figures that UTEP will lose to Baylor, and then New Mexico gets to play Baylor after they beat Idaho. Win win for everyone - except for fans of the traditional rivalry game.

Next time, I'll build the schedule better and not forget that New Mexico-UTEP match.

As for the press, with UTEP up about 23 points, Missouri turned on the press late in the game. On the Fast Action Cards there is an option called "Press". If the defense calls for a Press, all Action and Advance phases are replaced with the results under "Press". Sometimes, the press fails and you get a result for the offensive called "Pass to choice, who scores". Other times, you get "Line Violation" or "Double Dribble", and you get the chance for a turnover. It was definitely true that UTEP was slowing down the game - UTEP doesn't run up the score - but that press really worked for Missouri.

AP Poll RPI: 48
Coaches Poll RPI: 42

UTEP will break into the next Coaches Top #25 poll - one of the 31 voters will put UTEP at the bottom of his or her list. One total vote for UTEP, to be listed in the scrap votes at the end under the 25th team. One vote, and hopefully, more to come.

Missouri Card Set

Here is the card set for Missouri:

Since it's a busy week this week, no snappy comments. Gaze at the glory that is Mizzou. The multiplicative factor is 1.204 of Big Twelve vs. Conference USA, so even weak teams in the Big Twelve become potential powerhouses.

Game Nine - UTEP 80, Utah 77

"I don't know how good we're supposed to be. I think we're very sloppy on defense at times - look who is talking! - but I was very happy to get that win in Salt Lake City. I had never been to Salt Lake City before and the team bus drove by the Mormon Temple. It was beautiful, it made me feel really religious.

Anyway, Utah looked like a bunch of Mormon girls. All tall blondes and only one black girl. We knew these guys were going to be tough and LaToya (Lloyd) was suspended and Marta (Jaworworski) was hurting. We hit the court and we start off with an 8-0 lead in front of the biggest crowd I've seen all year. So we're feeling really good but they catch up to us. They lead by three points at one time, and we're both racing back and forth. By halftime, we're in the lead, 42-39. They keep trying to slow the game down but Coach wants us to gun and they start playing our game. Big mistake on Utah.

The second half is just like the first. Sometimes we lead, sometimes they lead. It's going to come down to who has the last lead of the game. I get five fouls with about six minutes left and I'm sitting on the bench and praying. It's late and Utah is up 71-70. Annie Neal attempts a three pointer and #24 (Sharron Grogg) collides with Annie as she lets go. Annie misses the shot, and they call the Utes for the foul. Annie hits all three of her fre ethows. We're up 73-71.

We keep the lead. They put my roommate, Mackie (Immaculata Suarez) into the game and she finds Annie Neal's sister, Brianna under the basket. Bri hits the shot and gets the foul to put us up 77-73. Then Bri hits the free throw and I know that we've won this game.

Damn. UTAH AIN'T UNDEFEATED ANYMORE! We were all very happy for the win, and I named Mackie the Player of the Game for the way she dished to Bri when Utah was all over her. She doesn't get to play very much because she's a little shaky for being one of Mexico's best players.

I didn't need to see the Mormon Temple on the way back. The only thing I needed to see in Utah, I saw, which was a scoreboard that read 77-80. I don't know how we keep winning, but people better watch out for us."

--Brenda Dean



It was definitely a great outcome for UTEP. Not only did they manage to go to Utah shorthanded, but they managed a road win that really helps their RPI. Beating a team ranked 26-50 on the road is worth RPI bonus points. Therefore:

AP RPI Rank: #49
Coaches RPI Rank: #50

Not much more to say, except I'm sort of surprised how well UTEP is doing. The real UTEP was 4-5 at this time; it seems that Dean's presence has been at least four more wins. Two of UTEP's wins have come by three points or less - a 74-72 home win over Fresno State and this three-point home win over Utah.

