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- COLLEGE Basket users' guide
-
- CONTENTS
- 1. Overview
- 2. Game play
- 3. Basketball today
- 4. The role of GM
- 5. Coaching a team
- 6. College Basket Email League
-
-
- 1. Overview
-
- College Basket is a game of coaching a college football team, including
- recruiting players, choosing players to start, designing plays, and perhaps
- winning the national title. As a coach, you can coach almost any NCAA
- division I team, and have the chance of leading anyone to a title. There is no
- inherent difference between any of the teams, as all players are fictional.
- The level of competition will vary, though, depending on the conference you are
- in. The top conferences are the ACC, Big East, Big 8, Big 10, Conference USA,
- Pac-10, and SEC. The medium conferences are the Atlantic 10, Metro Atlantic
- Athletic, Mid-American, Midwestern Collegiate, Missouri Valley, Southwest, Sun
- Belt, West Coast, and WAC. The easiest to play in are the Big Sky, Big West,
- Colonial Athletic, Ivy League, North Atlantic, Northeastern, Ohio Valley, and
- Southern. Due to memory constraints, the American West, Big South, Mid-
- Continent, Mid Eastern Athletic, Patriot League, Southland, and Southwest
- Atlantic conferences were omitted.
-
- The order of a full season is as follows:
- -Initialize season: players get a year older, seniors graduate.
- -Initial cuts: cut unwanted players.
- -Recruitment: recruit high school players.
- -Training camps: get the players ready for the season.
- -Final cuts: cut down to 12 man rosters.
- -Season: 38 game days.
- -Conference tournaments: 4 days.
- -NCAA/NIT tournaments: 7 days.
- -Awards: offensive/defensive players of year, all-american, coaching awards.
-
- After each season is completed, a YEARxxxx.STS file is written out, which
- lists the records and stats of every team and the best players from each
- position. If you GM or coach a team, you also get a YEARxxxx.<your team>
- file, which has the stats for all the players on your team.
-
- If you have any comments about College Basket, feel free to contact me. My
- e-mail address is dolphin@astro.washington.edu. Many of the features in the
- game today are due to people just like you who thought things should be added.
-
-
- 2. Game Play
-
- College Basket is entirely menu-driven, so it should be fairly straight-
- forward. There are two types of menus you will see: one with options along the
- bottom line of the screen and one with a full page.
- The first type will have from one to nine options, and may be selected either
- with the arrow keys and enter or by pressing the number corresponding to the
- desired choice. (The left-most is option 1, the second is option 2, etc.)
- The second type is a full-screen scrolling menu, most often used to select
- players. The arrow keys move up and down one choice, the page up and page down
- keys move up and down a full screen, and home and end go to the first and last
- choices. While viewing players, pressing 'm' will alternate between stats and
- attributes. Pressing 'r' while viewing high school players will cycle through
- your team's roster, so that you can get a reminder of where you need players.
- Pressing 's' while viewing high school players will allow you to skip quickly
- through the list by choosing the position to move to.
-
- When you start the game, you get two sets of menus. The first asks which
- teams you want to play. You can pick up teams, drop teams, or change the
- level of control you want. Options are to coach the team only, GM the team
- only, or do both.
- The second menu will let you choose options. The first lets you decide if
- you just want game scores, if you want to see play-by-play, or if you want
- to be able to make adjustments at halftime. The second option will have a
- rather large file created at the end of each season with the stats of all
- players. The third option will run the seasons automatically, and may only be
- chosen if you are not controlling any teams. If you select this option, the
- game will run until you press ESC, at which point it will finish the current
- season and exit. Note that the insides of the game are rather detailed, so if
- it takes a long time, you don't have to worry that your computer has locked up.
- This option is obviously not very fun to play the game, but is useful in
- building a good league to start in.
-
- The first part of the season is actually the offseason. First, players get
- aged and the seniors (21 year olds) will graduate.
- Initial cuts are next, followed by the recruitment phase. The computer
- makes up a set of high school seniors, who are then recruited by the college
- teams. The recruiting phase has a variable length, and can take quite long on
- slower computers.
