Elite 8 Conferences Set: Value Add Basketball Game Plays in 30-35 Minutes With New Scoresheet

We consolidated all instruction blogs for Value Add Basketball to this Master Instructions Blog.

The improved score sheet enables a Value Add Basketball game to be played in 30 to 35 minutes after 5 minutes of writing in the line-ups. The sheet below is the entire game in which the Horizon League upset the Mountain West All-Stars after Nevada's Caleb and Cody Martin both fouled out. Simply put a dash over the next number after a score, rebound, steal, blocked shot or foul while keeping the running score.

Click here for Midwest Region Results

Click here for West Region Results

Click here for South Region Results

Click here for East Region Results

At the risk of losing a big part of our audience right now, one of the most thrilling games to date was the one upset of a 1-seed. Below is the completed score sheet which sped up the time needed to play from 90 minutes to 30-minutes.

To play your own game, click on the first 2 links for instructions and scoresheets, then pick two teams from any of the links below for player cards. You need only two 6-sided dice, a 20-sided die and an 8-sided die.


The playing cards are divided into six conferences of 7 teams each.

How to Play Value Add Basketball

Value Add Game Scoresheet

Pick 2 teams, click for Player Cards

All-Conference Player Cards

Abilene Christian to BYU

Cal Baptist to Duquesne

East Carolina to Green Bay

Hampton to LSU

Maine to Notre Dame

Oakland to Syracuse

TCU to Youngstown Player Cards

The archives of early stories on the first Value Add Basketball All-Conference Tournament are here.

The Value Add Basketball Game simulates each players' ability to get the ball and get shots off,  rebound, hit from the line and inside and outside the arc, dish out great assists, guard the ball, as well as steal and block shots adjusted for the level of competition they faced. While we also calculated cards for every player who played at least 8 minutes a game for all 353 teams, we decided to start with a tournament pitting all 32 All-Conference teams during March Madness. Results to date.

1-seeds. The four conferences picked as 1-seeds each won by between 12 and 30 points against the 8-seed conferences.

2-seeds won three of four with the CAA shocking the American Athletic 90-82. However, the Mid-American barely held off Ja Morant and the Ohio Valley 78-74.

3-seeds averaged winning by 4.5 points, but that included two 6-seeds pulling out close upsets. The ASun overcame the Southern 67-60,and the Horizon League won the thrilled of the tournament with a 64-62 win over the Mountain West after superstar twins Cody and Caleb Martin from Nevada both fouled out in the final five minutes.

4-seeds went 2-2 against 5-seeds with the Big South sneaking out a 76-71 win over the Sun Belt and the Big West turning in the shooting performance of the tournament with a 94-69 blowout of the WAC.

Seed	East Region	1st Round	2nd Round	Elite 8	Semi	Champ
1	Atlantic Coast Conference	ACC 90-60
8	Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
			ACC 81-64*
4	Ivy League	Ivy 72-64*
5	Patriot League
				ACC 79-64*
2	Big East Conference	BE 84-68*
7	Northeast Conference
			BE 61-56*
3	Atlantic 10 Conference	A10 74-65*
6	America East Conference
					Semi
Seed	Midwest Region
1	Big Ten Conference	Big Ten 74-55*
8	Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
			CUSA 66-62
4	Conference USA	CUSA 77-67
5	Missouri Valley Conference
				Midwest Regional
2	Mid American Conference	MAC 78-74*
7	Ohio Valley Conference
			MAC 79-50
3	Mountain West Conference	Horizon 64-62
6	Horizon League
						Title Game
Seed	West Region
1	Big 12 Conference	B12 83-64*
8	Southwestern Athletic Conference
			B12 77-67
4	Western Athletic Conference	Big West 94-69
5	Big West Conference
				West Regional
2	Pac 12 Conference	Pac12 77-62*
7	Big Sky Conference
			pac12 70-51
3	West Coast Conference	WCC 82-64*
6	Summit League
					Semi
Seed	South Region
1	Southeastern Conference	SEC 83-71
8	Southland Conference
			SEC 86-50
4	Sun Belt Conference	Big South 76-71*
5	Big South Conference
				South Regional
2	American Athletic Conference	CAA 90-82
7	Colonial Athletic Association
			ASun 75-69
3	Southern Conference	ASun 67-60*
6	Atlantic Sun Conference

5 of our 8 Brackets Topped All CBS Experts

Wildcard Brackets Hot; Led by Those Based on NBA Talent and Defense

Through the first day of basketball, five of eight brackets we published in this Wildcard post registered more first day wins than any of the CBS crew, and were rated as red hot in ESPN's bracket tracking.