There are three more games in the non-conference part of the season. In the first game, Missouri comes to UTEP in the last home game before the conference part of the season. In the final two games, UTEP attends the fictional "New Mexico Classic", where they play Baylor in the first round and the winner of New Mexico/Idaho State in the second round. If UTEP keeps winning, they might actually deserve an at-large bid.

Utah Card Set

This is the card set for Utah, which is UTEP's next opponent. UTEP will travel to Salt Lake City to play the Runnin' Utes.

This is also a very worrisome team. We're going to play the next game shorthanded. LaToya Lloyd has been suspended for one game on recommendation of C-USA for a fight during the Jackson State game. Marta Jaworowski is out for one game for an injury. Therefore, both teams have 11 players they can suit up.

The multiplication factor for Utah was 1.04, due to the strength of the Mountain West conference over Conference USA. They have four players with killer stamina and Elnora Bastien's accuracy is just ludicrous. After that, Utah has very weak depth. If Utah gets some forced rests or is forced to resort to the bench, we have a good shot. If not, it's going to be a long game.

Furthermore, Utah has a full 10 Team Index Points - 9 - (-1). If things don't go Utah's way, Utah can just ignore the results. Once again, our chances of winning on the road depend on a lot. If Utah has to burn off points quickly, it could be an even game; if Utah faces no adverse results they can take a lead and keep it.

One thing: Utah will help our RPI. Just by random chance - the Running Utes won 70 percent of their games - I have them as 8-0 going into this game. An 8-0 team vs. a 7-1 team should help build up my imaginary excitement.

Game Eight: UTEP 94, Jackson State 52

"This was our first game after final exams. Didn't do bad. Got two As and two Bs to make the Dean's List, but both of the Bs are in my major - psychology. Good Lord. What have I got myself into?

We were playing the Jackson State Lady Tigers. They managed to keep up with us for a little while, and led 6-2 at one point, and then tied 11-11. After that, we went on an 8-0 run and that was the end of the game. They hit a wall and #55 (Denita Ellies) couldn't do everything for them. She was the only good player they had.

How bad did it get? I was only allowed to score 12 points. Coach Ballard told me flat out that she wasn't going to let me break 40 points against these guys. After we went up 20 we started to pass it around, after we went up 30 we sat down #34 (Williamette Moss). Their guards couldn't defend and we were just pumping it into #54 (Brianna Neal). She scored 24 points and was the leading scorer.

We just crushed them. There were only a few interesting moments. Toya (LaToya Lloyd) got into a fight and they ejected her. Coach Ballard had a private discussing with her after the game. Toya said Ballard let her have it and I bet money she's going to have to miss the game against Utah. After the game we inducted her into UTEP's "Fight Club". It has five members so far, all players who have been ejected from games for fighting.

In the second quarter, Martie (Marta Jaworowski) went down with an ankle injury. It's not serious but she's probably going to miss the next game - I asked the trainer. Guess who Coach Ballard picked to play the five late in the game? Me! I never played center in high school. Hell, I never played forward in high school. And Coach says, "Go out there Dean and play the five." I look at her like "What?" and she just stares at me.

I went out there. Didn't do too bad. Had 15 rebounds and 4 assists this game. Thank God #55 has fouled out by that time, or I would have just looked stupid."

--Brenda Dean



Ah the glory of the box score. This was clearly UTEP's biggest win, and UTEP could have broken the 100 point barrier if they had tried. When UTEP goes up by twenty, I had UTEP deliberately use both ADVANCE phases. You could see what happened - UTEP had 23 total assists in the game, which is a rarity for a team that has players that create their own shots.

When UTEP went up by thirty, I pulled out a player. When they went up by forty, I pulled out another player.

And once again, you can see that there was another fight. I used my alternate rules. When the Z result called for fighting between both guards, I flipped the next card over and looked at the number under Foul Drawing. It was in the 80s, indicating that I would accept the fighting results. So new rule: If the result is between 85 and 88, I'll allow an ejection for fighting. Until then, we'll be shorthanded by two players for the next game with Utah, which is a road game: Lloyd will be suspended for one game and Jaworowski will sit out one game with an injury according to the new injury rules.

