Minnesota 1977 Added to VABG All-Time Great Teams

 If you click here to open the Value Add Basketball Game teams and print page 82, you will find our 137th team, the 1977 Minnesota Gophers. 

As noted in this blog a couple of weeks ago, we decided this team was the one prominent team we had missed in created our first 136 All-Time Great teams based on our criteria. 

1. We tried to make sure we had at least one team from as many great programs as possible, and the Gophers are ranked as the 14th best program of all time - so were the only of the top 29 programs in Jay Bilas ESPN book that we overlooked.

2. We also tried to pick great all-time teams by looking at teams that went deep in the tournament, and we missed the Minnesota 1977 squad because they were on probation. They went 24-3 including winning at eventual champ Marquette, whose coach Al McGuire said after the NCAA title game that Minnesota was actually possibly the best team in the country. The AP ranked them 13th, perhaps penalizing since they were on probation, but their SRS calculation is the 5th best in the country.

3. We also tried to include as many of the top players of all-time as possible. Four Gophers from this team made the NBA, and Kevin McHale is the headliner as an inductee to the Hall of Fame. Since McHale was a freshman, the actual star of the team was Mychal Thompson who was the No. 1 NBA pick.

A previous blog laid out the complicated process for creating player cards for new teams from during the www.kenpom.com era. The cards are much more difficult from pre 2002, so while not trying to spell it out here we will lay out some of the basic differences.

The further back we go the more stats are missing. From 1977 there was no 3-point shot, steals and turnovers were not recorded, and blocks were not either except the team apparently recorded blocked shots for McHale. 

To fill some holes with estimates, we pull NBA stats (far right in red) to get estimates on how strong a future NBA players likely was on different aspects of the game.

However, we have a final step that guarantees the overall team will be as strong offensively and defensively as they were. 

In our directions on creating 21st Century teams we note you can calculate the dunk range and the adjustment to opposing dunk range based on the opponents AdjO and AdjD. However, when calculating a 20th century team like the Minnesota 1977 squad, you must use this google sheet calculator.  

We first calculate based on the teams SRS and national ranking for scoring and allowing points, and Minnesota 1977 had the equivalent of a 1.10 AdjO and a very strong - perhaps best in the country, 0.88 AdjD. Those numbers are entered on the top line in blue.

You then need to go down the columns of the starting five to note key offensive and defensive counts on their cards (do the dunk range last after all other numbers are calculated).

You start with an average "dunks" red line of "3" because the average dunk range is 51-53. After entering the starters info under Die 1 through 8 on the top the result of Minnesota's cards would be a 1.07 if you kept the 51-53 average range. You want the red numbers in row 21 to come within .01 of the blue number right above them by changing this dunk range in row 30. When we change them all to "4" then the red number is 1.09 - within .01 so every Gopher will have a 51-54 dunk range.

The numbers in row 38-40 are likewise entered, with the line 41 Adj opp dunk range starting at 0. When the defensive steals, blocks and defensive rebounds are typed in the defensive number in row 21 was 0.97, way too high for the 0.88 estimated AdjD of the team that year. We lower the numbers in row 41 until we get within 0.01 of the 0.88 blue, and find that once the five numbers are changed to -3 the numbers line up perfectly.

With that, we add the dunk range and adjusted dunk range, which is the final factor that balances all eras, whether or not 3-pointers were used, how fast the pace was and if the shooting percentages were good relative to their time etc. Welcome to the Value Add Basketball Game to the 1977 Minnesota Gophers. You can click on the game to play them for free.

OSU Wins Despite Big O's 38, then Crushed Michigan

The Ohio State University destroyed both the second best team in their state, the Cincinnati Bearcats, and their rival Michigan Wolverines to soar from 43rd to 10th in our all-time ratings of great college basketball teams. Cincinnati dropped from 10th to 21st, and Michigan dropped from 25th to 48th. Our game trackers and ranking of the 135 great teams in the game can be found here.

 Ohio State (1960) 87, Cincinnati (1960) 78

The Big O, Oscar Robertson, out together one of the all-time great performances in our game with 38 points, 5 blocked shots, and all 4 of his steals in the final 6 minutes.

Unfortunately for the Cincinnati Bearcats, his 6 rebounds were a team high, as Jerry Lucas (18 points, 11 rebounds) and John Havlicek (15, 10) led complete domination of the boards 41-21 between the two 1960 Final four teams that did not play each other. According to the Athletic, Lucas and Havlicek are two of the greatest 75 NBA players of all time.

It was 3 future NBA players to 1, and the Buckeyes third Larry Siegfried was the scrolling star with two key traditional 3-pointers (bucket and foul) in a game in which we did not use the 3-point shot since neither team used it.