The bracket based on the "Healtiest" team was correct on 14 of 16 Thursday games to land in the 97th percentile of the millions of brackets submitted.

However, the brackets based on which teams the www.valueaddbasketball.com site calculates has the most NBA talents and the bracket based on the teams with the best DEFENSIVE Value Add rankings picked 13 of 16 correctly and have the highest ceiling with a total of 1890 total points based on ESPN's calculations of how man possible points the bracket could yield.

The Value Add bracket adjusted by where games are played, and the one weighted toward the most experienced point guards also was correct on 13 of 16 picks.

The four CBS commentators doing the night's wrap up revealed that their four experts on set all had either 11 or 12 correct.

That was the same as the bracket based purely on Value Add ratings with none of the adjustments above (12 of 16) and the purely subjective picks (11 of 16).

the one bracket rated "ice cold" by ESPN was the bracket based on which team had the best player on the court, which was correct only 10 of 16 games for 100 points - or the 19th percentile.

The following is the calculation by ESPN of each of the brackets, what percentile that places each bracket, and how many total MAX points the bracket could yield (lower if teams picked in later rounds were already eliminated.

BRACKET NAME	PTS	PCT	MAX
Healthiest Team	140	97%	1760
Pudner's Most NBA Talent	130	87%	1890
Defensive Value Add	130	87%	1890
Adjust Value Add by Venue	130	87%	1850
Experienced Guards	130	87%	1750
Value Add Master	120	66%	1880
Just for Fun Big East/SEC	120	66%	1660
Subjective Picks	110	37%	1770
Best Player on Team	100	19%	1740

The following the actual photo of the ESPN calculations for each of our brackets.

The following shows the average number of wins selected from the millions of brackets this year. For example, Duke is listed on an average of 4.36 lines per bracket, while North Dakota State squad that was listed on an average of 0.05 lines per bracket. They were actually picked on only one in 40 brackets to win the first game, but then a few picked them to go deeper into the tournament.

Fans who submitted brackets should understand that they should root against teams that they pick IF most fans picked them in more games than they did. For example, if someone picked North Carolina to win only two games and they were losing the second game, the person who put them on only two lines would want them to lose since it will hurt their average competition more because they were listed on an average of 3.75 wins. Yes, the person doesn't get their second win from North Carolina, but their competition is eliminated from getting wins in the third and fourth round, which count for many more points than the 10 points per win in the opening two days.

The following table shows if the team has been eliminated (Done), which team has wins to date, and how many lines the team appeared on in the average bracket.

Team	Done?	Wins	Ave. Lines/Wins
Duke			4.36
North Carolina			3.75
Virginia			3.33
Gonzaga		1	3.12
Tennessee			2.83
Kentucky		1	2.83
Michigan State		1	2.80
Michigan		1	2.64
Texas Tech			1.97
Houston			1.79
Florida St		1	1.77
Purdue		1	1.68
LSU		1	1.65
Virginia Tech			1.64
Kansas		1	1.52
Villanova		1	1.39
Auburn		1	1.39
Kansas State			1.33
Buffalo			1.14
Iowa State			1.12
Wisconsin			1.05
Mississippi St			1.03
Maryland		1	0.98
Marquette	done	-	0.90
Louisville	done	-	0.86
Cincinnati			0.85
Syracuse	done	-	0.83
Nevada	done	-	0.71
Wofford		1	0.70
Oregon			0.63
Florida		1	0.63
Murray State		1	0.61
UCF			0.59
Ole Miss			0.59
Utah State			0.56
Oklahoma			0.56
Washington			0.54
Seton Hall	done	-	0.53
VCU			0.49
Belmont	done	-	0.46
Baylor		1	0.42
Iowa			0.42
Ohio State			0.41
Minnesota		1	0.40
Saint Mary's	done	-	0.34
Liberty			0.32
UC Irvine			0.30
Arizona State			0.29
New Mexico St	done	-	0.27
Yale	done	-	0.25
Saint Louis			0.19
Vermont	done	-	0.17
Northeastern	done	-	0.16
Old Dominion	done	-	0.14
Georgia State			0.14
N Kentucky			0.12
Montana	done	-	0.08
Colgate			0.08
Bradley	done	-	0.08
Abil Christian	done	-	0.07
Gardner-Webb			0.07
F. Dickinson	done	-	0.06
Iona			0.06
North Dakota St			0.05
Total Games		16	63.00

Bracketology: Prediction for all 63 Winners

I'm getting a lot of last minute calls about the brackets, so please see my explanation for my brackets in this Western Journal piece. If you are up against the Thursday noon Eastern deadline, you can go down the first column for the number of lines/wins I had for each team (e.g. Duke 6 lines for the championship, then one win for VCU, one for Mississippi State, two for Virginia Tech etc.).

