Hoops, the basketball scoring application for PalmOS® allows you to do real-time scoring of basketball games. Hoops is simple to use--the optimized one touch interface does the right thing, updating all stats necessary for each game event, allowing you to easily keep up with the fast pace of the game. Your selected individual stats are always displayed on-screen; a game summary, team and individual are one button away.
Hoops runs on all PalmOS® devices with PalmOS® 3.0 or greater.
In the freeware version of Hoops all features are available, but the playing time is recorded in minutes only, not minutes and seconds, and statistics will stop incrementing after reaching a count of four.
The registered version of Hoops costs $15.00. To purchase Hoops visit Handango.com.
Registering Hoops
To register Hoops and enable all its features, purchase Hoops at
Handango.com. When you purchase,
you will be asked to enter your Palm User ID. The Palm User ID (sometimes
called the HotSync ID or name) is used to generate a registration code that
you enter into Hoops using the Register menu item.
The registration code is given to you when you purchase from
Handango.com.
You can find your Palm User ID by running the HotSync application on the Palm device (don't push the HotSync button on the cradle, run the application from the applications screen. Your Palm User ID appears in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The Palm User ID also appears in the upper right hand corner of the Palm Desktop application on your PC.
In addition, Hoops prints out your Palm User ID at the end of the About screen. Just select About from the Hoops menu.
The main portion of the screen contains a legend line showing the statistics that may be recorded for the home team, followed by the names and statistics of the players currently in the game. This is followed by the same information for the visiting team.
When Hoops is first run a new game named "default" is created, the home team is named "Home" and the visiting team named "Visitor". The default players are numbered with numbers normally not allowed in games. This allows you to begin scoring a game with default numbers, and rename the players as you go, and you probably won't get duplicate players.
Tapping on the Hoops title or the menu silk button brings up the Hoops menu. See Menu Functions below for detailed description of menu options.
Many scorekeepers want to list the players in numerical order to make it easy to find a player in the scorebook. To do this, enter the player's number first on the roster line, then their name on the same line. Hoops will sort the display of players in the game in numerical order.
To create a new game, select New Game from the menu. The Clear Statistics appears, showing you which data formats have been saved for each team. This is to remind you what data you have saved and help you avoid deleting unsaved data. If there is data you wish to save, touch the Export button, save the data, then select Clear Stats.
On the new game screen, touch the Home Team or Visitor Team buttons to select a team. There are three options, plus a list of team names which is read from the Hoops Team List.
The New Team option allows you to create a new team roster from within Hoops. When this option is selected, a dialog asks for the team name. Then a screen very similar to the Memo Pad application on your Palm device appears. On the first line of the memo is the name you have selected for your team. On subsequent lines, enter the names of the players for the team, one player on each line. If you wish to use numbers, enter the numbers first on the line, then a space, then the player name. Hoops will sort the roster numerically and alphabetically when displaying names on the scoring screen. When you have entered all the players, touch done. If you choose to save the memo, it is added to your memo pad, and a new memo is created for you with a list of teams for Hoops. The next time you select a team name from the new game screen, the team you just created will be in the list.
The Other Memo option allows you to specify a memo pad memo name that is a Hoops Roster. If the roster is found it is used to set up the team and is added to the Hoops Team List.
The Default option tells Hoops to create a default roster for you. The roster will contain 12 players, numbered in numerical order from 80 through 91 if the home team, 60-71 if the visiting team. You are prompted for a team name. This is a quick way of setting up a team you are not interested in scoring in detail. It is also useful in creating a team for which you have no roster available. During game scoring you can use the rename function to correctly identify the players.
The other entries in the list are team names taken from the Hoops Team List.
After selecting the teams, you may change the default configuration for the new game by touching the "Change Defaults" button.
When you are done touch the "OK" button. The next two screens allow you to set the starting lineups of the two teams if you desire. By default, the first five players in the roster are listed as starters. You may simply dismiss these screens and configure the starting lineups later if you wish.
If you touch the cancel button, Hoops will create default rosters for both teams before exiting.
To record statistics simply tap the appropriate statistic and Hoops will "do the right thing". For example, if you tap the field goals made statistic for a player Hoops will increment the field goals made field, the field goals attempted field, update the total points for the player and update the game score line at the top of the screen. Tapping the field goals attempted field simply increments field goals attempted. The same method is used for entering free throws.
For three point goals, tapping the three point goals column pops up a list from which you select made or missed as appropriate. The three point goals column is updated, along with the points and score if "made" is selected.
The other three statistics columns (by default rebounds, assists and fouls) simply increment when tapped.
The rebounds stat is total rebounds and increments every time that a rebound-defined button is touched, but also is linked to the offensive rebounds stat such that when an offensive rebound is recorded, the rebounds stat also increments. This is the "normal" practice when reporting stats separately for offensive rebounds and rebounds in most newspapers. Hoops breaks out total rebounds, defensive and offensive rebounds in various statistics reports, but the default behavior in this version of Hoops is that the rebound stat displayed on the main screen or in the extended stats screen is total rebounds.
Tapping the points field for a player pops up a dialog allowing you to record additional stats--blocks, turnovers, offensive rebounds, technicals and steals by default. This dialog shows the stats that are not displayed on the main screen, the totals of those stats for this player and the player's name.
To record a stat, touch the number for the stat or the name of the stat and Hoops will do the right thing. These stats behave identically to simple stats on the main screen, including the use of fix mode. This dialog is dismissed automatically when you touch a stat number. You can also dismiss it by touching the Cancel button.
