Play Would-be March Madness at Home with Free Player Cards and Game

While its just a small distraction as we worry about young adults trying to pay rent while their place of employment is closed for the coming weeks, or the health risk to the elderly in particular, we worked to create a piece of March Madness that would have started today.

The four Regional Brackets are being updated with results here, with more detailed results as we play the West, East, South, Midwest and NIT Brackets and a score sheet and rebounding chart for your own games is at the bottom of this blog.)

If you are one of the 27,403 who clicked in the past on these game instructions to play the FREE Value Add Basketball Game, or just looking for a new free solitaire game to play while unexpectedly at home, you can click here for player cards from the 100 teams to print and play or just to print out player cards from your school or to forward to any fan you know.

You can scroll to the bottom for an explanation of the cards using the great Devon Dotson and the top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks and to look up which page to go to of the free download of the  free download to print out your favorite team. For example the Kansas cards are the images titled page 94-96, while NC State is 142-144 and Richmond is 199-201. These are drop box image files so they open quickly and you do not need to go to drop box - you just need to click on the 3 pages you want and print the out to have an entire team.

Instead of starting with Kansas, I will start with my tournament that kicked off today with a play-in game (normally in Dayton Ohio) between my East Region "last four in" 11-seeds NC State and Richmond.

Those are just the first of three pages for each team - including the one team card you see followed by 11 player cards for each team. To give you a quick feel for how the game lays out with the four dice you need, here is the score sheet in the instructions and the four dice you do need to pickup somewhere to play the game.

This game had the twists and turns of many March Madness games, as both teams struggled in the first half. The Richmond Spiders great Jacob Gillyard lead a great defensive effort that gave the Spiders a 28-24 half time lead. However, NC State's great shot blocker Manny Bates, one of the few players who blocks a shot taken by any player on rolls of 32, blocked shots on the last two Richmond trips of the half to keep it close.

However, NC State's CJ Bryce (game-high 23 points) heated up in the second half, dunking with 16:22 (27 possessions) to play for NC State's first lead (33-32) and then hitting a 3-pointer on the next trip to make it 36-34.

However, Richmond regained the lead on a 4-point play by Gillyard with 6:05 (10 possessions) to play to make it 60-57 Richmond. NC State never lead again until the final two possessions (1:15 to play) when Bryce scored to make it 69-67 Wolfpack, and then on the defensive NC State center DJ Funderbunk ripped down a very difficult rebound away from Richmond players, and passed to Markel Johnson who clinched the 71-67 win with a basket.

While Richmond appears on the "home" side of the scorecard, I play all NCAA games as neutral games with no home court advantage. However, when I play off the first three rounds of the NIT I will play that the better seed is the home team. In those games there is a home advantage where referees miss about 2-3 more calls per game in favor of the home team, which is why home teams play an average of 3 points per game better than on a neutral court. In the game the dice rolls of 11-66 have the following change to calibrate for that change:

Home Advantage

36 roll - when visiting team has the ball, the referee misses a foul that was committed by the home defender and the visiting player loses the ball out of bounds for a turnover to give the home team the ball.

66 roll - when the home team has the ball the referee mistakenly calls a foul on the visiting defender who actually made a good defensive play. If the home player missed a shot on the 20-sided die he gets to shoot either 2 or 3 free throws. If he made a shot on the 20-sided die, he gets to also shoot a free-throw in addition.


What Each Line on the Card Means

See the bullet points below this image for what each line on the player and team cards mean.

• Devon Dotson #1 - This card is for Devon Dotson and his jersey number is #1
• Kansas B12, Rank: #3 - Dotson plays for Kansas, which is in the Big 12, and Dotson ranks as the 3rd most valuable player in all of basketball at www.valueaddbasketball.com. 
• Play time: PG 44-1 - We suggest you play Dotson at Point Guard for all 44 possessions of the game (the game starts with a 20-20 tie so we are playing the final 44 possessions of each game). On the two cards above you may notice that we suggest you play Chris Teahan at Shooting Guard for possessions 44 and 43, but then put in Marcus Garrett at shooting guard for possessions 42-1. (it is easier to have the reserves play first, then finish the game with starters for as long as they can go)
• Gets ball on: 1(PG) 6 - the 8-sided die determines which player gets the ball each possession, so when Kansas has the ball Dotson gets the ball if there is a roll of 1 or 6.
• 6'2" Start,Bench,Out: 29,0,2 - Dotson is 6-foot-2 and during the season he started 29 games, he never started a game on the bench, but he did miss 2 games (he hurt his hip in mid January and then sat out two games).
• 11-66 roll and three lines under it - on the 11-66 roll of two dice when when Dotson is on defense and the opposing point guard gets the ball, he steals the ball on all possible steal numbers (11-16) and even if another player on the opposing team has the ball he steals it on a roll of 31. He never blocks an opponents shot (21-20 indicates not even the 21 is a block), and he only fouls on a roll of 36 (the players who foul a lot foul on 33-36). If he has the ball we look at the right side and he turns it over only only two of the six possible turnover numbers (a 41 or 42) which is very few for a point guard who needs to handle the ball. He dunks (or drives to the hoop) on a roll of 51 to 56 but you need to add or subtract his defender's "Adjust Opp Dunk" range, so in this case he would take away three dunk numbers from an opponent (the average dunk range is 51-53 and average defense range is 0, so if Dotson were against an average player he would take away all of his dunk numbers, changing a 51-53 to NO DUNKS.
• 20-sided die result - if Dotson has the ball and nothing happens on the 11-66 roll, then you refer to the 20-sided die and Dotson scores a 3-pointer on a roll of 1-2, makes a 2-pointer on a roll of 3-8, draws a foul and gets two shots on 9-12, misses a 3-pointer on 13-16 and misses a 2-pointer on a 17=20
• 1 to 17 = free throw good Stamina 45 - if Dotson is fouled the 20-sided die is rolled twice, and he makes the free throw on a 1-17 and misses it on a 18-20, making him an 85% free throw shooter. The Stamina number tells you how many possessions a player can play before being tired. In Dotson's case his Stamina of 45 means he does not get tired during the entire game, and would even be rested for one possession of overtime when almost all other players would be tired. If a player does play more possessions than his Stamina number, then from that point every roll of every dice is adjusted one against him (a 12 on the 20-sided die would be change to a 13 and he would miss instead of being fouled, a 35 would be a foul because it would be increased to a 36, etc,).
• Offensive Rebound if 1 to 1, Defensive Rebound if 1-3 - Half of all rebounds go to the defense automatically, however on the other possessions the dice roll determines which player has a chance to get the rebound on a 1-6 roll. If Dotson has a chance at an offensive rebound, he only gets it on a roll of "1" while the defending point guard gets it on a 2-6. On defense, Dotson gets the rebound on the 1-3 and the opposing offensive point guard gets the ball on a 4-6.
• The team card for Kansas indicates they actually led the Big 12 tournament when the season ended and that if you simulated thousands of games using these cards against the strongest non-tournament teams, Kansas would average winning by 15 points 72-57. They finished 28-3 and ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, and www.kenpom.com calculates that the Jayhawks were the best team in the country, with the 8th best offense, the 2nd best defense, and the 2nd toughest schedule. While you may want to play Kansas or any team against any other team, we should you where we would seed each team in the NCAA or NIT (in this case, we have Kansas as the 1-seed in the Midwest), and if you wanted to play one big tournament with all 100 teams in the game, we give you a seeding of 1 to 25 for each team in each region (obviously Kansas would be the 1-seed in the Midwest regardless.

To Print Out Your Teams

To print out the 11 player cards for the following 100 teams projected to go to the NCAA or NIT tournament in 2020, start by looking below to see the pages on which they appear. Then click on this link of public image files, and use the arrows to get to the team's three pages. Open one at a time and click the print icon. Each page includes four players, so cut cards apart. You can click on the score short below the list of teams and print it out as well to play the game.

Team	Pages	Bracket Blog	Players Out for Season
Akron	Pages 1-3	Midwest	All Players Available
Alabama	Pages 4-6	NIT	Juwan Gary, James Rojas, Jahvon Quinerly
Arizona	Pages 7-9	West	All Players Available
Arizona St.	Pages 10-12	West	All Players Available
Arkansas	Pages 13-15	NIT	JD Notae, Connor Vanover
Auburn	Pages 16-18	South	All Players Available
Baylor	Pages 19-21	South	Adam Flagler
Belmont	Pages 22-24	South	All Players Available
Boston University	Pages 25-27	Midwest	All Players Available
Bradley	Pages 28-30	Midwest	Rienk Mast
Butler	Pages 31-33	East	Christian David, Campbell Donovan
BYU	Pages 34-36	West	Richard Harward
Cincinnati	Pages 37-39	Midwest	Jeremiah Davenport, Prince Gilliam Toyambi
Colgate	Pages 40-42	NIT	All Players Available
Colorado	Pages 43-45	Midwest	All Players Available
Connecticut	Pages 46-48	NIT	Tyler Polley, Richie Springs, RJ Cole
Creighton	Pages 49-51	Midwest	Antwann Jones, Davion Mintz
Dayton	Pages 52-54	East	Moulaye Sissoko
Duke	Pages 55-57	South	All Players Available
East Tennessee St.	Pages 58-60	South	All Players Available
Eastern Washington	Pages 61-63	West	All Players Available
Florida	Pages 64-66	South	Tyree Appleby, Anthony Duruji
Florida St.	Pages 67-69	South	All Players Available
Furman	Pages 70-72	NIT	All Players Available
Georgetown	Pages 73-75	NIT	Malcolm Wilson
Gonzaga	Pages 76-78	West	Anton Watson, Oumar Ballo
Hofstra	Pages 79-81	East	All Players Available
Houston	Pages 82-84	South	Cameron Tyson
Illinois	Pages 85-87	Midwest	Jacob Grandison
Indiana	Pages 88-90	East	All Players Available
Iowa	Pages 91-93	West	Jordan Bohannon, Patrick McCaffery, Jack Nunge
Kansas	Pages 94-96	Midwest	Mitch Lightfoot, Jalen Wilson
Kentucky	Pages 97-99	South	Kahlil Whitney
Liberty	Pages 100-102	South	All Players Available
Little Rock	Pages 103-105	South	Alsean Evans, Kris Bankston
Louisiana Tech	Pages 106-108	NIT	Isaiah Crawford
Louisville	Pages 109-111	East	All Players Available
LSU	Pages 112-114	South	Josh LeBlanc, Shareef O'Neal
Marquette	Pages 115-117	Midwest	Ed Morrow
Maryland	Pages 118-120	East	All Players Available
Memphis	Pages 121-123	NIT	James Wiseman, , Isaiah Stokes
Merrimack	Pages 124-126	NIT	All Players Available
Michigan	Pages 127-129	Midwest	All Players Available
Michigan St.	Pages 130-132	West	Joshua Langford, Joey Hauser
Minnesota	Pages 133-135	NIT	Eric Curry
Mississippi St.	Pages 136-138	NIT	Tolu Smith
Murray St.	Pages 139-141	NIT	All Players Available
N.C. State	Pages 142-144	East	Thomas Allen
New Mexico St.	Pages 145-147	West	All Players Available
North Carolina Central	Pages 148-150	Midwest	All Players Available
North Dakota St.	Pages 151-153	Midwest	All Players Available
North Florida	Pages 154-156	NIT	All Players Available
North Texas	Pages 157-159	South	All Players Available
Northern Iowa	Pages 160-162	NIT	All Players Available
Northern Kentucky	Pages 163-165	East	All Players Available
Notre Dame	Pages 166-168	NIT	Robby Carmody, Cormac Ryan
Ohio St.	Pages 169-171	Midwest	All Players Available
Oklahoma	Pages 172-174	Midwest	All Players Available
Oklahoma St.	Pages 175-177	NIT	Chris Harris
Oregon	Pages 178-180	West	Will Johnson, Eric Williams Jr., Eugene Omoruyi
Penn St.	Pages 181-183	East	All Players Available
Prairie View A&M	Pages 184-186	West	All Players Available
Providence	Pages 187-189	East	Noah Horchler
Purdue	Pages 190-192	NIT	Mason Gillis, Brandon Newman
Radford	Pages 193-195	NIT	All Players Available
Rhode Island	Pages 196-198	NIT	Jeremy Sheppard
Richmond	Pages 199-201	East	All Players Available
Robert Morris	Pages 202-204	West	All Players Available
Rutgers	Pages 205-207	East	All Players Available
Saint Louis	Pages 208-210	NIT	Gibson Jimerson, Fred Thatch
Saint Mary's	Pages 211-213	West	All Players Available
San Diego St.	Pages 214-216	West	All Players Available
Seton Hall	Pages 217-219	Midwest	Takal Molson
Siena	Pages 220-222	East	All Players Available
South Alabama	Pages 223-225	NIT	Deaundrae Ballard, Sam Iorio
South Carolina	Pages 226-228	NIT	Seventh Woods
South Dakota St.	Pages 229-231	NIT	All Players Available
St. John's	Pages 232-234	NIT	Mustapha Heron, Johnathan McGriff
Stanford	Pages 235-237	NIT	Kodye Pugh
Stephen F. Austin	Pages 238-240	West	All Players Available
Syracuse	Pages 241-243	NIT	All Players Available
Tennessee	Pages 244-246	NIT	Lamonte Turner, Victor Bailey Jr.
Texas	Pages 247-249	NIT	All Players Available
Texas Tech	Pages 250-252	South	Joel Ntambwe
Tulsa	Pages 253-255	NIT	Curtis Haywood II
UC Irvine	Pages 256-258	West	All Players Available
UCLA	Pages 259-261	West	Kenneth Nwuba
USC	Pages 262-264	West	All Players Available
Utah St.	Pages 265-267	Midwest	All Players Available
VCU	Pages 268-270	NIT	All Players Available
Vermont	Pages 271-273	East	Justin Mazzulla
Villanova	Pages 274-276	East	Caleb Daniels
Virginia	Pages 277-279	East	Sam Hauser
West Virginia	Pages 280-282	South	All Players Available
Wichita St.	Pages 283-285	Midwest	All Players Available
Winthrop	Pages 286-288	South	All Players Available
Wisconsin	Pages 289-291	Midwest	Joe Hedstrom
Wright St.	Pages 292-294	NIT	Tim Finke
Xavier	Pages 295-297	NIT	All Players Available
Yale	Pages 298-300	East	All Players Available

Wrap-up in Difficult Time

Please do not get the impression that I am equating the heart break of basketball players not getting play and the millions of us fans who miss filling out brackets and watching games with the elderly or sick worried about dying from Coronavirus or the young workers at restaurants and other places closed by the virus who do not know how they will pay rent.

However, for anyone seeking some return to normalcy, even in a leisure activity while stuck in their home - this game is free (so I am not trying to profit from crisis, just produce something others might enjoy). Since my big trip every year is traveling to the Big East tournament and this week March Madness, I decided to dedicate the time I would have spent watching games and traveling to instead build player cards and work with a great graphics person to update the cards and perhaps give some basketball fans out there a fun distraction or have a player disappointed that his one shining moment.

Important rule update after 3/28/2020 Games. After the 15- and 16-seed teams played much better than expected overall and actually won 2 of 8 games, we the 100+ all-time great games played and ran some recalculations and determined the game had one statistical distortion and changed a rule to correct. Through games of 3/28 an offensive player getting a rebound could use the 20-sided die to shoot immediately. In reviewing past match-ups we reran numbers and realized this loophole took away the dunk range and defensive aspect of the game, letting big rebounders from lower divisions score more points than should have been allowed. Therefore games beginning on 3/29/2020 require that when a team gets an offensive rebound they roll all 4 dice again to run the office and see who gets the ball, and if it is stolen or turned over, etc. We did not change any results even though Villanova would have likely won their 1-point upset, though Florida State would have still been upsets stunned by Little Rock.