See scoresheets of the three games played Friday with our only two teams that still needed to debut – Rhode Island 2017 and Northern Iowa 2015 …
We have printed four batches of all-time great Value Add Basketball Game teams and each time finished a tournament to claim a champion,
leaving just four undefeated teams of 248 all-time great teams. Being ready to
now have them battle it out for one champion of all 248 teams, but rather than
just play the four champs we took a page from the current 12-team college
football championships playing out last night with a great game between Notre
Dame and Penn State.
We decided to start by giving the four past champions the
four byes to make the Elite 8.
The four teams that made those championship games then get
home advantage in the first round games.
Then we will let the four “best of the rest” highest ranked
teams into the tournament as the visitors, which does entail a precise home
court advantage in the Value Add Basketball Game- as rolls of 36 or 66 can be
reversed by the home team which gives an average home court advantage of 3
points per game.
We wanted each of the “best of the rest” contenders to have
played at least four games to prove themselves worthy or not – so we decided to
play the two semifinal losers from our most recent tournament as one game
between 2-1 teams. We also had just created two other teams we’d missed earlier,
Rhode Island 2017 and Northern Iowa 2015, and while they are not contenders, we
like the idea that we have given all 248 teams a chance at least until they
lose a game, so we decided to pit them against the best other 2-1 teams and
have them play each other until each of the two lost a game.
Thursday Game 1 – Northern Iowa 2015 shocked Ohio State 1960, the best other 2-1 team, in our first game, using the perfect upset formula. Seth Tuttle showed why he was an All-American with 20 points and drawing 5 fouls against all-time legend John Lucas, and Northern Iowa had the ultimate 3-point shooting cards that can lead to upsets, with both Matt Bohannon and Paul Jesperson having unbelievable 1-6 three-point made ranges on the 20-sided die. As noted in this earlier blog, only 15% of double digit underdogs have pulled upsets in our games.
Its easy to see how Northern Iowa won four level-A games (www.kenpom.com term) including a double digit
win over Iowa en route to a 31-4 record and won a tournament game for the first
of two years in a row – the next year stunning Texas and then taking Texas
A&M to overtime to just miss the Sweet 16.
Since they were allowed to play until they lost, that meant both
they and our other debut team, Rhode Island 2017 cold both play the one top
team with only two games played – 1-1 Kentucky 1978. In running the math in our
KenPom type all-time ratings, we realized that Kentucky would need to beat both
teams to improve to 3-1 and win the two games by a combined margin of +30 to
make the tournament.
They looked impressive in both, beating Rhode Island 88-76 in
a game in which all-time great point guard Kyle Macy took over with 13 of 14 free
throws (he is a 90% shooter) and 31 points, and the only time he missed star
center Rick Robey grabbed the rebound and put it in.
Macy scored another 26 points against Northern Iowa for a 91-80
win, but the combined margin of +23 still left them just 7 points short of
making the 12-team tournament.
Here is the breakdown of all teams.
UCLA 1972 with Bill Walton is 6-0 (16.2 Rating), ranked 1st and
gets a bye as 1st Champion for a 66-58 win over #10 UNC 1982.
Kansas 1997 with Paul
Pierce is 5-0 (12.8 Rating), ranked 5th and gets a bye as 2nd
Champion for a 81-65 win over #14 Michigan State 2000.
Michigan 1993 with Chris Webber is 6-0 (10.2 Rating), ranked
tied for 14th and gets a bye as the 3rd champion for a 70-66
over the other team tied for #14, Connecticut 2023.
UCLA 1975 with Dave Meyers is 4-0 (15.2 Rating), ranked 2nd
and gets a bye as the 4th Champion for a 83-62 #11 Kentucky 2012.
4 Previous Tournament Runners-up to those Teams host a
playoff game vs. best of the rest. The home advantage is worth 3-points per
game, as the home team can flip any roll of 36 to 66 to their advantage.
North Carolina 1982 with Michael Jordan and James Worthy is
5-1 (10.8 Rating) and ranked 10th as runner up to #1 UCLA 1972
above.
Michigan St. 2000 with Mateen Cleaves is 4-1 (4.5 Rating) and
ranked 41st as runner up to #5 Kansas 1997 above.
Connecticut 2023 with Adama Sanogo is 5-1 (10.2 Rating) and
ranked tied for 14th as runner up to the other #14 team Michigan
1993.
Kentucky 2012 with Anthony Davis is 7-3 (10.6 Rating) and
ranked 11th as runner up to #2 UCLA 1975.
The following two teams will be two of the visitors against
Runner-up teams to kick off the tournament
Kansas 2008 with Mario
Chalmers is 5-1 (13.0 Rating), ranked 4th and will be one of the
four “best of the rest.
Indiana 1976 with Scott May is 3-1 (11.3 Rating) ranked 7th
and will be one of the four “best of the rest.
The final teams in the tournament will likely be Cincinnati
1962 AND UCLA 1964 unless one of them blows out the other in the remaining 3rd
place game from our 4th tournament.
Cincinnati 1962 with Paul Hogue is 2-1 (14.7 rating), ranked
3rd and will get an away game vs. a runner-up team above, unless
they lose the remaining 4th tournament 3rd place game by
at least 20 points to UCLA 1964.
UCLA 1964 with Walt Hazzard is 2-1 (12.5 rating), ranked 6th
and will get an away game vs. a runner-up team above, unless they lose the
remaining 4th tournament 3rd place game by at least 9
points to Cincinnati 1962.
If Cincinnati 1962 or UCLA 1964 above are eliminated, then it will leave
a tie for the last spot between Duke 2001 with Shane Battier and Houston 1968
with Elvin Hayes, which are both 3-1, with identical 11.1 ratings that leave
them tied for 8th.
Not in Tournament
Kentucky 1978 with Jack Givens is 3-1 (10.5 Rating), and is
ranked 12th, and fell just short of making the tournament. They
needed to beat Northern Iowa 2015 and Rhode Island 2017 by a combined margin of
30 points to make the tournament, and fell just seven points short with an
impressive 88-76 win over Rhode Island 2017 and 91-80 over Northern Iowa.
Ohio St. 1960 with Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek is 2-2 (8.3
Rating) and ranked 20th, and was ranked 6th and would
have been in the tournament before a stunning 85-89 loss to N. Iowa 2015.
Northern Iowa 2015 with All-American Seth Tuttle is 1-1 (0.0
Rating) and moved up from 139th to 87th with an impressive 89-85 upset of #20
Ohio State, which let them keep playing until they lost a game since every team
gets a chance as long as they are undefeated, but they did lose the second game
despite a good showing in a 76-88 loss to Kentucky 1978.
Rhode Island 2017, the last year before coach Danny Hurley
left for UConn, is 0-1 (-7.3 Rating) after losing their opener 76-88 to
Kentucky 1978, just dropped one spot from 182nd to 183rd.
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