- Following recruitment is training camps, during which every team gets fifteen
- days to divide between shooting, passing, and defense. Training camps will not
- only generate stats to help judge the players, but will increase their
- attributes for the coming season. Finally come the final cuts, at which point
- every team must drop to twelve players for the season.
- The season consists of thirty-eight regular season game days, four
- conference tournament game days, and seven national tournament game days.
- After each game, you will be able to view many forms of the season stats, box
- scores, schedules, etc. At the end of the season, all-american selections are
- made, and two players are chosen for offensive and defensive players of the
- year.
-
-
- 3. Basketball Today
-
- Basketball Today is the online sports section, where you can get all the
- stats for the league. The front page lists interesting game scores, either
- because of upsets or huge wins. Human-controlled teams are more likely to be
- listed than computer-controlled teams. Basketball today is organized like a
- newspaper, and has three inside pages. It is important to understand them all
- in order to play Basket well.
-
- Page 2
- a. Standings. Lists the overall and division records of every team. Teams are
- ranked by overall record, with ties broken first by division record and second
- by rankings.
- b. Human Box Scores. A quick way to get your team's box scores. See "Team
- Stats" below for a description.
- c. Players of Day. Offensive and defensive stars from that game.
- d. Leaders. Lists league leaders in eight categories:
- -Points
- -Field goal percentage
- -Three pointer percentage
- -Free throw percentage
- -Rebounds
- -Steals
- -Blocks
- -Assists
-
- Page 3
- a. Scores. A listing of all the scores from the current game day.
- b. Box Scores. All box scores. See "Team Stats" below for a description
- c. Team Stats. Asks for a team to select, and shows team stats and player
- stats and attributes. Player stats are as follows:
- -Stats:
- -Field goals attempted, made
- -Three pointers attempted, made
- -Free throws attempted, made
- -Steals
- -Blocks
- -Rebounds
- -Assists
- -Minutes per game
- -Fouls
- -Points per game
- -Shooting percentage
- -Position
- -Attributes:
- -Salary
- -Years remaining on contract
- -Position
- -Age
- -Ball handling
- -Aggressiveness
- -Intelligence
- -Shooting
- -Distance shooting
- -Stamina
- -Height
- -Offensive rating: points+assists per minute
- -Defensive rating: blocks+rebounds+2*steals per minute
- -Plus/minus per minute
- d. Analysis. This gives an overview of the performance of each position in a
- team, looking at various aspects of the game. For each, two numbers are given:
- the actual value and the rating compared to other teams, from 1 to 10. The
- statistical categories are as follows:
- -Points per minute
- -Steals per minute
- -Blocks per minute
- -Rebounds per minute
- -Assists per minute
-
- Page 4
- a. Schedules. Schedules and past scores for all teams.
- b. Rankings. Two different polls, named AP and CNN. The AP poll is based
- entirely on who beat who, while the CNN is based entirely on scores of games.
- c. Lines. Projected favorites and spreads for the coming game, based on the
- CNN polls. Even if the spread is 0, the team listed first is the favorite.
-
-
- 4. Duties of the GM
-
- The GM, or general manager, is the person resonsible for making sure the
- team has good players. The means to accomplish this are drafting, free agent
- signing, and trades. Times to do these are obvious during the offseason, but
- can also be done during the season by selecting "GM" after any game. Following
- is a description of all activities you would have to do if you chose "GM only"
- for your team:
-
- a. Initial cuts
- This is when you cut anyone you don't want. Normally, the players cut will
- be sophomores who walked on the previous year.
-
- b. Recruiting
- This is one of the most crucial parts of the season, when you get to attempt
- to get star players for the coming season. At the beginning of recruitment,
- the computer will fill your roster up to the two players in each position.
- Thus, you will have at least 10 players at the beginning of the first
- recruiting round.
