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We decided to create just a few more all-time great teams to get the Men's game to 300 teams even. Here are notes on the final six teams that will soon appear on this link to all 300 teams and rules of the Value Add Basketball Game.
We realized we had not included two of the teams most immortalized on screen. The legendary Jim Valvano and his Cinderella 1983 NC State team—just three years after his great Iona tournament run, which is also represented in our game—were the subject of ESPN’s 30 for 30 feature Survive and Advance. HBO, meanwhile, produced City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal. It remains a shame that points were shaved (though games were not thrown), because otherwise the 1950 CCNY squad we included in our game would simply be remembered as the last team to win both the NIT and the NCAA Tournament, back when the two were considered equal championships.
We ran all 300 teams through AI to see if there were any others we should include. As a result, we added six teams total, swapping them in for five teams in our “New Team Tournament” that were essentially filler and not truly new. The image above shows how we reworked the tournament.
Perhaps most exciting for us, we assembled enough information to create player cards for the undefeated 1939 Long Island University champions. This team replaces the 1943 Wyoming squad as the oldest team in the game. Click here for the rankings of all 300 all-time great men’s teams in the Value Add Basketball Game—and click here to pull two teams and score sheets to play your own games.
But the biggest surprise was not realizing how good the 1986 Cleveland State team was - I thought they were just a fluke Sweet 16 team but definitely not. Being the first ever 14-seed to make the Sweet 16 with one of the wins coming against Bobby Knight and Indiana was a nice story, but modern computer ratings show they should have been a 7-seed to start. See notes below on their match-ups and they debut as the 193rd best of the now even 300 great teams in the Value Add Basketball Game. Here are the all-time rankings and results.
The following are the players from the six new teams. Unfortunately the format only lets us make cards for the 10 player cards we would use the most in a game, so cards will be made for the Starters and Bench players only, but we will list the other players on the bottom of the team sheet.
Here are the links
| Starters | CCNY 1950 | Cleveland St 1986 | Hampton 2001 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-PG | Alvin Roth | Eddie Bryant | Marseilles Brown |
| 2-SG | Floyd Layne | Mouse McFadden | Tommy Adams |
| 3-SF | Ed Warner | Clinton Ransey | Lasean Howard |
| 4-PF | Irwin Dambrot | Clinton Smith | Cleveland Davis |
| 5-C | Ed Roman | Eric Mudd | Tarvis Williams |
| Bench | CCNY 1950 | Cleveland St 1986 | Hampton 2001 |
| 1-PG | Meyer Wittlin | Shawn Hood | Isaac Jefferson |
| 2-SG | Ronnie Nadell | Steve Corbin | Donald Didlake |
| 3-SF | Herb Cohen | Bob Crawford | Mackel Purvis |
| 4-PF | Joe Galiber | Ray Salters | David Johnson |
| 5-C | Norman Mager | Paul Stewart | Dwayne McNeal |
| Others | CCNY 1950 | Cleveland St 1986 | Hampton 2001 |
| Leroy Watkins | Vince Richards | Arthimus Howard | |
| Arnold Smith | Elgin Womack | Maurice Pitts | |
| Seymour Levy | Warren Bradley | Jamaal James | |
| Larry Meyer | Pat Vuyancih | Micah Owens | |
| Arthur Glass | Tyrone Kingwood | ||
| Marty Sweeney | |||
| Starters | Long Island 1939 | NC State 1983 | Oral Roberts 2021 |
| 1-PG | Ossie Schectman | Sidney Lowe | Max Abmas |
| 2-SG | Danny Kaplowitz | Dereck Whittenburg | RJ Glasper |
| 3-SF | Irv Torgoff | Ernie Myers | Carlos Jurgens |
| 4-PF | Jack Bromberg | Lorenzo Charles | Kareem Thompson |
| 5-C | Art Hillhouse | Thurl Bailey | Kevin Obanor |
| Bench | Long Island 1939 | NC State 1983 | Oral Roberts 2021 |
| 1-PG | Si Lobello | Terry Gannon | Francis Lacis |
| 2-SG | Mike Sewitch | George McClain | DeShang Weaver |
| 3-SF | Irving Zeitlin | Alvin Battle | D'Mauria Jones |
| 4-PF | Joe Shelly | Walter Dinky Proctor | Justin Lovvorn |
| 5-C | Butch Schwartz | Cozell McQueen | Nate Clover |
| Others | Long Island 1939 | NC State 1983 | Oral Roberts 2021 |
| Max Sharf | Mike Warren | Sheldon Stevens | |
| Hank Lagerenberg | Harold Thompson | Jonathan Alexandre | |
| George Newman | Quinton Leonard | Ismael Plet | |
| Walt Densmore | Jamie Bergens | ||
| Tommy DiNardo | Lorenz Ross |
Here are the matchups.
