Staley's UVa Survives Giant-Killer Minnesota Gophers 2004

While the 1991 National Runners-up from Virginia were 10-point favorites in our Value Add Basketball Game against the 6th place team from the 2004 Big Ten, the Gophers appeared on their way to a big upset like they had late in the season to make a stunning Final four run.

Future WNBA players Lindsay Whalen and Janel McCarville combined for 36 points a game that year,  after winning only six of their last 14 games of the regular season and Big Ten tournament, Minnesota went to the tournament and stunned #8 K-State and UCLA. They then went on the road to stun #18 Boston College and then in the real shocker, #1 Duke in the Elite 8 before finally falling against #6 UConn in the Final 4. 

While the two future WNBA stars got their points, the Gophers took a 45-38 lead early in the second half due to an unlikely hero, as sharp-shooting point guard  Shannon Schonrock - who had two 4-point plays against all-time great Dawn Staley. 

We ranked Whalen as the 30th greatest player of all time, and Staley as the 20th best player of all time in this post.

The one weakness the Gophers seemed to have though was turnovers, and they had 18 as UVa rallied for the win. The Gophers last tie was 65-65 with 6 possessions to play when Whalen grabbed an offensive rebound and passed out to Shannon Bolden for a 3-pointer (off an offensive rebound one number is subtracted from the 20-sided die to increase the chances of making a shot by 5 percent.

Staley stayed pass first as a point guard in this game, as shooting guard Tammi Reiss had a game-high 24 points. However, the big news in Charlottesville that year (we actually lived their at the time as my wife was finishing her PhD at the time) the big recruiting news was not the all-time great Staley, but the twin towers Heather Burge and her twin Heidi at 6-foot-5.

Heather had a game-high 10 rebounds in this game, even though McCarville was normally a better rebounder. However, she was only a 55% free throw shooter (1-11 made on 20-sided die) so luckily it was Heidi who was fouled late and hit a key free throw and basket to help UVa escape with a 76-72 win.

Minnesota moved up slightly form 51st to a tie for 49th, while UVa stayed in 18th - but now tied for that spot with Minnesota.

 

Pos	Minnesota 2004	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Shannon Schonrock	15	3	2	2	2	1	1	0	2	8.9 pts, 5'6
2-SG	Lindsay Whalen	15	1	5	2	2	5	3	0	4	20.6 pts, 5'8
3-SF	Shannon Bolden	9	1	2	2	2	5	1	0	2	6 pts, 5'11
4-PF	Kadidja Andersson	9	0	4	1	1	2	0	0	4	9 pts, 5'11
5-C	Janel McCarville	11	0	4	3	6	6	2	2	3	16.1 pts, 6'2
Pos	Visitor Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Kelly Roysland	2	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	1	5.6 pts, 5'9
2-SG	Hannah Garry	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	0.5 pts, 5'5
3-SF	Jamie Broback	5	1	1	0	0	4	0	0	1	5.1 pts, 6'3
4-PF	Liz Podominick	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	4.1 pts, 6'2
5-C	Christina Collison	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.5 pts, 6'2
	18 Turnovers	72	6	22	10	15	27	7	2	20
Pos	Virginia 1991	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Dawn Staley	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	1	3	14.6 pts, 5'6
2-SG	Tammi Reiss	24	0	10	4	4	2	2	0	2	15.4 pts, 5'6
3-SF	Tonya Cardoza	10	0	4	2	2	5	2	0	2	15.5 pts, 5'10
4-PF	Heidi Burge	11	0	4	3	4	4	0	0	1	8.9 pts, 6'5
5-C	Heather Burge	10	0	4	2	4	10	1	1	4	12.7 pts, 6'5
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Stats
1-PG	Dena Evans	6	0	2	2	2	1	0	0	1	5 pts, 5'5
2-SG	Wendy Toussaint	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.9 pts, 5'11
3-SF	Tekshia Ward	3	0	1	1	2	3	0	1	3	5.2 pts, 6'1
4-PF	Melanee Wagener	4	0	1	2	2	2	0	0	1	5.6 pts, 6'3
5-C	Audra Smith	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	3.7 pts, 6'2
	13 Turnovers	76	0	30	16	20	31	6	3	19