- Recruitment is broken into a variable number of rounds, which go until every
- team has fifty players. At the start of each phase, every team gets to choose
- a number of players to try to recruit. This number is the number of players it
- would take to give you fifteen players, so if you have thirteen players, you
- will get two recruiting spots. It is possible to choose the same player
- multiple times, which will give you a greater chance of recruiting him, but a
- smaller number of players you recruit that round. After each team has made its
- recruiting selections, every player selected will go to one school that tried
- to recruit him. The decision is affected by the school's national ranking
- from the previous year and, if it is a computer team, the level of the
- conference.
- Recruiting rounds will continue until every team has fifty players.
-
- c. Training camps
- The easiest part of the season. Just select what set of drills to run each
- day of the camp. It is important to remember that players' attributes will
- be affected by the training days, so this is a good time to boost your teams
- performance in critical parts of the game.
-
- d. Final cuts
- Cut the team down to twelve players.
-
-
- 5. Duties of the coach
-
- The coach takes care of the day-to-day running of a team. If you select
- "Coach only" for your team, you will do nothing during the offseason, until
- training camps. At this point, you will take over the team (aside from final
- cuts) until the end of the season. For instructions about training camps,
- see the GM section.
- The main duty of the coach is to prepare for the upcoming game. This is done
- in three ways: choosing starters, setting preferences, and switching the
- positions of players.
-
- a. Depth charts (deciding who starts)
- Select "starters" to set your depth charts at each position.
- respectively. The first player listed will be your first string, the second
- player your second string, etc. Keep in mind that players who are on the court
- will, at random times, get permanent bonuses added to their attributes whenever
- they make a good play. Players who sit on the bench all season, on the other
- hand, have their skills deteriorate.
-
- b. Game preferences
- Three options may be selected to determine how your team plays offense and
- defense. First is the "Pace" option, which lets you decide what pace you want
- to play the game. The options are from a 1 pass to a 4 pass offense.
- Second is the "Shooting" option, which determines where your preferred
- shooting distance is. Straight means no preference, and the other options are
- inside, medium, and perimeter. For anything except straight, you can choose
- how much extra shooting comes from the selected zone. Choices are 20%, 40%,
- 60%, 80%, and 100% extra.
- Next, you may choose your defensive coverage. You can choose straight
- man-to-man, you can double-cover inside, medium, or perimeter shooters, or you
- can double-cover a single position. For any of the double-coverage selections,
- you choose the amount of double-coverage, with the choices again being 20%,
- 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%. Naturally, double-coverage at one area means lesser
- coverage elsewhere. You can also choose zone coverages, a 2-1-2 zone and a 2-3
- zone.
- Finally, you can decide how much to use your bench at each position, from
- 1 to 5. Selecting 1 will give your bench almost no use, while selecting 5
- will treat your second string player as equal to the first string. Note that
- substitutions are based on the fatigue of each player, not how much playing
- time they have had, so you will want to base these choices here on the skill
- levels of the #1 and #2 players rather than their stamina.
-
- Finally, you can decide how much to use your bench at each position, from
- 1 to 5. Selecting 1 will give your bench almost no use, while selecting 5
- will treat your second string player as equal to the first string. Note that
- substitutions are based on the fatigue of each player, not how much playing
- time they have had, so you will want to base these choices here on the skill
- levels of the #1 and #2 players rather than their stamina.
-
- c. Position switches
- This is a good tool if you have players who are ineffective in their given
- position, but would be much better in a different one. The drawback is that
- the players switched will suffer a 10% attribute penalty for the first year
- (while they learn the new positions.) There are no limitations on player
- position changes, except that continual changes will keep decreasing the
- player's attributes.
-
-
- 7. College Basket Email League (CBEL)
-
- CBEL is an email league based on College Basket. It is essentially an online
- version of College Basket, with the bonus of playing real people rather than
- against 111 computer coaches. (Even in the top conferences, the computer isn't
- too tough to beat). Also, the slower pace allows you to study your team and
- opponents in more detail, which enhances the realism. WWW access is highly
- recommended, as it allows viewing stats and online rules in a much nicer
- format than email or ftp.
- There is no fee for the email league, nor is registration of College Basket
- required. Please send email to dolphin@astro.washington.edu if you are
- interested.
-
-