Tournament Matchups (Top Seed Down)
Below are the first-round matchups featuring the updated field. Games already played are noted with results.
1 Florida (2025) vs 32 Weber State (2010)
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Result: Florida 74, Weber State 69
Walter Clayton Jr. survived a scare from Damian Lillard’s legendary 2010 squad.
2 City College of New York (1950) vs 31 Oral Roberts (2021)
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Floyd Lane vs Max Abmas
A dream matchup between NYC’s golden era and modern mid-major shot-making.
3 UCLA (2008) vs 30 UAB (2025)
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Result: UCLA 84, UAB 78
Russell Westbrook’s relentless pace outlasted Yaxel Lendeborg and UAB’s defense.
4 Duke (2025) vs 29 NYU (1948)
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Result: Duke 92, NYU 52
Cooper Flagg overwhelms Dolph Schayes’ era in a clash of generations.
5 NC State (1983) vs 28 Maryland (2025)
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Lorenzo Charles vs Derik Queen
A contrast in styles: Valvano’s chaos against modern Big Ten power. Both these teams are more toward the middle of the teams, but because I'd already set up the bracket I had to seed one too high (#5) and one too low (#28) meaning the winner gets an easier 2nd round match-up vs the 12 vs 21-seed winner.
6 Long Island University (1939) vs 27 Chattanooga (2025) / Hampton (2001)
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Irv Torgoff vs Honor Huff or Travis Williams
A perfect collision of New York’s early dynasty and modern Cinderella energy. Chattanooga vs. Hampton will be a play-in game but the top few seeds has already won in our tournament, so the winner gets the 6-seed, but LIU would actually be seeded even higher if the top teams had not already played.
7 Long Beach State (1972) vs 26 UC Irvine (2025)
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Ed Ratleff vs Jurian Dixon
Big West history meets Big West present.
8 St. John’s (2025) vs 25 UAB (1982)
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Result: St. John’s 80, UAB 78
A classic Big East grind escapes the Blazers team that stunned Ralph Sampson in 1982.
9 BYU (2025) vs 24 Ball State (1990)
10 Kent State (2002) vs 23 UC San Diego (2025)
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Result: UC San Diego 79, Kent State 68
Modern pace and spacing knocks off a classic MAC Cinderella. This has been the stunner of our tournament so far.
11 St. Louis (1952) vs 22 Oklahoma (2025)
12 Illinois (2025) vs 21 Florida Gulf Coast (2013)
13 New Mexico (2025) vs 20 Fordham (1971)
14 Idaho (1982) vs 19 VCU (2025)
15 Canisius (1957) vs 18 McNeese (2025) vs Cleveland St. (1986 Winner)
I am embarrassed to say I had NO idea how good this Cleveland State team was even though a friend and former Cleveland City Councilman Marty Sweeney was on the team. I knew they went Sweeet 16 but thought it was just a fluke. But no, the computer says they were the #27 team for the season so actually favored to win one game and just slight underdog to go Sweet 16. They had an NBA player in Clinton Smith. And they had the #2 offense in the country so these cards will be fun to make with extra possessions in their games. I still remember I almost made it to play pickup with Sweeney one morning and he told me to expect a perfect pass if I broke to the basket, but if I missed the shot, I would never see another pass again. Wow.
Cleveland State was only beaten badly once, 85-105 at No. 2 Michigan, but other than that they were 9 points from a perfect season. They lost by 4 at Ohio State, by 4 again on the road at a tough Missouri State to go 13-1 in conference after winning the rematch by 27 points (suspecting some home cooking by Missouri State back in the days few games were televised.
Then they beat Bobby Knight and Indiana to open the NCAA, beat St. Joseph's and their season only ends in a 1-point loss to the Admiral - David Robinson and Navy - or they would have been Elite 8.
16 Drake (2025) vs 17 Iona (1980)
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Bennett Stirtz vs Jeff Ruland
A fitting 16–17 matchup to close the opening round.
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