College Hoops 18 Greatest Teams In History of Other Conferences

The 18 great all-time teams that play in a conference that has fewer than six all-time great teams were put together in our "other teams" grouping. Our ratings are based on how the top 6 teams in each great conference have played against some of the greatest college basketball teams in history in the Value Add College Basketball Game (see details at the bottom) - and if we treated this group of other teams they would rank between the 7th best conference (the American Athletic) and the 8th best conference (the A10).

We have only played one game with the most exciting member of this group - Larry Bird who went up against Magic Johnson in perhaps the most important college basketball game in history.

The top 6 teams in this group so far have gone 6-8 against the other great all-time teams, and have a combined rating of 3.1. That means those teams average being 3.1 better than the average team IN THE GAME, but the average team in the game is about 21 points better than an average team.

Therefore the Gonzaga team's ranking of +8.7 means they are rated about 29.7 points better than the average team. That team narrowly missed the perfect season by losing the last game of the regular season to BYU, and then the title game to UNC.

The lists also features one Ivy League team - the Princeton squad that featured US Senator and Presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

While the West Coast Conference features three of the top five other teams, we only broke out conferences with at least six all-time great teams in the game. The other two great teams are the highest scoring team in the NCAA history, which is averaging winning 120-110 in their 1-1 start this year, and had the tragedy of Hank Gathers dying of a heart condition at the end of the season after having become the first player in history to lead the nation in rebounding and points. The third WCC team on the list is the great Bill Russell's 1956 team.

Rnk	Great Team	Year	Key Player	W	L	Pts	Allow	Rate
	Top 6 Other Conf			6	8	78.8	77.6	3.1
1	Gonzaga (WCC)	2017	Nigel Williams-Goss	3	3	69.8	63.0	8.7
2	UNLV (MWC)	1991	Larry Johnson	1	1	76.5	75.5	7.3
3	Loyola Marymount (WCC)	1990	Bo Kimble	1	1	119.5	110.0	2.3
4	Loyola-Chicago (WVC)	1963	Jerry Harkness	0	1	62.0	68.0	0.6
5	San Francisco (WCC)	1956	Bill Russell	0	1	67.0	74.0	0.0
6	Jacksonville (Asun)	1970	Artis Gilmore	1	1	78.0	75.0	-0.3
7	UTEP (TX Western, CUSA)	1966	Bobby Joe Hill	2	1	63.7	66.0	-1.4
8	San Diego St. (MWC)	2011	Kawhi Leonard	2	2	69.3	71.8	-2.9
9	UNLV (MWC)	1987	Armen Gilliam	0	1	64.0	82.0	-3.4
10	Holy Cross (Pat)	1950	Bob Cousy	1	1	88.0	89.5	-5.2
11	Seattle (WAC)	1958	Elgin Baylor	0	1	62.0	64.0	-6.2
12	Indiana St. (MVC)	1979	Larry Bird	0	1	69.0	76.0	-7.8
13	Wyoming (MWC)	1943	Ken Sailors	0	1	60.0	73.0	-8.2
14	North Carolina (MAAC)	1957	Lennie Rosenbluth	0	1	76.0	89.0	-8.6
15	Navy (Pat)	1986	David Robinson	0	1	61.0	77.0	-9.0
16	Princeton (Ivy)	1965	Bill Bradley	0	1	62.0	79.0	-13.0
17	Loyola-Chicago (MVC)	2018	Cameron Krutwig	0	3	59.3	75.0	-13.9
18	Niagara (MAAC)	1970	Calvin Murphy	0	1	68.0	84.0	-16.6

We invented the Value Add Basketball Game, and since then have grown it to to 135 teams of all-time great teams and players. We have played 188 games to date, and 63,000 unique visitors have clicked on the game. 

Seven current conferences have at least six all-time great teams in the game. We decided to rank those conferences based on the average rating of their top six teams so far in our games against other teams.

Click on the game to play yourself - it contains everything you need to play the Value Add Basketball game, which lets you pit any of 136 great all-time college teams against each other. To pick your two teams it is best to click on this Google doc and print the pages of the teams you want (each team is one page). I track my games on this google sheet, but play your own for free!