Note that in each of the two halves, UTEP had more rebounds than Jackson State did for the entire game.



Here is the RPI calculation for UTEP. UTEP moves up in the AP Poll RPI (because wins weigh more heavily) but falls in the Coaches Poll RPI (because quality of competition weighs more). Look at the Opponent RPI rank and you'll learn that UTEP's 7-1 win record is built on a foundation of sand.

Finding Statistics of Opposing Teams

I tried to come up with Alcorn State cards. Honestly, I did. But if you go to their Alcorn State women's basketball website, you will find a link called "statistics", click it and find...nothing. I had nothing to work with.

This left me looking for an opponent similar in strength to Alcorn State. I wanted to find another SWAC opponent, so I chose the next strongest in RPI - Grambling. Unfortunately, Grambling's statistics are a complete mess, with a single player having two or three different lines of stats because the player's name was spelled wrong and wasn't corrected in the databases, leaving two "different" players whose names only differ by a letter.

This is part of the problem with having 340 or so "major league" women's college basketball teams. Some, clearly, are more major than others. Some are "big time" programs like Connecticut and Tennessee, with nationwide fanbases and dedicated websites. Others are at best afterthoughts to comply with Title IX, and are barely recognized on their own small campuses. Most likely, keeping statistics isn't a problem for these schools because no one complained about the stats - no one bothered to look up their stats anyway.

This brought me to the next school, one even lower down than Alcorn State - Jackson State. At least, Jackson State has stats, even though the page has large blue borders on both sides and the black text spills across the page, making it hard to read without highlighting. (I just copied and pasted into notepad.)

There was one problem with Jackson State's stats: there was an Aundrea Woullard and an Aundrea Johnson, who I suspect are actually the same person. Not in my universe, they're not.



Jackson State, however, is a much weaker team than UTEP. Realtimerrpi.com has them ranked at #327 out of #340 teams. The SWAC conference is the weakest conference in women's college basketball, even weaker than the 10 or so remaining women's college basketball independent teams. Therefore, the UTEP stats were adjusted by a factor of 1.1797, their biggest adjustment so far.



This is the first time we can see UTEP's Team Index Points. They get +4 at home and -1 on the road.

I sense that I'm going to win this game. But even if I win it, Jackson State's crappy record (1-6) coming into this game is going to play havoc with my RPI. As it turns out, I made an error in last week's calculation: I lose -0.0024 because my median non-conference rank is in the bottom half of Division I. I misread that as "median conference rank". I stay at #73 on the AP Poll RPI but fall to #89 on the Coaches Poll RPI - the latter gives more weight to the quality of your opponents.

I'll redo the calculations after the next game.

Game Seven: UTEP 81, New Mexico 75

"This was our first road game of the year, and I suspected that this was going to be a mighty battle. The Aggies would have loved to sweep us in the season series, and they had a nice crowd. But there was a big difference between the crowd and the way the Lobos played. #33 (Elise Connery) killed us in that first game, but she was flat in this one.

Frankly, they really weren't much of a challenge. I think we were about five minutes in or something and we held them to no rebounds. We begin building a lead, but we can't get it above 20 points - I think it was 19 a few times. The final score was only because the Aggies got a little bit hot at the end, and because we had our second team in for a big part of the second half.

Toya (LaToya Lloyd) and I picked up four fouls after the second half and we sat out large parts of the game. I remember watching New Mexico slowly whittle that lead down in the last part of the second half, and there I am, squirming on the bench. I'm looking at Coach Ballard, almost screaming "Put me in!" but she just ignores me. LaToya goes in and I stay there. I could have screamed. Finally, with four fouls and late in the second half, Coach nods her head and I jump out onto the court.

One minute later, I have my fifth foul. Coach Ballard just give me a look that says, "See?" Hey, I'll just be happy with the win. Maybe that was the lesson. I don't know, I'm just so impatient."

--Brenda Dean



As you can see, Brenda had another good game. You can't laugh at 57 percent shooting. Look at the difference between this game and the first New Mexico State game and you can see the differences - not as many blocks, assists, or steals by NMSU.

