Duke 2001 On Verge of Replacing UCLA 1972 as All-Time #1 After Thrashing UNLV

 In what looked like a very event match-up of heavyweights, Carlos Boozer drew the 4th foul on Larry Johnson with 17:28 to play and completed a 3-point play to make it 45-30 Duke. Johnson (18 points, 10 rebounds) survived the rest of the game, but had to guard the jump shooter Mike Dunleavy the rest of the game to avoid the 5th foul.

Duke crashed the offensive boards, with all four starters (not point guard Jay Williams) getting seven or more rebounds for a dominant 42-26 edge on the boards.

Shane Battier (26 points, 9 rebounds) hit three 3-pointers early, and Boozer (24, game-high 12 rebounds) led such a dominant 78-65 win that Duke's all-time rating in our game improved to 15.4, passing Kentucky and Kansas teams and coming within 0.1 of catching bill Walton's UCLA as the top team of all time. The scoresheet from the game is at the bottom of this blog, after the updated all-time Top 25 and teams that could make the list soon.

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!

 

All-Time	Team	Year	Player	Won	Lost	Score	Allow	Rating	Conf
1	UCLA	1972	Bill Walton	6	0	72	62	15.5	Pac-12
2	Duke	2001	Shane Battier	3	0	82.3	71	15.4	ACC
3	Kansas	2008	Mario Chalmers	5	1	74.7	56	15.2	B-12
4	Kentucky	1996	Antoine Walker	2	1	72	69.3	13.6	SEC
5	Villanova	2018	Mikal Bridges	7	2	79.4	70.3	10.8	BEast
6	Kansas	1997	Paul Pierce	3	0	75.3	60.3	10.1	B-12
7	North Carolina	2005	Sean May	3	2	72.2	64.4	9.6	ACC
8	Indiana	1976	Scott May	3	1	71.3	59.8	9.6	B10
9	Ohio St.	1960	Jerry Lucas	2	1	84	76.3	8.9	B10
10	Connecticut	2004	Ben Gordon	5	2	73.5	64	8.8	BEast
11	Gonzaga (WCC)	2017	Nigel Williams-Goss	3	3	69.8	63	8.7	Mid-Maj
12	Houston	1968	Elvin Hayes	3	1	73	63.8	8.5	Amer
13	Virginia	2019	Kyle Guy	4	1	72.6	65.4	8.3	ACC
14	Duke	2010	Jon Scheyer	5	2	74	66.7	7.9	ACC
15	Michigan St.	2000	Mateen Cleaves	3	0	88.3	78.3	7.3	B10
16	Baylor	2021	Jared Butler	2	2	86	78.5	7.1	B-12
17	Louisville	2013	Russ Smith	2	1	74	66.3	7	ACC
18	North Carolina	1982	Michael Jordan	5	1	68.8	65	6.7	ACC
19	Duke	1992	Christian Laettner	1	2	71.5	64.5	6.6	ACC
20	Cincinnati	1960	Oscar Robertson	1	2	74	78	6.2	Amer
21	UCLA	1967	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	2	1	83	87	5.6	Pac-12
22	DePaul	1980	Mark Aguirre	3	0	80.3	67.7	5.6	BEast
23	UNLV (MWC)	1991	Larry Johnson	1	2	72.7	76.3	5.4	Mid-Maj
24	Arkansas	1994	Corliss Williamson	0	2	72	75	5.3	SEC
25	North Carolina St.	1974	David Thompson	2	1	72	72.7	5.1	ACC

Arkansas is the only top 25 team that has not played three games yet. If they lose, Carsen Edwards 2018 Purdue team should slide into #25. However, Richard Hamilton's UConn is #31 but has only played one game, so could easily be ranked with two good showings. 

We were planning on Arkansas playing Shaq's LSU next for an all-SEC showing, but may change to a UConn vs. Arkansas match-up to see if Arkansas can prove they belong or if UConn wins to get close or in - then have them play their third game. Once UConn and Arkansas have played three games each, all 38 current top teams will have played at least three games.

If you add 21 to the rating you would have a rough equivalent to an SRS or KenPom ratings so we'd expect UCLA or Duke to beat an average team by about 36 points, but beat an "average great team" in this game by 15.