Chamberlain (25 pts, 9 blks) & Kansas Beats Donovan (8 Stls) & Providence; Russell Next

In a defensive war, Kansas could barely get the ball down the court against Cinderella 1987 Final 4 team Providence, which turned them over 20 times including 8 steals by Billy Donovan in the Value Add Basketball Game. For the account of Bill Russell's 73-60 San Francisco over Vanderbilt win in the other semifinal, click here. Here are the updated all-time rankings of all 200 teams in the game broken down by their 2024-25 conference (regardless of what conference they played in during the year in the game).

We have added a post on the result of the game here.

However, when Providence's normally high powered offense got to the rim they were shut down by Wilt Chamberlain, who had nine of Kansas 12 blocked shots to allow only 19 field goals by Providence in a 69-55 win. Kansas did have one 3-pointer, from John Parker, among their 29 field goals and both teams were almost perfect from the line - 13 of 14 by Providence and 10 of 11 by Kansas - or it could have been a very low scoring game.

Chamberlain advances to face his long-time NBA rival Bill Russell. Both the 1957 Kansas team and the 1956 San Francisco team were added because we had just updated the block range for the four top shot blockers of all time including Russell and Chamberlain (see updated cards of them and  David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwan here) so wanted to play their new cards. The other teams in this tournament were the last six teams we created when we realized we had missed a couple of schools in trying to have a team created for each school in a power conference.

Kansas moves up to #34 on our all-time list with the win, and will place #26 ranked San Francisco for the title. Providence drops to #66 of our 200 all-time great teams. The overall rankings and scores of all games played to date are on this google link.

 

Pos	Providence 1987	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Summary
1-PG	Billy Donovan	12	1	2	5	6	2	8	0	1	6'0	20.6 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 7.1 Ast-NBA
2-SG	Pop Lewis	9	1	1	4	4	1	4	0	1	6'4	11.8 Pts, 4.2 Reb, 2.6 Ast
3-SF	Delray Brooks	10	2	2	0	0	5	1	0	2	6'4	14.4 Pts, 3.9 Reb, 2.6 Ast
4-PF	Jacek Duda	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'11	3.4 Pts, 3.4 Reb, 0.2 Ast
5-C	Dave Kipfer	6	0	2	2	2	6	1	3	3	6'7	11.7 Pts, 5.3 Reb, 1.0 Ast
1-PG	Carlton Screen	4	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'0	5.2 Pts, 1.1 Reb, 2.4 Ast
2-SG	Darryl Wright	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	6'5	6.1 Pts, 2.2 Reb, 0.9 Ast
3-SF	Marty Conlon	4	0	1	2	2	1	0	0	1	6'10	4.4 Pts, 2.9 Reb, 0.5 Ast-NBA
4-PF	Abdul Shamsid-Deen	4	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'11	3.5 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 0.0 Ast
5-C	Steve Wright	2	0	1	0	0	5	0	0	3	6'9	7.9 Pts, 4.8 Reb, 0.2 Ast
	13 Turnovers	55	4	15	13	14	25	14	3	16		12 Turnovers
Pos	Kansas 1957	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl		Actual Season
1-PG	John Parker	9	1	2	2	2	3	4	0	3	6'0	5.5 Pts, 2.0 Reb
2-SG	Maurice King	6	0	3	0	0	2	1	0	3	6'2	9.7 Pts, 4.5 Reb-NBA
3-SF	Gene Elstun	17	0	7	3	3	5	0	1	1	6'3	11.3 Pts, 5.3 Reb
4-PF	Ron Loneski	4	0	2	0	0	7	0	2	1	6'4	9.6 Pts, 6.8 Reb
5-C	Wilt Chamberlain	25	0	10	5	6	13	0	9	2	7'1	29.6 Pts, 18.9 Reb-NBA
1-PG	John Cleland	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	6'3	2.0 Pts, 0.7 Reb
2-SG	Bob Billings	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	5'11	2.2 Pts, 0.9 Reb
3-SF	Larry Kelley	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'0	2.0 Pts, 2.0 Reb
4-PF	Monte Johnson	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	2	6'5	1.1 Pts, 1.5 Reb
5-C	Lew Johnson	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'6	3.0 Pts, 3.9 Reb
	Jayhawks Totals	69	1	28	10	11	36	6	12	17		20 Turnovers

As the scoresheet below shows, the game was tied 42-42 with 13:50, or 23 possessions left to play, and Providence cut it to 53-49 on a Billy Donovan steal, fast break basket, and free throw after being fouled.

However, Wilt Chamberlain responded with a basket and drew a foul, hitting the free throw to make it 56-49 with 5:49 (10 possessions) to play. Kansas got their one 3-point shot of the day from John Parker with five minutes to play to make it 59-51 and start a 9-0 run to make it 65-51 with 2:07 (4 possessions) to play.