Oops - Redo for UVa Women 2019 as we left Dominique Toussaint's card out

Well, that's embarrassing. We need to replay the game we just completed - 1995 UConn vs. 2018 Virginia, since we accidentally left the playing card for UVa's leading scorer Dominique Toussaint out of the game. See image of the updated team cards at the bottom of the blog. Jocelyn Willoughby was actually UVa's best player.

One reason we are trying to slowly get through and play each team in the Value Add Basketball Game at least once is to catch any mistakes in our player cards. We just hit a big one - as we realized only after playing 2018 Virginia against 1995 UConn that as hard as it is for any team to have a chance against the great UConn teams- its even harder without your leading scorer. 

This is particularly harmful in this case because the UVa 2018 women were 239th in scoring nationally even with Toussaint putting in her double figures. No, men's coach Tony Bennett was not also coaching the UVa women with his slow, methodical offense, it was Joanne Boyle wrapping up a solid coaching career that had nice teams at Richmond, Cal and finally Virginia. 

Her defensive mindset certainly carried over to another defense-first team on UVa's campus. The funny thing was this was the season that Bennett was coaching UVa to the national title, but the following Covid-year the UVa men were 239th in offense so the "Grounds" at UVa witnessed some of the lowest scoring wins in the nation between the men and women.

To say Boyle had been Duke's best player would be an understatement - her final year there she lead the team in scoring, rebounds, blocked shots and set the school record in steals that lasted for years. When we started trying to add the best team from more programs to our game we did not have many stats from the 20th century women's teams, and we settled on this as the best UVa women's team of the century. They certainly rank far below the great teams in the game from UConn, South Carolina and Tennessee, but this was a nice team that not only won a tournament upset as a 10-seed, but then played a great game against the all-time greatest UVa player Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

 As you can see from the box, both backcourt players put up 16 points on a combined seven 3-pointers to give a scare to South Carolina in what would be Boyle's last game coaching before changing her life focus to adopt a child. 

From this ESPN account: Up 30-25 at the half, South Carolina opened up a 12-point lead in the third period before the Cavaliers cut it to 46-40 with 10 minutes left. Virginia still trailed just 52-47 after Dominique Toussaint's driving bucket with 6:39 to play.

UVa vs SC 2018	MIN	FG	3PT	FT	REB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Lauren Moses	23	2'-7	0-0	2'-4	2	2	1	0	6
Jocelyn Willoughby	35	1'-7	0-0	4'-4	7	0	0	0	6
Dominique Toussaint	34	5'-15	3'-8	1'-2	4	4	1	0	16
Aliyah Huland El	24	2'-6	0-2	3'-4	3	1	1	2	7
J'Kyra Brown	31	5'-14	4'-9	2'-2	2	1	0	0	16
BENCH	MIN		3PT	FT	REB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Lisa Jablonowski	18	1'-1	0-0	1'-2	1	0	1	0	3
Mone Jones	2	0'-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0
Felicia Aiyeotan	19	2'-5	0-0	0-0	4	1	0	2	2
Brianna Tinsley	14	0'-0	0-1	0-0	1	1	0	0	0
Totals	200	18-57	7'-20	13-18	31	10	4	4	56
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4		Final
10-seed Virginia	12	13	15	16		56
2-seed S. Carolina	15	15	16	20		66

Yes, That Good; S. Carolina up to #5 All-Time After 84-55 Win Over Auburn 2009

The thing I like about playing Value Add Basketball Games is that in a 30 minute game you really grasp the strength and weaknesses of each team because the cards reflect just about everything a player did to help their team adjusted for level of competition and era.