I noticed the "Team Rebounds" stat on the "Pro Basketball Scoresheet", but I'm not keeping track of team rebounds consistently enough to make it a stat yet. Due to the fact that UTEP is performing better in the game in real life, I'm adjusting attendance by 2 percent upward, plus or minus a random factor of 10 percent. I also figure that Dean's high scoring ways should be providing some novelty.

(* * *)

With all of that, UTEP is now 6-1. This begs the question of how good is UTEP? With Brenda Dean are they good enough to be ranked for example?

How do we know? How can we know?

What we need is an RPI estimator. We need a mathematical formula that will let us plug in some simple inputs, then cross-check with one of the RPI sites and make some sort of comparison with other teams.

As it turns out, some people have done some mathematical analysis. Dolphin Sim came up with a formula in 2001. The formula is for men's basketball but we will borrow it. He provides two ratings formulas, and here they are:

RPI = 0.23*WP + 0.23*OWP + 0.54*OOWP

RPI = 0.27*WP + 0.46*OWP + 0.27*OOWP

where

WP = teams's winning percentage
OPW = winning percentage of team's opponents
OOPW = winning percentage of team's opponents' opponents

According to Dolphin Sim, the first formula is the more accurate one, as it is essentially a deeper analysis than the second one. The second formul is the more popular formula since the formula is more balanced towards what a team can control - a team can win its games and pick its opponents, but it can't pick it's opponent's opponents.

We'll use both. We'll call the first RPI formula "the AP formula" and the second formula "the coach's poll formula"

WP is easy. That's just .8571, or (wins + 0.5*ties)/games played.

OPW isn't easy. On the other hand, we'll estimate it by creating a list of UTEP's opponents and determine what a hypothetical W-L record for those teams would be based on the team's real-life records.

As for OOPW, unless you want to simulate the win-loss records of 340 teams...no? You don't? Me neither. What we do know that as we move down the recursion (opponents' opponents' opponents' opponents'....), this value approaches (all wins)/(all games), which should be around .500. So we'll just set OOPW = 0.5 by fiat and move forward.

We then

Here are the following adjustment values:

* +0.0024 if your median non-conference opponent's RPI rank was #50 or better
* +0.0012 for beating RPI #1-25 on the road
* +0.0009 for beating RPI #1-25 at a neutral site
* +0.0006 for beating RPI #1-25 at home
* +0.0008 for beating RPI #26-50 on the road
* +0.0006 for beating RPI #26-50 at a neutral site
* +0.0004 for beating RPI #26-50 at home
* -0.0002 for losing to RPI #170-255 on the road
* -0.0003 for losing to RPI #170-255 at a neutral site
* -0.0004 for losing to RPI #170-255 at home
* -0.0004 for losing to RPI #256-340 on the road
* -0.0006 for losing to RPI #256-340 at a neutral site
* -0.0008 for losing to RPI #256-340 at home
* -0.0006 for losing to a non-division I opponent on the road
* -0.0009 for losing to a non-division I opponent at a neutral site
* -0.0012 for losing to a non-division I opponent at home
* -0.0024 if your median non-conference opponent's RPI rank was in the bottom half of the league (#171 or worse in a 340-team league)

Note that we are talking about the median non-conference rank, not the average. The median is the RPI value that splits the conference into the upper half and the lower half.

Using the above, we calculate an RPI value for our UTEP team. We will use the RPI values provided by RealTimeRPI.com. You can use whatever RPI values please you.



The calculations seem to make sense. UTEP ends up ranked #73 using one RPI estimators and #82 in the other estimator. So far, with Brenda Dean, UTEP is probably the best team in Conference USA - but the league is strictly a one-bid league. Even so, at this level, UTEP should make the Women's NIT even if they lose the conference tournament. One big problem that UTEP has is that its opponents haven't done so well - even Iowa State is having a losing record!