Seed	East	My picks	Value Add	Health	Def	Exp PG	NBA	Venue	Top Player
1	Duke	6	6	6	6	2	4	4	6
16	North Carolina Central	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
16	North Dakota St.	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	VCU	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	1
9	UCF	0	0	1	0	1	1	0	0
5	Mississippi St.	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
12	Liberty	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4	Virginia Tech	2	2	2	2	5	2	2	2
13	Saint Louis	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Maryland	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	0
11	Belmont	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
11	Temple	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	LSU	2	2	2	1	2	2	2	1
14	Yale	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Louisville	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0
10	Minnesota	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
2	Michigan St.	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
15	Bradley	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Seed	West	My picks	Value Add	Health	Def	Exp PG	NBA	Venue	Top Player
1	Gonzaga	4	4	2	4	2	5	6	4
16	Fairleigh Dickinson	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
16	Prairie View A&M	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Syracuse	1	1	0	1	0	1	0	1
9	Baylor	0	0	1	0	1	0	1	0
5	Marquette	2	1	4	1	4	0	2	2
12	Murray St.	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
4	Florida St.	1	2	1	2	1	2	1	1
13	Vermont	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Buffalo	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	3
11	Arizona St.	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
11	St. John's	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
3	Texas Tech	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1
14	Northern Kentucky	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Nevada	3	1	0	0	1	1	1	1
10	Florida	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0
2	Michigan	1	3	3	4	3	3	3	2
15	Montana	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Seed	Midwest	My picks	Value Add	Health	Def	Exp PG	NBA	Venue	Top Player
1	North Carolina	2	4	4	4	4	3	4	4
16	Iona	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Utah St.	1	1	1	0	1	0	1	1
9	Washington	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0
5	Auburn	4	2	2	2	2	1	0	1
12	New Mexico St.	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0
4	Kansas	1	1	1	1	1	2	1	2
13	Northeastern	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Iowa St.	1	1	1	0	1	2	1	1
11	Ohio St.	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
3	Houston	3	2	2	2	3	0	2	2
14	Georgia St.	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
7	Wofford	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
10	Seton Hall	2	0	0	0	2	0	0	3
2	Kentucky	1	3	3	3	2	6	3	1
15	Abilene Christian	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Seed	South	My picks	Value Add	Health	Def	Exp PG	NBA	Venue	Top Player
1	Virginia	5	5	5	5	6	2	3	5
16	Gardner Webb	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Mississippi	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	1
9	Oklahoma	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
5	Wisconsin	2	2	0	2	2	0	2	2
12	Oregon	0	0	2	0	0	4	0	0
4	Kansas St.	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1
13	UC Irvine	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
6	Villanova	2	1	1	1	1	2	2	0
11	Saint Mary's	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
3	Purdue	1	2	2	2	2	1	1	1
14	Old Dominion	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Cincinnati	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	1
10	Iowa	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	0
2	Tennessee	3	3	3	3	3	3	5	3
15	Colgate	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Bracket for Dummies as Seton Hall's Powell and Duke's Williamson Surge

This is my morning email for Selection Sunday ...

Yes, today is not only St. Patrick's Day, but also the day you need to fill out your basketball brackets for the office - which also makes it the one day a year most of you get a sports email from me.

Last night after wading through the Madison Square Garden confetti drop blocks from where the Empire State Building was lit up for the Big East tournament, I interviewed Villanova's Phil Booth about defending the second hottest player in the country on the last second shot that decided the Big East title. I then ran the calculations at www.valueaddbasketball.com (which you can click on to sort by teams) to update the rankings on all 4,000 players and put together the grid below of each team from the March Madness basketball brackets, with explanations and details on my interviews below the table to help you use this to to fill out your brackets even if its the only time all year you pay attention to college basketball.