Team fouls are recorded automatically and displayed on the bottom line of the screen using the notation "H-#" for the home team, displayed on the left, and "V-#" for the visiting team, displayed on the right. If you have set up the game properly using the configuration screen, Hoops will prompt you at the proper time to clear the team fouls. You may also clear team fouls manually using the Team Fouls menu item.
Bench Fouls
If you wish to add team fouls when you don't know the player to charge the
foul to, select the menu item Bench Fouls. The dialog displayed
allows you to record technical fouls charged to the bench, and increment
team fouls without charging the foul to an individual player.
Since fix mode works in this screen, you can also use this to manually
correct your team foul count if you find it inaccurate. Simply add team
fouls if your count is too small, and use fix mode to decrement the count
if it is too large.
Substitutions
Tapping a team name on the main stat screen will display the substitutions screen for that team. The substitutions screen allows you to select via checkbox the players currently in the game. All players on the roster are shown on this screen. You can quickly clear the roster by using the Clear button.
The home team substitutions screen is also accessible by using the Calendar key (which is aligned under the home team fouls button). The visitor team substitutions screen is also accessible by using the Memo Pad key (which is aligned under the visitor team fouls button).
On the substitutions screen, touching the time button shows a report of playing time for each player for the current team. Note that playing time is displayed only in minutes in the unregistered version. Playing time is recorded and exported as a number of seconds played when you export data to the Memo Pad.
Pressing the clear button clears all the checkboxes. Sometimes this is the easiest way to handle mass substitutions.
Pressing the clk rst button resets the clock for the next period.
Pressing the rst play button resets the accumulated playing time for all players on the current team.
If you press "OK" and have selected fewer than five players, Hoops will
warn you, but allow you to continue. If you have selected more than 5
players, you must deselect players until 5 or fewer are selected before
Hoops will allow you to leave the screen. If you select fewer than 5
players, the main display for that team will have a blank player name and
will not allow you to use QuickSub on that player.
To add a player to the game you must use the Substitutions screen.
Quick Substitutions
Quick substitutions that replace one player with another may be made by
touching the name of the player leaving the game. A list of all players on
the team roster who are not playing is shown. Select the player that is
going into the game and the team list will be redrawn in correct sorted
order.
New Player is also a choice in this list. If you select New Player you can enter a player who is not currently on the roster. This player will be substituted for the player that was selected and the new player will be added to the roster. Since this requires rewriting the Hoops database, it will take a second or two.
The "Rename Player" choice allows you to change the name of the player selected. The change is recorded in the roster memo. No substitution is made in this case. Since this requires rewriting the Hoops database, it will take a second or two.
Touching the Game button or the ToDo key brings up the game summary screen which allows you to access specific statistics on a team or player basis, view the period-by-period score and compare statistics using the statistics comparison window. The period-by-period score changes format to properly display two-period or four-period games and adds up to two overtime periods if necessary. The current period and time remaining in the current period are shown on the title line.
The team name buttons on the top line allow selection of a particular statistic to be displayed for that team in a separate scrollable window. The Players button brings up a list allowing you to select the team you wish, and then a list of players on that team. Selecting a player will bring up a scrollable window with that player's statistics.
The team names also appear on the compare button below the line score. In the center of this button is the stat currently displayed in the scrollable statistics comparison window below. By default the comparison shown is team statistics. To change the statistic displayed, touch the comparison button and a list of available statistics is presented. Each statistic, when selected will display as a comparison between the two teams or players on the teams in the window below.
The Bench Fouls, Team Fouls,
and Time Outs windows are accessible as menu
items on the Game Summary screen.
Visitor Team Foul Button
The visitor team foul button shows the current number of visitor team
fouls. Touching it allows you to reset the team fouls manually if desired.
Team Fouls
The Team Fouls screen is displayed by using the Team Fouls
menu item. Total team fouls for each team are displayed. To clear team fouls
at the appropriate time, touch the "clear" button in the team fouls box.
If you have set up the configuration properly,
Hoops will prompt you at the appropriate time to clear team fouls.
If your team foul count is inaccurate during a game, you can fix it using the Bench Fouls menu item in combination with fix mode.
Time Outs
Access the time out screen through the Time Out menu item. To record
a timeout, touch the appropriate type of timeout for the team.
Timeouts may be configured on the configuration screen. When an overtime period is entered, Hoops will prompt you for the proper number of timeouts for the overtime. Fix mode also works on the time out screen, allowing you to correct any errors.
When you select a statistic to be displayed, you can select a statistic
already displayed in another column. When you do this, Hoops will swap the
two columns. This is a quick way to move stats from column to column.
Configuration
The configuration screen allows you to modify various aspects of the game to coincide with differing rules. The options are:
The Export menu item brings up the Export Statistics screen which allows you to export statistics for the current game to a CSV or tab format Memo.
Select a team and a format, then press Export Data to export the data.
The CSV Memo selection will export the data to a Memo Pad memo in CSV format suitable for importing into Excel or another spreadsheet.
The TAB Memo selection will export the data to a Memo Pad memo in TAB delimited format suitable for importing into Excel or another spreadsheet. This is particularly useful for Apple users.
To start with, score only one team. For the second team, if you score, just score shooting and use only one player--this gives you team stats, which can be informative. Remember you can ignore foul out warnings.
Remember, when you use Hoops, all the other fans at the game will be envious, and will continually ask you for stats during the game.
To avoid this problem, try to verify your stats during the quarter break before you reset the clock to change periods.
In a future version of Hoops, a post-game editing feature will be added to allow this type of correction.