And yes, this South Carolina women's team that just won the title is one of the best ever. What struck me is that they really do have NINE dominant players. In fact, I played around with the line-up a little and put Raven Johnson in the game at the outset (technically reserves play their possessions FIRST in our games) and had MiLaysia Fulwiley in the "starting" line-up at the end of the game. I will switch it back on the team sheet so Johnson is the starter if you go by how I have them laid out - but it worked well.

Johnson stole the ball on Auburn's 2nd and 3rd possession (43rd and 42nd left to play in the game counting down on the sheet) to lead to a quick 24-20 lead. She kept it up at the beginning of the third quarter, stealing the ball at the "33 possessions left" mark and passing ahead to Te-Hina Paopao, who sunk a 3-pointer on the break to make it 37-22 South Carolina.

Kamilla Cardoso dominated inside with 20 points and 10 rebounds to lead an incredible 44-23 rebounding edge with nine South Carolina players getting at least three rebounds. Only DeWanna Bonner (6 rebounds) and Alli Smalley (3 rebounds) hit that mark for Auburn. Those were also the only two Auburn players who got some offense going, as sharp-shooter Smalley hit a couple of 3-pointers and Bonner worked inside as both finished with 12 points and Whitney Boddie added 10.

South Carolina's 84-55 blowout win was much larger than the 18-point margin their ratings would project, and while Auburn is the 56th ranked team in our game, the margin was still impressive enough to move South Carolina from 7th all-time up to 5th all-time in our rankings (see updated top 25 all-time below the box score of the game. We track all results and update rankings on this google sheet. 

Dawn Staley's win as coach in this game occurs before her debut in the game as a player for the University of Virginia 18th all-time ranked team in our game. The only top 16 yet to play in our game is the 4th UConn team in the game - the 1995 squad led by Nykesha Sales, Rebecca Lobo - which debut at No. 7 all-time. They will play the other University of Virginia team - the 2018 squad led by Dominique Toussaint.

The preview of this game was posted here, with more of a focus on Auburn since fans are more familiar with the season just ended.

 

Pos	Auburn 2009	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act. Season
1-PG	Whitney Boddie	10	0	5	0	0	1	1	0	1	5'9,11.0 Pts
2-SG	Alli Smalley	12	2	3	0	0	3	2	0	2	5'9,7.6 Pts
3-SF	Sherell Hobbs	7	0	2	3	4	5	1	1	1	5'7,7.3 Pts
4-PF	Trevesha Jackson	4	0	2	0	0	2	0	0	1	5'10,7.2 Pts
5-C	DeWanna Bonner	12	0	5	2	2	6	0	3	2	6'2, 12.7 Pts
Pos	Visitor Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Season
1-PG	Morgan Jennings	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'8,2.3 Pts
2-SG	Reneisha Hobbs	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'11,2.5 Pts
3-SF	Parrisha Simmons	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'9,5.3 Pts
4-PF	Chantel Hilliard	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'2, 3.2 Pts
5-C	KeKe Carrier	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'3, 7.2 Pts
	14 Turnovers	55	2	22	5	6	23	5	4	12
Pos	South Carolina 2024	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Season
1-PG	Te-Hina Paopao	7	1	2	0	0	2	1	1	1	5'9,10.9 Pts
2-SG	MiLaysia Fulwiley	12	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	5'10,11.9 Pts
3-SF	Bree Hall	11	1	4	0	0	4	0	0	2	6'0, 9.5 Pts
4-PF	Ashlyn Watkins	2	0	1	0	0	8	0	2	2	6'3,9.4 Pts
5-C	Kamilla Cardoso	20	0	9	2	2	10	1	1	2	6'7,14.1 Pts
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Act Season
1-PG	Tessa Johnson	4	0	2	0	0	3	0	0	1	6'1,6.2 Pts
2-SG	Chloe Kitts	8	0	4	0	0	4	0	0	1	6'2,9.3 Pts
3-SF	Sania Feagin	8	0	4	0	0	7	0	0	1	6'3,6.7 Pts
4-PF	Raven Johnson	10	0	5	0	0	4	3	0	1	5'8,8.1 Pts
5-C	Sakima Walker	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4,2.0 Pts
	15 Turnovers	84	4	34	4	4	44	6	5	13

