Burns Leads NC State Past Lilliard, Leaving Just 2 Debut Games Left

 After the extensive preview, Weber State had an upset within reach at 47-47 with 16 possessions to play. However, D.J. Burns then scored on three straight possessions and on the fourth grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to DJ Horne who nailed the 3-pointer with the benefit of Burns assist (the 20-sided die roll was lowered from 4 to 3 due to coming off an offensive rebound, and that fell just within Horn's 1-3 three-point made range. 

That made the score 56-51 NC State with 12 possessions to play. With six possessions to play, Burns scored and was fouled, hitting the free throw to make it 65-58 to put it out of reach en route to a 72-60 win.  NC State won the turnover battle 15-8, which could have been the difference in the game. Mohamed Diarra's five blocked shots were huge as well.

That leaves only four all-time great teams who have yet to be used in our Value Add Basketball Game, leaving two games between the new 2024 teams and new teams with a top 75 all-time player.  Right now it's three games a piece, so either the 2024 or all-time great players would need to win the remaining two games to take the series 5 games to 3.

The all-time great Oregon State 1990, ranked 153rd of all teams in the game, will be the favorite led by our 48th greatest player ever Gary Payton against Danny Wolf and 2024 Yale. It was actually John Poulakidas who scored 28 points to stun Auburn in this year's tournament to qualify this Yale team for the game with their first tournament win since upsetting Baylor in 2016. Yale is ranked 227th in our game.

In the other game it will be the 2024 team that is favored, with 212th Grand Canyon led by Tyon Grant Foster taking on 228th ranked Gonzaga 1981 lead by our 25th ranked player of all-time - John Stockton.

Pos	Weber State 2010	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Damian Lillard	14	2	2	4	5	7	4	0	2	6'2, 19.9 Pts
2-SG	Franklin Session	13	0	5	3	4	3	2	1	1	6'3, 10.2 Pts
3-SF	Nick Hansen	11	3	1	0	0	7	0	1	1	6'4, 9.2 Pts
4-PF	Darin Mahoney	4	0	2	0	2	6	0	4	2	6'8, 2.9 Pts
5-C	Steve Panos	8	0	2	4	4	8	0	2	2	6'8, 10.6 Pts
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Lindsey Hughey	4	0	2	0	4	1	0	0	1	6'3, 7.8 Pts
4-PF	Kyle Bullinger	2	0	1	0	0	1	2	0	2	6'6, 8.7 Pts
5-C	Trevor Morris	4	0	2	0	0	3	0	0	3	6'9, 4.9 Pts
	15 Turnovers	60	5	17	11	19	36	8	8	14
Pos	NC State 2024	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Michael O'Connell	4	0	2	0	0	3	3	0	4	6'2, 5.7 Pts
2-SG	DJ Horne	16	3	3	1	1	2	2	0	2	6'1, 16.9 Pts
3-SF	Casey Morsell	10	0	5	0	0	8	1	0	4	6'3, 11.1 Pts
4-PF	Mohamed Diarra	6	0	3	0	0	9	0	5	1	6'10, 6.3 Pts
5-C	D.J. Burns	17	0	8	1	1	8	0	2	3	6'9, 12.9 Pts
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Breon Pass	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'0, 1.3 Pts
2-SG	Kam Woods	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2, 1.2 Pts
3-SF	Jayden Taylor	11	0	5	1	2	1	2	0	2	6'4, 11.2 Pts
4-PF	Dennis Parker	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	2	6'6, 4.7 Pts
5-C	Ben Middlebrooks	2	0	1	0	2	4	1	0	1	6'10, 5.7 Pts
	8 Turnovers	72	3	30	3	6	39	9	7	21

Scoring Value Add Team with Fewer Than 10 Players: D.J. Burns/Final 4 NC State vs. Lilliard/Weber St. 2010

The vast majority of all-time great teams in the Value Add Basketball Game feature 10 players - five starters on the top row and then five subs. The unique aspect of the game that some love or some hate - is the score starts 20-20 with all players with 2 points and 44 possessions left to play. This speeds up the time needed to play the game to as little as 30 minutes, and it can almost always be completed in 45 minutes once you've played a few games.

However, in some cases such as Damian Lilliard's 2010 Weber State, we only had sufficient stats to create eight player cards. When this happens, you need to make slight adjustments to the starting score card to make the points add up to 20, as well as the Rebounds start at 13, and fouls at 10. 

Note below the start of the game NC State has the normal 10 players so they start the game with the same figures already marked on the scoresheet. However, since Weber State's 2010 had only eight players we added a 3-pointer for Lillard (the leading scorer) and Hansen 9teh big 3-point shooter on the team though we took away his 2-point shot). To make up for the 2 rebounds the 9th and 10th player would have had, we add a rebound each to the top two rebounders on the team to start Mahoney and Panos with three each instead of two. Finally, we need to start with 10 fouls, and for that we chose two backups who are least likely to foul out - Bullinger and Morris. All these changes are shown in red.

 

Pos	Weber State 2010	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Damian Lillard	5	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'2, 19.9 Pts
2-SG	Franklin Session	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'3, 10.2 Pts
3-SF	Nick Hansen	3	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'4, 9.2 Pts
4-PF	Darin Mahoney	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	1	6'8, 2.9 Pts
5-C	Steve Panos	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	1	1	6'8, 10.6 Pts
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Lindsey Hughey	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3, 7.8 Pts
4-PF	Kyle Bullinger	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	6'6, 8.7 Pts
5-C	Trevor Morris	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	6'9, 4.9 Pts
		0
		0
	3 Turnovers	20	2	7	0	0	13	2	1	10
Pos	NC State 2024	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Michael O'Connell	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'2, 5.7 Pts
2-SG	DJ Horne	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'1, 16.9 Pts
3-SF	Casey Morsell	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'3, 11.1 Pts
4-PF	Mohamed Diarra	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'10, 6.3 Pts
5-C	D.J. Burns	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	1	1	6'9, 12.9 Pts
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Breon Pass	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'0, 1.3 Pts
2-SG	Kam Woods	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2, 1.2 Pts
3-SF	Jayden Taylor	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4, 11.2 Pts
4-PF	Dennis Parker	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'6, 4.7 Pts
5-C	Ben Middlebrooks	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'10, 5.7 Pts
	3 Turnovers	20	0	10	0	0	13	2	1	10

#230 Weber State vs. $167 NC State

 A second straight painful game for a Marquette fan like me. The last game was the Virginia Tech women, who just took Marquette's coach. And now we need to play the 2024 NC State team that ended Marquette's run in the Sweet 16 with me sitting courtside. Ouch. I did not enjoy D.J. Burns like others did. 

They go into the game with a chance for the new 2024 teams to even their series with the teams added because they have one of the top 75 players of all time. They go in as favorites against the 2010 Weber State featuring Damian Lilliard. We realized when we went to print out the teams that while we had added Weber State in this list of 21st Century teams with all-time great players, we had not added them to the New List H of teams (UCLA 2008 to Yale 2024) until now.

Damian Lilliard was great this season, ranked as the 16th best offensive player of those with at least 24 percent of the team's possessions. By two years later, Lilliard was by far the best offensive player in the country, beating out Doug McDermott for the best offensive rating in the country despite having the ball an incredible 32 percent of the time. However, the reason this team was not added until we added all teams with a top 75 player is his Weber State teams went only 1-21 against Top 100 teams in his four years.

Game results to follow once complete, but here is the match-up.

Game Results: