1st Value Add Basketball Rankings To Be Released Soon

In the coming days we will release our first Value Add Basketball rankings, with basketball players from 335 teams ranked. Currently the 22 other teams are 0-0 (have not played), so the players for 12 other teams will be added after their first game and 10 teams cancelled their whole season - leaving 347 teams in action this year.

The Ivy League is not playing this year, and the following eight Patriot League teams will play back-to-back games each weekend against the same opponent for all of January, so those teams will be included after their first games. The other two Patriot League teams - Army and Navy - already began their seasons.

Patriot League	Jan 2-3, 9-10, 16-17, 23-24
American	Loyola, Lehigh, Navy. Loyola MD
Boston University	Holy Cross, Colgate, Army, Lafayette
Bucknell	Navy, Lafayette, Lehigh, Colgate
Colgate	Army, Boston U, Holy Cross, Bucknell
Holy Cross	Boston U, Army, Colgate, Lehigh
Lafayette	Lehigh, Bucknell, Loyola, Boston U
Lehigh	Lafayette, American, Bucknell, Holy Cross
Loyola MD	American, Navy, Lafayette, American

The 8 Ivy League teams as well as Bethune Cookman and Maryland Eastern Shore will not play any games this season, meaning we will end up with teams from 347 teams playing this year. Below are the first games for the four non-Patriot League teams planning to take the court in the coming days.

 

Other 0-0 Teams	1st Game Schedule
Alabama St.	1/2 host Grambling St.
Siena	1/3 and 1/4 host Monmouth
Merrimack	1/7 and 1/8 host Sacred Heart
Fordham	12/30 host George Washington
Bethune Cookman	Will not play
Maryland Eastern Shore	Will not play
Brown	Ivy League will not play
Columbia	Ivy League will not play
Cornell	Ivy League will not play
Dartmouth	Ivy League will not play
Harvard	Ivy League will not play
Penn	Ivy League will not play
Princeton	Ivy League will not play
Yale	Ivy League will not play

Value Add Basketball Projected Season Cancelled

 At the end of the Covid year, we did ironically decide to cancel even a board game season.

Obviously nothing to do with the pandemic, but we notes at the outset that creating projected rosters for college players was a far from scientific process. The first few Value Add Basketball Games seemed to yield reasonable results, but then top teams Gonzaga, Iowa and Houston lost and we just concluded the player cards were not very reflective of the jump players make from year to year.

While our 2020 tournament with player cards from the 2020 season yielded almost the perfect number if upsets, as did our all-time tournament with Bill Walton's UCLA defeating Michael Jordan's UNC, the projected cards didn't seem to work. While it was a small sample size, Memphis 70-47 win over Houston seemed particularly unrealistic. The Houston cards, particularly potential All-American Quintin Grimes, simply are not nearly as good as they will be based on this year's stats.

Well, I was at the Big East for the final games of the 2020 season so here is the final game I tried in the projected season. One thing I did learn in the short season is that playing with the dice (20-sided, 8-sided and two 6-sided) does play quicker than using the fast action cards I created for anyone who couldn't find the dice. The dice game averages 35 to 40 minutes a game, while a game using the cards was averaging more than an hour.

Fast Action Cards (in lieu of dice) for Value Add Basketball Game

To play Value Add Basketball Game using these Fast Action Cards instead of dice, click on each of the 24 PDFs below and print them out. The best next step is to print them front and back on card stock, making 12 sheets of paper, and then cut each sheet into 6 two-sided cards.

1. Shuffle the cards and place them in a stack. 

2. Flip over the first card, and use the first two lines, which replace the two 6-sided dice in the top line, and then replace the 8-sided dice on the second line to determine who gets the ball (e.g. the top left card shows a "PG (1)" so the point guard would get the ball. The second number on the same card replaces the 11-66 range, so an 11-36 appears on the defenders card (the "31" on that card is a possible steal), while a 41-66 refers to the card of the player with the ball. If nothing happens in the 11-66 range, then go to the next number on the same card for the 1-20 roll to determine if the player made a shot, missed, or was fouled.

After reading those three numbers on the same card, flip again. If a shot was made, then go through the next card with the same three numbers on the opposing teams cards. If player was fouled, then flip the next two cards to see if the 1-20 third number on the card is a made or missed free throw. If a shot is missed and the scoresheet possession is shaded to indicate you need to check for the rebound, then the new cards tells you the player trying to get the rebound and if the 1-6 number that follows his position gives him the rebound (e.g. if the top right card were the second card and flipped to determine the rebound, then the "Reb to Off PF if 4 in range" indicates the offensive power forward would get the rebound if his Off Reb were 1-4, 1-5 or higher. If his range was 1-1, 1-2 or 1-3, then the defensive Power Forward would get the rebound.