SWAC's Texas Southern Shocks Patriot's Cousy, Holy Cross 1950

In what was supposed to be a NIT blowout game to warm up for our Michigan State vs. UCLA All-Time NCAA great, Fred Sturdivant rejected Matt Forman's attempted game-winning shot and grabbed the rebound to let SWAC champ Texas Southern pull off perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the Value Add Basketball Game.

The stunning 72-71 final eliminated Hall of Famer Bob Cousy, with our best team ever from the current Patriot teams Holy Cross, from our all-time great NIT tournament of the 20 all-time champs from non-power conference.

Mike Davis inherited the team heading into probation, leading to a 1-13 start and Texas Southern ranked as the 234th best team in the country at www.kenpom.com. The rest of the way they were 16-1 and were one of the best 100 teams in the country and believe this would have been the SWAC team who would have entered the tournament so hot I believe would have been the most likely SWAC team to pull a couple of upsets. Norfolk State 2012, also in our game, is the last HBCU team to win a game not counting the 1st Four in Dayton.

While it was the guard play of Ray Penn and incredible 3-point shooter Omar Strong who usually put up the big points that season, Sturdivant was in the top 1% of all shot blockers in the nation (more than 10% of all opponents' 2-point shots blocked) and field goal percentage (61.5% and 67% during the 16-1 finish) and in the last five games he blocked 30 shots for an incredible end to his career.

In our game this team already pulled an opening round upset against another all-time great - Calvin Murphy and Niagara, and our guess is they would have been quite a challenge opening weekend but for the probation. Davis did follow with incredible 16-2 SWAC seasons, and in the last few years Texas Southern teams have won Opening Four games in Dayton, but our money is that this was the perfect combo that would have given the SWAC its best show at 1st or even 2nd round upsets.

Texas Southern is likely the best HBCU basketball program again today.
 

Pos	Texas Southern 2013 (SWAC)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Ray Penn	10	2	2	0	0	1	1	0	1	5'9	12.2 Pts, 2.4 Reb
2-SG	Omar Strong	17	2	3	5	5	3	1	0	1	5'9	17.0 Pts, 3.4 Reb
3-SF	Madarious Gibbs	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	3	6'1	6.5 Pts, 3.7 Reb
4-PF	Fred Sturdivant	23	0	11	1	3	13	3	2	3	6'7	11.1 Pts, 8.2 Reb
5-C	Aaron Clayborn	8	0	3	2	4	7	0	1	2	6'6	7.6 Pts, 5.4 Reb
1-PG	Dexter Ellington	2	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	2	6'1	2.3 Pts, 1.8 Reb
2-SG	Lawrence Johnson-Danner	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4	8.5 Pts, 3.0 Reb
3-SF	Kyrie Sutton	8	0	4	0	0	5	0	0	1	6'9	5.1 Pts, 4.3 Reb
4-PF	Billy Rosenberg (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6'5	1.5 Pts, 0.9 Reb
5-C	Ethan Blackwell (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5'7	0.2 Pts, 0.6 Reb
	Turnovers 11	72	4	26	8	14	34	5	3	14
Pos	Holy Cross 1050 (Patriot)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Andy Laska	11	1	4	0	0	2	2	0	1	5'10	8.2 Pts
2-SG	Bob McMullen	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	3	6'3	6.5 Pts
3-SF	Bob Cousy	20	2	5	4	4	9	1	0	1	6'1	19.4 Pts
4-PF	Matty Forman	9	0	4	1	2	2	0	0	1	6'4	10.1 Pts
5-C	Frank Oftring	10	0	5	0	0	5	0	1	3	6'2	8.4 Pts
1-PG	Jim Dilling	6	0	3	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'5	5.5 Pts
2-SG	Bob McLarnon	5	0	2	1	2	1	1	0	2	6'0	4.4 Pts
3-SF	Gene Mann	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	1	6'1	2.6 Pts
4-PF	Bob McDonough	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	5'11	2.4 Pts
5-C	Dennis O'Shea	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	0	2	6'2	1.9 Pts
	Turnovers 12	71	3	28	6	8	25	7	2	17

Here is the all-time NIT Tournament with seven of the Elite 8 teams settled.

College Hoops 18 Greatest Teams In History of Other Conferences

The 18 great all-time teams that play in a conference that has fewer than six all-time great teams were put together in our "other teams" grouping. Our ratings are based on how the top 6 teams in each great conference have played against some of the greatest college basketball teams in history in the Value Add College Basketball Game (see details at the bottom) - and if we treated this group of other teams they would rank between the 7th best conference (the American Athletic) and the 8th best conference (the A10).