UTEP's next team is Alcorn State - a team to which I'll assign a 1-6 record based on its 5-26 real life record. Alcorn State is ranked #327 out of #340 teams. It looks like UTEP might slip even if they win the game.

Game Six: UTEP 91, Idaho 60

"It's another day writing at 2 am. Too excited to sleep, and I've let Mackie (Immaculata Suarez) go ahead and sleep. It was a great day, and I let Mrs. Dean know way back home in the hills that her daughter, Brenda, set two records today. Brenda Dean (me) is the leading single-game scorer in UTEP history with 46 points. I'm also the leading single-game scorer in Conference USA history with 46 points. Or, I have at least a tie with someone who scored 46 points in a game about five years ago.

It's all a blur. I had about 22 points going into halftime, and we led 51-25. It was clear that Idaho wasn't going to give us any trouble, although they played really hard. We began rolling it up and as I began to creep into the 30s the media director started talking to one of the assistant coaches, who spoke to Coach Ballard.

Late in the game, Coach made it clear. "Get the ball to #13. Let's give Brenda the record." So every time I had an open look, or a half-open look, I slashed my way to the backet. Idaho began to worry that I'd score 50 points on them, and they finally put two men on me to deny me anything easy. I just couldn't get that 47th point.

Letell Hanson said, "Great game, 'Bickie D'" after the game. She had scored 23 points in that game and I felt she got overlooked by what press there was. Someone from the El Paso Times (who are great about reporting our games) asked me a few questions. There weren't many people at the game, and it was only covered by the Times and by some tabloid press. I just said I was happy to be here, happy to be healthy and hoping that I could do it again sometime.

We're going on the road next for a rematch with New Mexico State in New Mexico. It's our first road game of the season. That loss to the Aggies at home is the only blemish on our record. I want to drop forty points on the Aggies in New Mexico, and I want to win by forty too. "

-- Brenda Dean



Yep, it's true that Brenda Dean finally got her record (tying) game. I had to find an old copy of a media guide from Conference USA to confirm the record. Hopefully, now that I know how to use Dean - make sure that she's not forced to rest and make sure to use index points to burn Defense Fouls at the right time and I can keep her in the game for long periods of time, long enough for some amazing outcomes.

It's also true that I decided that Idaho would double team Dean once she got to forty points, as she got there with a nice amount of time left in the second half and there was a chance that she could make fifty. For Idaho, the double team defense - which lowers shooting by 10 points (in base eight) for anyone double team but boosts the unguarded man's shooting by 10 points - seemed to work very nicely. Dean indeed had a much tougher time shooting and Wiliamette Moss didn't get enough passes to pick up the slack. Maybe if UTEP had been less particular about getting the ball to Dean then Moss would have had better looks.

I worried that Idaho would run out of players with a player depth of only nine players - but Idaho didn't do too bad. A couple of players ran into stamina difficulty but it didn't become too ridiculous.

I think that I might have actually exceeded Dean's stamina by a couple of points - note that she had a double-double. My record-keeping might only be about 95 percent accurate, but really - the point of this is to enjoy one's self. I'm going to do my best to be accurate but I refuse to beat myself up over not being 100 percent accurate. The point is to get some enjoyment out of this while making things as "realistic" as possible.

So much to write about. Next up: UTEP's first road game, a rematch with New Mexico. I expect Dean to fall victim to both fouling and to forced rests, so UTEP could very well be swept in the season series. I've got NMSU at 4 - (-3) = 7 index points, which will make NMSU a tough road opponent.

Idaho Card Set

This will be the card set for Idaho when I play my next game. Since Fresno State, New Mexico State and Idaho are all in the same conference - the WAC - I'll just use the UTEP cards I created for Fresno State and used for New Mexico State.

I have some misgivings about this game. For one thing, there are only nine players on the Idaho squad with significant minutes. That means that there's not a lot of depth. A few forced rests, a few people running out of stamina and Idaho's in trouble.

I could have created a few other Idaho players that had minutes in the single digits...but I eschew creating those players. It's too much work to create a player with a Stamina of "1". I generally won't create a player at all unless their Stamina is two or greater.

