1981 vs. 1993

Frisco del Rosario, a basketball writer and Statis Pro fan, pointed out that the game doesn't give you the option of ignoring a foul on some players and letting the player take the foul on other players - once you get a drawing of "Defense Foul" against your team, you can't decide, "oh, I'll see who took the foul, and if it's someone good, then I'll burn the Index Point, else not". You either have to spend the point to ignore the foul regardless of who the foul belongs to, or you take the foul.

I didn't see this rule in my copy of the rules or written on the game board. The game board lists how Team Index points can be spent:

two points: call for a steal
two points: ignore a forced rest
one point: rebound to high player on your team
one point: ignore a defensive foul (what we're talking about above)
one point: ignore a charging foul

..but it says nothing about how to ignore a defensive foul.

Then I realized...there are actually two sets of rules for Statis Pro Basketball. One came with the first version of the game, and the second comes with the game versions sold after 1993.

As it turns out, I have both versions of the rules stored as .pdf files. And sure enough, in the 1993 rules, it states that when spending points to burn off defensive fouls, you have to burn the point without finding out which player was fouled.

Frisco also pointed out that the team index points have to be proportionally spent for each half - if you have six total home index points, you need to spend three in the first half and three in the second half. (This is an alteration of the NBA rule which states those points have to be divvied proprotionately per quarter.) As it turns out, this rule isn't in the '81 rules, but it is in the '93 rules.

In the future, I'll be using the 1993 rules for both ignoring defensive fouls and spending team index (home field advantage) points.

I'm wondering if I should be altering UTEP's team index to create a Home Index and a Visitor Index. There was only one index in the 1981 rules; there are two (a Home Index and a Visitor Index) in the 1993 rules. I'll be posting about trying to determine the right amount of Home Index points for college basketball in a future post.

The Finishing Touches: Home Court Factors

We're all set to begin a game between UTEP and Central Oklahoma using the new cards.

If you're curious, you might note that there is a special card with the name of the team, something called a "Home Court Factor" which is equal to nine, a "Fast Break Offense" equal to "A" and a "Fast Break Defense" equal to "A".

First, we have to determine the Home Court Factor. The Home Court Factor is designed to influence any games played on a home court in favor of the home team. The factors range from "1" to "10", so "9" is very high. Central Oklahoma did very well on its home court and the high number reflects that.

At the beginning of the game, Central Oklahoma will be alloted nine Home Court Points to influence the game in various ways. They can:

* ignore fouls when they come up
* call for steals when they need them
* ask for their high rebounder to get the ball automatically

...and so forth. These points are "spent" by the home team as needed. A crafty home team could save some points for the end of the game and use them in critical situtations, turning the tide for comebacks in front of a riotous crowd.

So how do we determine the correct number? We have to adjust the college teams wins and losses to 82 games, since the Cardmaker spreadsheet is designed for creating NBA cards. Next, we determine the percentage of home wins and multiply that by 41 to get a home won-loss record:

11-30 or worse at home: 1 point
between 12 and 14 home wins: 2 points
between 15 and 17 home wins: 3 points
between 18 and 20 home wins: 4 points
between 21 and 23 home wins: 5 points
between 24 and 26 home wins: 6 points
between 27 and 29 home wins: 7 points
between 30 and 32 home wins: 8 points
between 33 and 35 home wins: 9 points
36-5 or better at home: 10 points

Central Oklahoma has nine Home Court points, which is excellent. However, they are playing on the road, so they can use none of those points. UTEP has all of the Home Factor points, and they use six points for their Home Factor.

The next part of the "team card" deals with Fast Break Offense and Defense. Each team has a "Fast Break Offense" ranging from A to D and a "Fast Break Defense" ranging from A to D. A special chart on the playing board is consulted to determine which Fast Break chart to use when one of the forwards gets their hands on a rebound. A team that has a great fast break offense which is playing a team with a poor fast break defense might decide to use the board's Fast Break chart if the numbers favor a basket with the fast break as opposed to moving the ball down the court.

The Fast Break values are determined by the spreadsheet - but the spreadsheet needs two values: points scored per game, and points allowed per game.

If we know a college team's points scored per game - which is easy to look up - we just multiply by 48/40, or 6/5 or 1.2. (An NBA team plays 48 minute games; a college team plays 40 minute games). We do the same with points allowed and enter them on the proper place in the spreadsheet.

That's it. We've determined the teams. We've created the cards. Now it's time to actually play a game....