We have only played one game with the most exciting member of this group - Larry Bird who went up against Magic Johnson in perhaps the most important college basketball game in history.

The top 6 teams in this group so far have gone 6-8 against the other great all-time teams, and have a combined rating of 3.1. That means those teams average being 3.1 better than the average team IN THE GAME, but the average team in the game is about 21 points better than an average team.

Therefore the Gonzaga team's ranking of +8.7 means they are rated about 29.7 points better than the average team. That team narrowly missed the perfect season by losing the last game of the regular season to BYU, and then the title game to UNC.

The lists also features one Ivy League team - the Princeton squad that featured US Senator and Presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

While the West Coast Conference features three of the top five other teams, we only broke out conferences with at least six all-time great teams in the game. The other two great teams are the highest scoring team in the NCAA history, which is averaging winning 120-110 in their 1-1 start this year, and had the tragedy of Hank Gathers dying of a heart condition at the end of the season after having become the first player in history to lead the nation in rebounding and points. The third WCC team on the list is the great Bill Russell's 1956 team.

Rnk	Great Team	Year	Key Player	W	L	Pts	Allow	Rate
	Top 6 Other Conf			6	8	78.8	77.6	3.1
1	Gonzaga (WCC)	2017	Nigel Williams-Goss	3	3	69.8	63.0	8.7
2	UNLV (MWC)	1991	Larry Johnson	1	1	76.5	75.5	7.3
3	Loyola Marymount (WCC)	1990	Bo Kimble	1	1	119.5	110.0	2.3
4	Loyola-Chicago (WVC)	1963	Jerry Harkness	0	1	62.0	68.0	0.6
5	San Francisco (WCC)	1956	Bill Russell	0	1	67.0	74.0	0.0
6	Jacksonville (Asun)	1970	Artis Gilmore	1	1	78.0	75.0	-0.3
7	UTEP (TX Western, CUSA)	1966	Bobby Joe Hill	2	1	63.7	66.0	-1.4
8	San Diego St. (MWC)	2011	Kawhi Leonard	2	2	69.3	71.8	-2.9
9	UNLV (MWC)	1987	Armen Gilliam	0	1	64.0	82.0	-3.4
10	Holy Cross (Pat)	1950	Bob Cousy	1	1	88.0	89.5	-5.2
11	Seattle (WAC)	1958	Elgin Baylor	0	1	62.0	64.0	-6.2
12	Indiana St. (MVC)	1979	Larry Bird	0	1	69.0	76.0	-7.8
13	Wyoming (MWC)	1943	Ken Sailors	0	1	60.0	73.0	-8.2
14	North Carolina (MAAC)	1957	Lennie Rosenbluth	0	1	76.0	89.0	-8.6
15	Navy (Pat)	1986	David Robinson	0	1	61.0	77.0	-9.0
16	Princeton (Ivy)	1965	Bill Bradley	0	1	62.0	79.0	-13.0
17	Loyola-Chicago (MVC)	2018	Cameron Krutwig	0	3	59.3	75.0	-13.9
18	Niagara (MAAC)	1970	Calvin Murphy	0	1	68.0	84.0	-16.6

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!

9th Sweet 16 Spot: Cousy Shootout with Duke's Dawkins

In our original All-Time March Madness tournament featuring 96 teams, the favored seed dominated with a 62-33 record through UCLA (Bill Walton) defeating UNC (Michael Jordan) in the title game.

However, the new all-time great 30 teams we have created are proving much more balanced, with the favored seed only 2-5 so far. After Kentucky 1948 pulled an overtime upset with all-time great center Groza, the 1950 Holy Cross was led by one of the greatest point guards of all time (Bob Cousy) to a double overtime upset of 1986 Duke.

Cousy's card is for his 1950 tournament team, and the next 13 seasons after that he was an NBA all-star with the Boston Celtics.

This latest games was the all-time individual shootout, with Johnny Dawkins actually hitting a meaningless 3-pointer at the buzzer of the second overtime to leave Duke just short 108-106, but actually give Dawkins the 43-42 edge in total points over Cousy.

Duke had additional near heros with Jay Bilas coming back off the bench after Cousy drew a fifth foul on Dave Henderson. Bilas scored at the end of regulation to tie the score 75-75 and force the 1st overtime. Mark Alarie  dominated the boards with 15 rebounds and put Duke up a couple of times in overtime, and Tommy Amaker did the same with steals to lead fast breaks, but in the end Holy Cross survived and will face another upset winner in the 1982 DePaul team.