Game Five: UTEP 82, Robert Morris 54

"Thanksgiving! But there wasn't any rest for any of us. I just feel like I'm working all the time, between studying and practice. Even with Thanksgiving, we still don't have any time off. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Coach Ballard's house. Some of the boosters brought food. It was okay, but no great shakes compared to Mom's cooking. I'm extremely homesick.

So why am I writing about food and not the game? Well, the game was a laugher. Coach Ballard cracked the whip on us again and we took it out on Robert Morris. We went through them like wood through a wood chipper, and we could have led the game by forty points if we wanted to, but Coach Ballard made us cool our jets. Toya (LaToya Lloyd) and I spent time on the bench to keep it from being ridiculous. We were up 45-20 at halftime.

I didn't get a lot of looks. We concentrated on passing the ball around before finding the open man. I only took 14 shots in this game, but I got fouled a lot, and I got 29 points, most of them on the free throw line. I don't know how good Robert Morris is supposed to be, but that was a cake team.

Coach Ballard finally had something good to say. She said it was the best basketball we played all year.

We were looking forward to playing Stephen F. Austin, a team on the other end of Texas, but Idaho upset them in the opening game. We play Idaho in the final game of our mini-tourney. I know we can't overlook Idaho. But everyone knows that after the Idaho game, the next game is on the road. In Las Cruces, New Mexico. A rematch against the damned Aggies. We want revenge."

--Brenda Dean



Ever have one of those games where you know the outcome from the opening tip? UTEP led 15-2 to start out the game, and they just kept extending the lead. The biggest lead was 51-22 in the second half, a 29 point lead.

I began moving starters onto the bench and forced myself to take two ADVANCE cards whenever rational. It really could have been a bigger win, but there wouldn't be any joy in that, and Dean already had scored 39 against a team. She scored 29 in this game, and was 9-for-11 at the free throw line. That was really enough.

Note Robert Morris's ball movement stats for the first half. Four assists, no steals, no blocks. It was like the reverse of the UTEP-NMSU game. UTEP hit 49 percent of its free throws and the Colonials only hit 29 percent. UTEP was dominant. Nothing to do but make the cards for the Vandals and play the conclusion.

(* * *)

So how did I determine that Stephen F. Austin was upset by Idaho? More on that later.

(* * *)

Figuring out injuries is going to be hard. In all versions of the game, players have an injury rating. Generally during the game, a Z Result will occur, and you'll get a reading like "Home G1 is injured. Consult player card for injury rating."

In older versions of the game, there was a card that told you how many games the player would miss - they would miss the rest of the game in which the card had been drawn, plus X number of games. The value of X would depend on the player's injury rating. I believe - but can't be sure - that later versions of the Fast Action Deck would determine a variable number of games depending on the player's injury rating.

So not only do my cards not have injury ratings, I don't have the little card that tells you how to determine injuries. All I have is a section of the Cardmaker Spreadsheet, namely a small section of data on the "Work" tab to give me a clue as to how to treat injuries.

So here's the version I'm using. This version is based on 30 games = one college season.

Games Played By Player - Injury Result

5 or less: Current game + 4 games
6-14 : Current game + 3 games
15-19 : Current game + 2 games
20-28 : Current game + 1 game
29-30 : Current game only.

Also note: The 1993 version of the Statis Pro Basketball rules states that a player cannot be forced to miss more games in a season than she missed in real life. Let's say that you have a player who played 28 games in real life. She's played every game in the season except two - one where you left her on the bench and another when she drew an injury result. If there are more games left in the season, and she were to get injured again, the expected result would be "miss current game and the next game". However, that would cause her to fall below 28 games. You can simply ignore the injury result and have her miss the current game only.

Of course, due to individual use, you might use players less than they were used in real life. In those cases, I think that the above still holds true: the player misses only the current game, because they've already missed more than their real-life number of games simply because you've chosen not to play them as often. The player should not be further penalized.