Lineup Help Section

ADDITIONAL COACHING TIPS

The following are a few more tips on coaching in the UBA. The UBA manual has more information on this subject, but these are some tips the manual may not cover.

USING MIN, PRI, AND PS

This is probably the toughest, but most important part of the UBA. It may take some time before you are completely comfortable with these settings, so in the meantime, here is a good system to get some good MIN, PRI, and PS settings.

PRI:

Rate all the players on your team from 1 to 14, with 1 being the best, 14 the worst. Then, using the player's position assignment ratings, adjust as follows for all 5 PRI settings:

0 add 0

-1 add 20

-3 add 40

-5 add 60

-6 add 80.

For example, You rate A. C. Green as the 4th best player on your team, and his position assignment ratings are: -5, -3, -1, 0, and 0. Using this system, his PRI numbers would be: 64, 44, 24, 4, and 4.

PS:

Use a PS of .5 for all 5 positions. This will give you a good rotation of your best players at each position when used with the PRI scheme above.

MIN:

In general, it is usually best to use the average number of minutes for most players, adding on a few extra minutes to your best players. In addition, players that don't average at least 15 minutes per game can be set at 15 without any penalty. That way, they'll be available for games when your starters may be injured, but because they usually will have a higher priority number, they may not play at all in games when everyone is healthy.

Many times it is better to have a less-skilled player in for a good fatigued player. Playing players a little over their average normally is no problem, but when it goes too far, they can hurt the team. Remember, players that average a lot of minutes tire more slowly than players that average few minutes, so if a player that averages 20 minutes is playing 30 minutes, his effectiveness during his final 5 minutes is pretty low.

BLOWOUT NUMBERS:

Using a Winning Blowout Number of around 10-15 and a Losing Blowout Number of about 15-25 will usually give an accurate rotation of bench players under blowout conditions.

You'll probably want to set each player's BLW setting to a number that switches his rating to the opposite of what it is. For example, to rest your best player, who was rated 1 with the scheme above, you'll need to give him a BLW rating of 13, which makes him the 14th rated player under blowout conditions. Conversely, giving the player rated 14th a -13 BLW number, makes him the first player off the bench in a blowout condition. So, if a player's rank is 5 (5th best), a BLW of 5 would make his priority 10 (5th worst) under blowout conditions.

SETTING THE RIGHT OI NUMBERS:

Next to using the PRI and PS system, the OI is probably the most important part of the lineup. With OI, you control your teams overall FG% and turnover rate.

In general, you want to set the OI for each player so that he helps the team get a better fg%, without sacrificing too much in the turnover department. Too often, coaches will assign an OI of 4 or 5 to a high scoring player, just to get him to score more points. The result is, the player may score more points per game, but the overall effectiveness of the team's offense is decreased due to the star player's decreased fg% and assist rate. However, some stars actually do help the offense with an OI of 4 or 5; so how do you know when it's right? Here's a guideline as to which types of players do better with each type of OI:

OI = 1: Not many players fall under this category since it decreases fg% and increases turnovers. But, point guards that have a lousy fg% and a good assist rate could do very well -- as long as their turnover rate isn't too bad. Otherwise, unless the players assist rate is good, the player may do better with an OI of 2 since this will give them a better fg%.

OI = 2: There are two types of players that will benefit from this. 1. The player with a lower than desired fg%, but a good assist rate (again, as long as the turnover rate isn't too bad). Most points guards are ideal for an OI of 2. Not only will their fg% get better, but their increased assist rate will help the entire team, usually outweighing the negative side of increased turnovers. 2. A player with a lower than desired fg% along with a low turnover rate -- regardless of assist rate. If the players turnover rate is low, it's a no lose situation.

OI = 3: Anyone who doesn't fit the profile of 1,2,4,5. Three is usually a safe bet if altering the OI will have too many bad side effects. For example, a player with a low fg%, decent assist rate, but high turnover rate would be better off left at 3 since an OI of 2 may result in too many turnovers. Or a player with a good fg%, good assist rate, and low turnover rate may be better off at 3 than 4 or 5 since his assist rate may come in handy at 3 -- since turnovers aren't that bad.

OI = 4: A player with a good fg%, low assist rate, high turnover rate would be ideal for an OI of 4. Their fg% would suffer, but if it's good in the first place, it shouldn't be too much worse -- especially if some of your point guards are dishing him some assists. Assist rate is already low so it doesn't matter much, and turnovers would also decrease.

OI = 5: Same as 4, but only for players with an excellent fg%.

DI AND RI:

The main thing to remember about these settings is to maximize them against the player's foul rate. If a player is a good rebounder, but fouls a lot, it may be better to leave him at 3. If he's not a very good rebounder, but fouls very little, it probably wouldn't hurt to increase his RI to 4 or 5 any ways.

If a player is a poor defender, but good rebounder and has a fairly high foul rate, it would be a good idea to lower his DI and raise his RI.

FT and FT RATIOS

Generally, anything between .1 and .15 is a good number to use for a FT ratio -- anything else can get too extreme.

If your best player is prone to fouls, it may be a good idea to give him an FT of 2 or 3, to make sure he doesn't foul out. Otherwise, it probably is only necessary to give your top 4-7 players an FT of 1 or 2, while leaving the rest at 0, since you usually wouldn't mind as much if they fouled out any ways.