Updated All-Time Top 25 after S. Carolina Win

 

Rnk	Team	year	W	L	Score	Allow	Rate	Player(s)
1	Tennessee	1998	4	0	76.3	64.0	18.4	Tamika Catchings, C Holdsclaw
2	Connecticut	2002	1	0	75.0	46.0	15.5	Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi
3	Tennessee	2007	1	0	89.0	70.0	14.7	Candace Parker
4	Louisiana Tech	1982	3	1	76.0	67.5	12.4	Pam Kelly
5	South Carolina	2024	1	0	84.0	55.0	12.0	Kamilla Cardoso
6	Connecticut	2016	1	1	80.0	64.5	10.8	Maya Moore
7	Connecticut	1995					10.0	Nykesha Sales, Rebecca Lobo
8	Notre Dame	2018	3	1	76.3	72.8	9.9	Arike Ogunbowales
9	Connecticut	2010	2	1	73.3	73.3	9.3	Breanna Stewart
10	USC	1983	2	1	72.0	63.3	9.2	Cheryl Miller
11	Stanford	2021	1	1	79.0	72.5	8.2	Kiana Williams
12	Baylor	2012	1	1	73.5	77.0	6.2	Kalani Brown
13	Iowa	2024	1	0	84.0	64.0	5.8	Caitlin Clark
14	Baylor	2019	1	1	74.0	73.0	3.6	Brittney Griner
15	Oregon	2019	0	1	81.0	84.0	3.5	Sabrina Ionescu
16	Texas A&M	2011	0	1	69.0	76.0	2.8	Danielle Adams
17	Notre Dame	2001					2.0	Ruth Riley
18	Virginia	1991					2.0	Dawn Staley
19	Mississippi State	2018	0	1	58.0	74.0	1.3	Victoria Vivans
20	LSU	2023					1.0	Angel Reese
21	Maryland	2006					1.0	Crystal Langhorne
22	Ohio State	1993					1.0	Katie Smith
23	Old Dominion	1980	0	1	55.0	80.0	0.5	Nancy Lieberman
24	South Carolina	2017	1	1	69.0	73.5	0.0	A'ja Wilson
25	Duke	2006	0	1	66.0	75.0	-0.3	Alison Bales

Gentle Giant Keke Carrier's Auburn Giant Underdog vs. SC 2024 Champs

 The 2024 National Champs from South Carolina debut in the Value Add Basketball Game against a team I know too well, the Auburn 2009 women's team.

The biggest upset ever in a Value Add Basketball Game was the 17-point underdog 2019 Auburn men shocking the 2012 Kentucky team with Anthony Davis. Auburn will actually be an 18-point underdog in this came but they were the greatest Auburn team since the multiple National Runners-up in the late 1980s (we don't have enough stats for those teams or the undefeated Texas team from back then, but hope to add one day). 

I actually had season tickets to see this Auburn team, and was able to watch them finally beat Pat Summitt and #10 Tennessee in a packed arena of more than 11,000 at a time the Auburn men were drawing much smaller crowds. That was one of four wins against ranked teams (#17 Ohio State, #18 Florida and Tennessee again in the SEC championship as future WNBA players Whitney Boddie and DeWanna Bonner let them to a 30-4 mark and opening round win in March Madness against Lehigh.

During the season their 6-foot-7 Keke Carrier came to our house and I remember her ducking to get through a doorway at a semester end students get together my professor wife hosted that drew more than 100 students each time. Keke was a back-up that season, before starting the next year in a great inside-outside combo with sharp shooter Alli Smalley.