Ohio St. (1960) 87, Michigan (1989) 72

The only glimmer of hope for Michigan in this game was it Glen Rice (19 points, 9 rebounds, 8 fouls drawn) could get either John Havlicek or Jerry Lucas to foul out - as he drew 4 fouls on both of them.

Other than that it was complete domination by the Buckeyes for their second straight game, as the three future NBA players from the Bearcats game received unexpected help from Mel Nowell's game high 19 points. One fun note, Bobby Knight did score for Ohio State in this game and drew a foul - but missed the foul shot as only a 60% free throw shooter (1-12 is good on the 20-sided die).

Previously the Buckeyes had been upset 78-79 by the 2009 Michigan State team, one of our bigger upsets.

Click on the game to play yourself - it contains everything you need to play the Value Add Basketball game, which lets you pit any of 136 great all-time college teams against each other. To pick your two teams it is best to click on this Google doc and print the pages of the teams you want (each team is one page). I track my games on this google sheet, but play your own for free!

College Hoops 2nd Best Conference History - Big Ten

The second greatest conference so far in our Value Add Basketball Game is the Big Ten - which has had 21 National Champions, and Maryland won the title in 2002 before joining the Big Ten. Here is the list by school - Chicago 1907-1909; Illinois 1915; Indiana 1940, 1953, 1976, 1981,1987; Maryland 2002; Michigan 1989; Michigan State 1979, 2000; Minnesota 1902, 1919; Northwestern 1931; Ohio State 1960; Purdue 1932; Wisconsin 1912, 1914, 1916, 1941.

The conference is led so far by the last undefeated team in basketball, Bobby Knight's 1976 squad, followed by the last actual Big Ten Champion, the 2000 Michigan State Spartans.

It truly is amazing the Big Ten has technically not won a title this century (2000 is technically is the last year of the 20th century). Consider that Frank Kaminsky led Wisconsin to a 2015 Final Four upset against the Kentucky team that was considered by some the greatest ever until that game. Further only a bizarre final few seconds cost Purdue a win over eventual national champ Virginia in 2018.  Michigan State is constantly on the verge of a title.

So far the top 6 teams in the conference are 15-6 against the other greatest teams, and rank second with a 5.8 rating - which estimates they are about 6 points better than the average great team in the game - or about 27 points better than the average team.

Rnk	Great Team	Year	Key Player	W	L	Pts	Allow	Rate
	Top 6 Other Conf			15	6	73.7	68.2	5.8
1	Indiana	1976	Scott May	3	1	71.3	59.8	9.6
2	Michigan St.	2000	Mateen Cleaves	3	0	88.3	78.3	7.3
3	Purdue	2018	Carsen Edwards	4	1	71.2	68.8	5.0
4	Michigan	1989	Glen Rice	0	1	69.0	70.0	4.6
5	Illinois	2005	Deron Williams	3	2	72.0	69.6	4.3
6	Michigan St.	1979	Magic Johnson	2	1	70.3	62.7	4.1
7	Wisconsin	2015	Frank Kaminsky	2	2	65.0	63.3	3.4
8	Michigan	1965	Cazzie Russell	1	1	81.0	71.5	2.5
9	Iowa	2021	Luka Garza	1	0	88.0	69.0	2.4
10	Ohio St.	1960	Jerry Lucas	0	1	78.0	79.0	2.2
11	Illinois	1989	Nick Anderson	1	1	78.0	77.0	2.0
12	Indiana	1981	Isaiah Thomas	1	1	73.0	73.0	1.3
13	Michigan St.	2009	Draymond Green	6	3	71.3	71.9	0.9
14	Michigan	2013	Trey Burke	1	2	70.3	69.7	0.3
15	Ohio St.	2007	Greg Oden	2	3	70.2	71.4	-0.4
16	Purdue	1969	Rick Mount	0	1	86.0	87.0	-0.8
17	Maryland	1984	Len Bias	1	1	69.5	68.5	-3.2
18	Indiana	2002	Jared Jeffries	1	3	67.3	72.8	-3.9
19	Maryland	2002	Juan Dixon	1	3	67.0	76.3	-4.0
20	Iowa	2001	Reggie Evans	1	2	71.0	75.3	-5.3

We invented the Value Add Basketball Game, and since then have grown it to to 135 teams of all-time great teams and players. We have played 188 games to date, and 63,000 unique visitors have clicked on the game. 

Seven current conferences have at least six all-time great teams in the game. We decided to rank those conferences based on the average rating of their top six teams so far in our games against other teams.

Click on the game to play yourself - it contains everything you need to play the Value Add Basketball game, which lets you pit any of 136 great all-time college teams against each other. To pick your two teams it is best to click on this Google doc and print the pages of the teams you want (each team is one page). I track my games on this google sheet, but play your own for free!