SportX Advantage Software
Basketball Edition Ver 3.0

Sample Screen Shot

SportX Advantage Software runs on Microsoft Windows and comes as two programs:

• XMaker: To create and preview Plays, Drills, and Practice Schedules.
• XPlayer: To view Practice Schedules and see the execution of Plays and Drills.

The installation includes copies of both XMaker and XPlayer for the coach, plus a self-extracting installation of XPlayer for the assistant coaches and players. The coach may install XMaker on any number of his own computers (e.g., at work and at home), and is free to give his registered copy of XPlayer to any number of his players or assistants.

The software is the perfect companion to the SportX court markers, to assist in teaching players Plays or Drills using the orange and black X’s, with a computer serving as a visualization aid. The SportX Advantage Software demonstrates Plays and Drills in two modes:

• Step-by-Step: Show what each player does at each step, just like a hardcopy playbook, including action descriptions and arrows – in full color! These step-by-step instructions can be printed in color or black and white to create a play book.
  Click Here to see a step-by-step animated GIF (36K)
• Animated: "Run" the Play or Drill right on the computer screen. This mode helps the players to visualize all the simultaneous activities in the play by showing how the play should all come together and work – as a team!
  Click Here to see a full-motion animated GIF (142K)

The use of SportX Advantage Software by the players on their own will cut down on the amount of valuable practice time you need to teach "walk-throughs." Each player can learn at his/her own pace using this software, they can watch and repeat the Plays as many times as needed to master their assignments. This will keep you from having to teach at the pace of the slowest learner, or possibly, losing some players who aren’t picking it up fast enough.

The SportX Advantage Software is very easy to use, and was built to facilitate rapid creation of Plays. This feature makes it an ideal choice for:

• Creating Play-Books: Using the software is faster than hand drawing plays or using other computer tools like generic presentation or graphic packages.
• Scouting Opponents: Quickly enter opponent’s plays – even at the game – using a laptop computer. Then either print the plays or send to others as XPlayer data files.
• Designing New Plays: Because of its animation abilities, this tool makes for a great way to visualize whether a play will work well as designed and to quickly make adjustments to positions or actions of the players.

There are numerous features of XPlayer/XMaker that we think make it the best, most powerful, easiest to use basketball training aid software on the market today. Both XPlayer and XMaker share the following features:

• Step and Run Modes: Control whether in Step-by-Step or Animation mode.
• Two Animation Speeds: Normal or Slow – to help better see the motions and court positions.
• Player Highlight: This allows one to "mark" any of the five players to better follow what should be done throughout a play.
• Action Arrows: In Step-by-Step mode, display "standard" action arrows for player movement, ball movement (passes), dribbling (wavy line), and back picks/screens.
• Four Court Sizes: Ranging from the offensive front-court to full-court. You or a player can view any play in any court configuration.
• VCR-like Controls: To run, stop, skip ahead or back a step, or "rewind" the play.
• View Practice Schedules: Plays and Drills called out in the Practice can be clicked on to automatically load and run them in XPlayer or XMaker.
• Easy File Organization and Selection: Play and/or Drill files may be organized into any number of folders (directories) to better organize them (e.g., Offensive Plays, Out-of Bound plays, Drills, Special Situations, Opponent’s Plays, etc.) A new file is loaded in only two mouse clicks by simply selecting it from the drop-down list of plays in the current folder that is always available.

In addition, the coach’s program XMaker, adds the following features:

• Play Creation: Plays are created by positioning orange and/or black X’s on the court, then giving each player actions to be done on each step. The current SportX library of actions includes 28 different actions that include movement, ball handling, and fakes. In addition, the coach can add a new/special action by simply typing in a description of it. X’s that give precise court locations, can be repositioned or removed at any time. You can also add more steps or player actions to any play. To save time and effort, there are provisions for creating a new play or options to a current play by copying and altering an existing play.
• Practice Schedule Creation: Besides using the SportX Advantage Software to communicate with the players on specific plays, it can be used to inform players of what will be covered at future practices. Practice events (time slots) can be linked to XPlayer play files so these can be automatically run when clicked on in the schedule. A Practice Schedule and all of its associated play files can be bundled up into one easy to copy or e-mail file to send to players or others.
• Create XPlayer Installation Diskette: A simple menu click is all that is required to create an installation diskette of the XPlayer viewer program to give to players/others.

Many Ease-of-Use Features, including the following:

• Player Paths Can be Curved: Any move or screen/pick setting action can be done with a more natural curved path. No need to added extra spots to the court for intermediate points to create semi-curved paths for the players to follow.
• Lots More Screening Options: Now more ways to do screens and backpicks, plus an action to curl around a screen/pick (automatically waiting of the teammate to set the screen/pick).
• v Auto-Hide X's: Now the default mode is to show only those X's which are needed as destinations on that particular step of the play. This greatly reduces clutter and confusion on the play diagrams, both on-screen and in printed playbooks.
• Re-Position Action Labels: Now whenever the action labels hide important items on the screen, like the action lines (arrows) or other player's actions, you can move them out of the way! Simply select "Move Labels" from the right-click Action menu and pick a new location for the labels.
• Larger Player Icons: Now 50% larger, so easier to see and generally closer to actual space players take up on the court.
• Improved Printing: We've added line wrapping features to some of the printouts.
• Package Plays for E-Mailing Option: - Added option to Practice Menu to bundle up a bunch of plays for sending via e-mail (or floppy disk). This allows sending only one file which then is automatically unpackaged and put into all the proper folders at the receiving end.
• Generate Animated GIF Files: Now you can create animated graphics files (.GIF format) for sending to people without the XPlayer program or for posting on a website.

New Features for Version 3.0 include:

• Defensive Players: Now can add defensive players and show their coverage and rotations.
• Easier Play Setup: Create Play "Sets" of Named Spots and players in their initial positions and use these as a rapid starting point for creating your plays.
• Players Can Queue Up: Get Players to automatically line up behind or beside a spot on the court. Makes diagramming drills much easier than before.
• Up to 15 Players, 15 Defenders & 15 Balls: Now possible to diagram all kinds of drills, or even mismatched situations like 3 on 2.
• More Print and Screen Capture Options: Users have more control over font size in printouts, can add notes to each step of a play, and can do screen captures for inclusion into documents, webpages, powerpoint presentations, etc.
• Easy Play Modifications: Simple menu options to switch the roles of any two players in a play or flop a play left to right.

Click Here to see a full-motion animated GIF with Offense and Defense (81K)

The SportX Advantage Software:

• Has an Introduction Window that runs through a play in both step-by-step and animation modes.
• Provides some quick help in XMaker, on getting started creating plays, as well as a detailed play creation example guide.
• Allows entering and executing offensive plays and drills.
• Shows defensive players appearing on-screen as needed to allow players to see the required spacing and positioning for things like back-picks and screens.
• Comes with context-sensitive on-line help that is always only a keystroke away (simply press F1).

All for the very reasonable price of $149.95 (plus S+H)

The price is a "Team License" allowing the coach to install the software on any number of his computers (home, work, laptop, etc.), plus the XPlayer (playback-only) program may be used by all the players on the team.

For Windows 95 or later.

Volleyball Coaches! Plans are being made for a Volleyball version of the SportX Advantage Sofware. Please e-mail your suggestions for features to: SportXSoftware@cs.com

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