Team in Bracket Highest Ranked Player Team Rank NBA Ranking Lost to Injury   NBA Top 100 Top 400 Abilene Christian 396, BJ Maxwell 73 No NBA -0.55       1 Alabama 82, Donta Hall 54 23 0.00   4 1 2 Arizona St. 248, Remy Martin 53 7 0.00   6   2 Auburn 47, Jared Harper 14 11 0.00   6 2 3 Belmont 15, Dylan Windler 43 45 0.00   1 1 3 Bradley 623, Nate Kennell 75 No NBA 0.00         Buffalo 10, CJ Massinburg 20 No NBA 0.00     1 5 Cincinnati 63, Jarron Cumberland 34 39 0.00   2 1 4 Clemson 16, Marcquise Reed 28 47 0.00   1 2 2 Colgate 539, Jordan Burns 70 No NBA 0.00         Creighton 149, Martin Krampelj 47 40 0.00   1   3 Duke 1, Zion Williamson 1 3 0.00   7 3 7 Fairleigh Dickinson 418, Darnell Edge 79 No NBA 0.00         Florida 127, Kevarrius Hayes 30 31 -0.92   3   5 Florida St. 85, Mfiondu Kabengele 16 17 0.00   4 2 3 Furman 3, Matt Rafferty 52 No NBA 0.00     1 2 Gardner Webb 300, David Efianayi 76 No NBA 0.00       1 Georgia St. 335, Malik Benlevi 67 41 0.00   1   2 Gonzaga 6, Brandon Clarke 3 2 0.00   7 3 4 Harvard 481, Bryce Aiken 69 53 0.00   1     Houston 36, Corey Davis 12 No NBA 0.00     1 3 Indiana 30, Juwan Morgan 40 30 0.00   2 2 2 Iona 374, EJ Crawford 77 No NBA 0.00       1 Iowa 183, Joe Wieskamp 32 38 0.00   2   4 Iowa St. 109, Marial Shayok 26 24 -3.54   3   5 Kansas 5, Dedric Lawson 44 8 -6.15   5 1 3 Kansas St. 59, Barry Brown 19 22 0.00   3 1 4 Kentucky 34, Tyler Herro 9 1 -0.98   7 2 5 Liberty 97, Scottie James 55 No NBA 0.00     1 2 Lipscomb 147, Garrison Mathews 50 No NBA 0.00       3 Louisville 100, Jordan Nwora 21 28 0.00   3 1 5 LSU 45, Skylar Mays 15 19 0.00   4 2 4 Marquette 18, Markus Howard 24 27 0.00   3 2 2 Maryland 29, Bruno Fernando 22 9 0.00   5 1 3 Michigan 48, Jon Teske 6 14 0.00   4 4 6 Michigan St. 2, Cassius Winston 4 26 -2.17   3 3 5 Minnesota 22, Jordan Murphy 45 25 -0.51   4 1 3 Mississippi 119, Breein Tyree 37 36 0.00   2   3 Mississippi St. 31, Quinndary Weatherspoon 17 6 0.00   7 1 3 Montana 343, Ahmaad Rorie 71 No NBA 0.00       2 Murray St. 14, Ja Morant 46 37 0.00   1 1 2 Nevada 98, Caleb Martin 25 15 0.00   4 1 5 New Mexico St. 294, Eli Chuha 49 No NBA 0.00       2 North Carolina 24, Cameron Johnson 5 4 0.00   7 2 6 North Carolina Central 682, Raasean Davis 82 No NBA 0.00         North Carolina St. 224, Torin Dorn 33 33 0.00   2   4 North Dakota St. 505, Vinnie Shahid 78 No NBA 0.00         Northeastern 178, Jordan Roland 56 No NBA 0.00       3 Northern Kentucky 144, Drew McDonald 64 No NBA 0.00       2 Ohio St. 129, Kaleb Wesson 42 No NBA 0.00       3 Oklahoma 120, Christian James 38 No NBA 0.00       3 Old Dominion 124, Ahmad Caver 65 No NBA 0.00       2 Oregon 102, Payton Pritchard 68 10 -9.94   7   1 Prairie View A&M 761, Gary Blackston 81 No NBA -1.96         Purdue 46, Carsen Edwards 10 35 0.00   2 1 5 Saint Louis 65, Javon Bess 74 No NBA -0.88     1 1 Saint Mary's 20, Jordan Ford 29 No NBA 0.00     2 3 Seton Hall 8, Myles Powell 48 51 0.00   1 1 2 St. Bonaventure 168, Kyle Lofton 66 No NBA 0.00       2 St. John's 21, Shamorie Ponds 60 20 -0.28   3 1 2 Syracuse 80, Tyus Battle 31 16 0.00   4 1 4 TCU 40, Desmond Bane 51 48 -1.99   1 1 3 Temple 84, Shizz Alston 58 42 0.00   1 1 2 Tennessee 4, Grant Williams 7 13 0.00   4 1 5 Texas 60, Jaxson Hayes 27 5 0.00   8 1 3 Texas Southern 330, Jeremy Combs 80 49 0.00   1   1 Texas Tech 26, Jarrett Culver 8 32 0.00   2 3 4 UC Irvine 302, Jonathan Galloway 63 No NBA 0.00       2 UCF 101, Aubrey Dawkins 39 50 0.00   1   3 UNC Greensboro 131, Isaiah Miller 61 No NBA 0.00       1 UT Arlington 424, Brian Warren 72 No NBA 0.00         Utah St. 17, Sam Merrill 35 No NBA 0.00     1 2 VCU 64, Marcus Santos-Silva 36 52 0.00   1 1 4 Vermont 33, Anthony Lamb 59 No NBA 0.00     1 2 Villanova 77, Phil Booth 23 18 0.00   4 1 5 Virginia 7, Kyle Guy 2 12 0.00   4 3 5 Virginia Tech 39, Nickeil Alexander-Walker 11 29 0.00   2 2 5 Washington 74, Matisse Thybulle 41 21 0.00   3 2 3 Wisconsin 13, Ethan Happ 13 46 0.00   1 1 4 Wofford 42, Fletcher Magee 18 44 0.00   1 2 3 Xavier 150, Zach Hankins 57 34 0.00   3   3 Yale 327, Miye Oni 62 43 0.00   1   2

