55 All-time Great Women's Teams Calculated for Game - Ranked in Order

We finished calculating the 55 great women's college basketball teams for our Value Add Basketball Game. The rest of the cards will be posted shortly after this post on the Value Add link, and our next post will list the top 40 women's players of all time in order, now that we have calculated all cards. Based on the cards we have a 3-way tie for the greatest team in history:

The 3 Best Women's Teams in the Value Add Basketball Game

Tennessee beat their average opponent 89-56 in 1998, and based on the cards we estimated they would average a 14-point win against the other great 54 teams in the game (81-67).

The UConn team we just created averaged winning 87-52 in 2002, and based on their cards we estimate they would also win by 14 against the other great teams (78-64).

Finally Maya Moore's 2016 team averaged beating teams 88-48, and we estimated would average a 77-63 win against other great teams.

Men's and Women's Title Games Top College Football Title Game TV Viewers by 10 Million

For all my "football only" fans - while the sport is king, consider these Championship TV ratings. The College Football Championship Game drew 25 million viewers, but the basketball women's title game drew 19 million and men drew 16 million for 35 million total. The Football News Year's 6 games drew an average of 13 million fans, while the 63 NCAA March Madness games averaged 10 million - so 630 million to 78 million. 

Now that the women's game seems to have arrived - lets look at the great 55 teams in our game and how we rated them.

We ran calculations based on the playing cards for each team - which are based on the players stats and level of competition they faced that season. We estimated the average score if each team played the other 54 great teams in the game averaging out to a 71-71 tie if both great teams were equal.

Three teams in the game ended up calculating as exactly even and the best teams of all time.

Included 1 Team from Every University with a Great Woman's Team

Please note while we believe the top several teams of all-time, this is not a complete list of all the top teams - because we only let each school have a new team in the game every five or six years at a minimum - and tried to keep each school to one team unless they had more than one truly all-time great team long enough after another great team to have all different players.

We will list the top 40 players of all-time in our next blog.

College Basketball Reference has recently added lots of women's stats from the 1990s and early 2000s that let us add lots of new teams. We had to do some estimates and piecing together of various games for great teams earlier than that. One team that is missing is the undefeated Texas team from the mid-80s for which we just couldn't piece together enough stats, so we included their Elite 8 team from a few years later.

One funny stats piecing together old box scores was a Nancy Lieberman game against Virginia Tech, when the box score I found indicated ODU had 36 turnovers and nine assists. Since they won handily I'm pretty confident those numbers with the team with the first great point guard were reversed. While stats are slight for that ODU 1980 team, consider that they lost one game by two points or they would have been 38-0, and the season ended with them dominating Pat Summitt and Tennessee 68-53 to push the start of her dynasty back a bit. 

Rnk	Team - Player	vs Great	All	Final Rate	Act Off	Act Def
1	Tennessee 1998 - Tamika Catchings, C Holdsclaw	81	67	14	89	56
1	Connecticut 2002 - Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi	78	64	14	87	52
1	Connecticut 2016 - Maya Moore	77	63	14	88	48
4	Connecticut 2010 - Breanna Stewart	72	59	13	81	46
5	Tennessee 2007 - Candace Parker	73	61	12	74	56
6	Baylor 2012 - Kalani Brown	72	62	10	78	51
7	Connecticut 1995 - Nykesha Sales, Rebecca Lobo	82	72	10	90	55
8	Louisiana Tech 1982 - Pam Kelly	76	66	10	82	55
9	South Carolina 2024 - Kamilla Cardoso	78	68	10	86	56
10	Baylor 2019 - Brittney Griner	75	67	8	82	56
11	Stanford 2021- Kiana Williams	72	64	8	78	54
12	Texas A&M 2011 - Danielle Adams	73	66	7	78	56
13	USC 1983 - Cheryl Miller	80	74	6	86	63
14	South Carolina 2017 - A'ja Wilson	71	66	5	76	56
15	Mississippi State 2018 - Victoria Vivans	73	69	4	81	56
16	Notre Dame 2018 - Arike Ogunbowales	81	77	4	85	68
17	Old Dominion 1980- Nancy Lieberman	71	67	4	75	58
18	Oregon 2019 - Sabrina Ionescu	78	74	4	85	62
19	Iowa 2024- Caitlin Clark	86	83	3	92	72
20	Notre Dame 2001 - Ruth Riley	70	68	2	77	55
21	Virginia 1991 - Dawn Staley	82	80	2	89	69
22	LSU - 2023 - Angel Reese	69	68	1	80	52
23	Maryland 2006 - Crystal Langhorne	76	75	1	83	65
24	Ohio State 1993 - Katie Smith	76	75	1	83	64
25	Long Beach State 1987 - Cindy Brown	68	68	0	75	56
26	NC State 2024 - Aziaha James	69	70	-1	74	60
27	North Carolina 2007 - Ivory Latta	71	72	-1	84	54
28	Rutgers 2007 - Kia Vaughn	61	62	-1	64	54
29	Duke 2006 - Alison Bales	62	64	-2	68	58
30	Stanford 2012 - Nnemkadi Ogwumike	67	69	-2	76	55
31	Texas 1989 - Clarissa Davis	77	79	-2	85	69
32	Vanderbilt 2002 - Chantelle Anderson	62	64	-2	72	53
33	Kentucky 2013 - DeNesha Stallworth	66	69	-3	75	58
34	UCLA 2018 - Monique Billings	70	73	-3	76	64
35	USC 1994 - Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson	72	75	-3	80	64
36	Washington 2017 - Kelsey Plum	75	78	-3	85	63
37	Colorado St. 1999 - Becky Hammon	70	74	-4	79	60
38	Texas Tech 1993 - Sheryl Swoopes	64	68	-4	74	60
39	Indiana 2024 - MacKenzie Holmes	72	77	-5	80	64
40	Louisville 2009 - Angel McCoughtry	62	67	-5	71	58
41	Louisville 2014 - Shoni Schimmel	69	74	-5	79	59
42	Marquette 2019 - Chloe Marotta, N Hiedeman	72	77	-5	82	62
43	Oklahoma 2010 - Abi Olajuwon	69	74	-5	72	66
44	Rutgers 1988 - Sue Wicks	73	78	-5	82	64
45	Texas 2018 - Ariel Atkins	72	77	-5	81	63
46	LSU 2005 - Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus	59	65	-6	72	52
47	Purdue 2003- Shereka Wright	62	69	-7	73	60
48	Minnesota 2004 - Lindsay Whalen	57	65	-8	68	55
49	Ohio State 2016 - Kelsey Mitchell	79	87	-8	86	75
50	Virginia Tech 2024 - Elizabeth Kitley	67	75	-8	75	62
51	Penn State 2012 - Maggie Lucas	68	77	-9	76	63
52	Delaware 2013 - Elena Delle Donne	56	68	-12	67	52
53	Auburn 2009 - Keke Carrier, DeWanna Bonner	64	78	-14	77	61
54	Virginia 2018 - Dominique Toussaint	57	71	-14	62	61
55	Georgia - 2013 - Jasmine James	54	69	-15	66	52
	Average	70.7	70.7	0.0	78.6	58.9