PudnerSports.com: Chamberlain's Late Dunk Lets Kansas Survive Past MSU on Buzzer Beating Dunk, 71-69

One of our six new teams nearly started our latest 8-team tournament with an upset, as the 2005 Mississippi State's rotating 7-footers drew four fouls on Wilt Chamberlain. A 3-pointer from Lawrence Roberts, a future NBA player who would hit 14 of 15 free throws to beat the Celtics in a game a couple of years later two weeks after going 8 of 11 from the floor at Denver to beat the Nuggets, made it 59-55 Mississippi State..

Roberts has 12 points and 7 rebounds and helped the two 7-footers hold Wilt to 20 and 11. Well below his averages.

Winsome Frazier hit a 3-pointer to start the game, and another one later, as the 1957 squad only had one 3-pointer the entire game. There were no 3-pointers in 1957, but we do estimate them based on various factors for those player cards.

However, you will notice on Wilt's card that centers from the pre-3-pointer era have a spot for the traditional 3-point play on a basket while being fouled. That was a key to the rally in the closing minutes, as Kansas did have a big edge on the boards. Despite the four fouls, Wilt scored off an offensive rebound and was fouled, hitting the free throw to make it 60-59 Kansas with 9 possessions 5 minutes to go), and John Parker added a traditional 3-point play later while Gene Elstun kept several possessions alive with offensive rebounds.

Still on the next to late possession Wilt missed two free throws to leave the game tied 69-69, but he grabbed a rebound on the final Mississippi State possession and dunked at the other end for the 71-69 survival to the next round.

Note that the Kansas Dunk Range was 51-56, while they held Mississippi State to a Stop range of 51-52, meaning those two rolls were an automatic missed shot for the player with the ball and defensive rebound. That is arrived at by a table in the Value Add Basketball Game rules, where Kansas dunk range of 51-58 combined with the MSU defense range of +1 for a 51-61 on the chart. Meanwhile the Mississippi State dunk range of 51-55 adjusted by the Kansas defense range of -6 results in a 51-51 STOP range. However, you are always allowed to adjust the teams dunk range by the same amount before the game and we prefer to keep the ranges both in the 50s if possible. In this case taking away one dunk number from Kansas to make them 51-56 is done along with making MSU's dunk range one worse as well - in this case increasing it to a STOP range of 51-52.

The dunk range is essential for every game because it not only adjusts for level of competition but also for eras. In the 1950s shooting percentages were much lower than today, and of course the 3-pointer wasn't in place though we do estimate ranges.

Pos	Mississippi St. 2005	Pts	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Gary Ervin	11	1	1	0	2	6'0	7.4 Pts, 2.4 Reb, 4.7 Ast
2-SG	Ontario Harper	11	5	1	0	2	6'5	8.7 Pts, 4.9 Reb, 1.2 Ast
3-SF	Shane Power	8	4	0	0	4	6'5	11.1 Pts, 4.1 Reb, 2.4 Ast
4-PF	Lawrence Roberts	12	7	2	0	2	6'9	16.9 Pts, 11.0 Reb, 1.9 Ast
5-C	Marcus Campbell	6	5	0	3	2	7'0	6.0 Pts, 5.0 Reb, 0.3 Ast
1-PG	Jamall Edmondson	2	2	0	0	1	5'9	4.8 Pts, 1.1 Reb, 1.3 Ast
2-SG	Winsome Frazier	8	5	1	0	3	6'4	12.3 Pts, 3.5 Reb, 1.0 Ast
3-SF	Dietric Slater	4	1	0	0	3	6'3	3.3 Pts, 2.1 Reb, 0.9 Ast
4-PF	Walter Sharpe	5	4	0	1	1	6'9	2.4 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 0.5 Ast
5-C	Wesley Morgan	2	2	0	0	2	7'2	1.9 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 0.2 Ast
	Bulldogs Totals	69	36	5	4	22		11 Turnovers in Game


Pos	Kansas 1957	Pts	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl		Actual Season
1-PG	John Parker	9	4	1	0	2	6'0	5.5 Pts, 2.0 Reb
2-SG	Maurice King	7	5	1	0	2	6'2	9.7 Pts, 4.5 Reb
3-SF	Gene Elstun	14	8	1	0	1	6'3	11.3 Pts, 5.3 Reb
4-PF	Ron Loneski	8	4	0	1	3	6'4	9.6 Pts, 6.8 Reb
5-C	Wilt Chamberlain	20	11	0	3	4	7'1	29.6 Pts, 18.9 Reb
1-PG	John Cleland	2	1	0	0	1	6'3	2.0 Pts, 0.7 Reb
2-SG	Bob Billings	2	1	0	0	1	5'11	2.2 Pts, 0.9 Reb
3-SF	Larry Kelley	2	1	0	0	1	6'0	2.0 Pts, 2.0 Reb
4-PF	Monte Johnson	5	2	0	1	1	6'5	1.1 Pts, 1.5 Reb
5-C	Lew Johnson	2	3	0	1	1	6'6	3.0 Pts, 3.9 Reb
	Jayhawks Totals	71	40	3	6	17		10 Turnovers in Game

The results of the tournament featuring our eight new teams in the Value Add Basketball Game features the most Mississippi State team to advance in the NCAA playing Wilt Chamberlain and the 1957 National Runners--up.

We will ad results after the game is played, but for the preview here are the two teams from the game. Here are the screen shots of the two teams. There are four lists of teams, so first we went to the google doc List B - Gonzaga 2017 to Marquette 2011 VABG Teams and printed page 17 with the Kansas squad below. Then we went to List C - Marquette 2023 to San Francisco 1956 VABG Great Teams and printed page 18 below for Mississippi State.

Since we just posted the image of MSU 2005 and five other new teams here, I pulled back to show what you should see on your screen when you go to print. We recently posted the updated cards for the four greatest shot blockers of all time including Wilt Chamberlain on this post New Shot Block Category for Olajuwon, Chamberlain, Russell and the Admiral, and below we added the rest of his team.

Kansas 1957 started our season ranked 20th all-time in the game, but dropped a good bit with a lopsided 57-80 loss to Elvin Hayes and Houston 1968, the one team that upset Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and UCLA in the "Game of the Century." They evened their record at 1-1 with a 78-68 win over Oklahoma State 2004, so return to that era to try to get a second straight win.

This is the debut in the game for Mississippi State 2005, which does counter Wilt with two 7-footers and a few great outside shooters in Jamall Edmondson, Shane Power and Winsome Frazier. That combo destroyed Stanford and their three players 6'10 or taller 93-70 in the NCAA tournament before losing to Duke. The buzz on Stanford's campus that year on the only women's team to finish ranked No. 1, though they won the women's national title three other seasons included their 2021 team featured in our game.