As an example of how to use the table when you pick, let's take the top team Abilene Christian against Duke going through each item from left to right. Abilene's top player BJ Maxwell is the 396th most valuable player (of more than 4,000) based on our www.valueaddbasketball.com ratings, while Duke's Zion Williamson shot way ahead of everyone else again since returning from injury to rank No. 1. The "Team Rank" indicates Duke also has the highest team rating at Value Add of healthy players (we do not count any players injured) while Abilene is ranked 73rd. Next is the NBA ranking, which ranks every NBA prospect on a team from 150 points (Zion gets this as the top ranked prospect) down to 51 for players at least good enough to be considered. Duke ranks third in overall NBA talent behind Kentucky and Gonzaga, while Abilene has no NBA prospects.

Third and perhaps most important is the injury report. A negative numbers shows how much of a team's Value Add is with players they lost for the season, so the bigger the negative number the worse - and Kansas,Oregon and Michigan State are among the teams who lost major players. Finally we list the number of NBA prospects on the team (7 for Duke, none for Abilene), Top 100 players (three for Duke and none for Abilene) and and top 400 players (in the top 10% of all players) which includes seven Duke players and just Maxwell for Abilene. I'm comparing Duke to Abilene party because the Abilene fans were waving signs last night in jest saying Zion was scared of Abilene, but in other cases you might see a match-up that makes you think upset.

 

 

For example, Seton Hall is just 48th based on their team Value Add link, and only 51st in NBA talent based on one prospect Myles Powell. However, Powell is the second hottest player in the country behind Williamson, rising almost 20 spots in the rankings during the Big East tournament and is now the 8th best player in the country, and if you couple on unstoppable player like that on a team that started the year by beating Kentucky and finished by beating Marquette twice and falling just short of beating Villanova for a second time to claim the Big East title.

 

 

After meeting with Powell and doing a story on him a few days ago (see Western Journal story here), I tracked down Villanova's two-time national champion Phil Booth in the locker room last night to ask about the perfect defense he played when Powell got the ball with a few seconds left to try a game-winning shot.

 

 

"We practice contesting and not fouling in those situations for hours and hours. Powell can make ANY shot so you just need to get as tight on him as you can to try to make it as hard as you can," Booth told me, before I asked what he honestly thought would happen when Powell let go of the shot, and he continued. "Man, it looked like it was going in when I turned around." It hit centimeters too deep on the rim and bounced out, the difference between a 75-74 Seton Hall championship and the actual 74-72 Villanova win.

 

 

I will update brackets at www.pudnersports.com or just email back if you want to be added to my normal sports update list or just call 404.606.3163 with any questions.

Have fun with your bracket! - John Pudner