Late in this season 18th ranked Vanderbilt beat them, and then Vandy beat them again in the SEC tournament. After the one March Madness win, their season ended like all but one men's and women's teams season ends - with an emotional loss. 

I'm still not quite clear why 7-seed Rutgers had home court advantage against 2-seed Auburn, but unlike the Auburn roster that had not won a tournament game until the win over 15-seed TCU, the Rutgers roster was full of women who had been to a national title game followed by an Elite 8, and the home court advantage was huge as they rattled Auburn 80-52 to end the season of the best Auburn women's team of the past 30 years.

That being said, we all just watched how dominant Dawn Staley's 2024 undefeated South Carolina team was, so this game may be as tough as that Rutgers game so fellow Auburn fans may want to stop reading here. 

The result of the game is posted here.

The first screenshot below is the one we actually used against Auburn, with Raven Johnson in the game early to disrupt with steals. However, we then adjusted the team sheet to the second one below since normally you will want Raven as a  key starter to be finishing close games.

2 Birds and 25 New All-Time Great Value Add Basketball Teams

Click for the new 25 new teams in the Value Add Basketball Game and on click here for the 10-minute video rotating highlights of the two Birds above - Sue and Larry. Scroll down for the updated Bird vs. Magic line-ups. UConn's 2002 team with Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi - who will we will play next - could be the best team in the game at first glance. For 2002 they both hit an incredible number of threes, and just never let their opponents score.

See this blog for the incredible first game of this tournament - featuring Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi against upset-minded Delaware and Elena Delle Donne.

The 25 new teams include 16 women's teams to make sure we had cards for all 40 of the greatest college women's players of all time, then nine men's teams. NC State and Purdue were added for their first Final 4 in years, while the other seven won an NCAA game this year and did not have a team in the game until now.

The week of the biggest college women's game to date (Caitlin Clark's Iowa vs. Dawn Staley's South Carolina) we updated the line-ups for the biggest men's game in history (Larry Bird's Indiana State vs. Magic Johnson's Michigan State). We did the latter because a reader noted we did not have the players in the same positions and the Spartans usually ran - so we corrected that and looked up the title game and saw Larry Bird was actually the center for Indiana State that day so did their line-up as well (see both revised below). The biggest change is at point guard, where Steve Reed is now the starter for Indiana State and Terry Donnelly for Michigan state in the game.

UConn is the number 1 seed in this new tournament and looks every bit as good as Tennessee 1998, who won our tournament of the teams already in the game, and Connecticut 2016 with Maya Moore, who we seeded as #1 in that tournament. But all of the teams in this tournament have one of the greatest 40 players of all time, and for the 16-seed that is Elena Delle Donne trying to pull her team to a huge upset. 

It looks uphill as we rank this UConn team a +14 to be tied for first of all great teams, and Delaware a -12 compared to the other great teams in the game (so still much better than most teams in their season) so it will take some great die rolls just like it would take a great game by Delaware and off night by UConn in real life to make this one close. The #5 seedVirginia team in the tournament is Staley's team as a player.

The 9 new men’s include two teams that made their first Final 4 in many years – NC State and Purdue, and the other teams who won at least one tournament game and did not yet have a team in the game; Colorado St., Duquesne, Grand Canyon, James Madison, Oakland, Utah St. and Yale.

Here are three starting line-ups. First, yes the "other Bird" from 

Women's Basketball increasing Popularity Shown in Unique Visitors

We hoped to play Cheryl Miller and the 1983 USC squad against the 2017 South Carolina national champs to see which advanced to our All-Time Elite 8 in the Value Add Basketball Game - but too much work to finish tonight.. 

However, a good sign for the popularity of women's basketball was the 1,484 unique visitors on this page on Tuesday - easily the highest of the last three months and one of the highest since the huge audiences when we first released the game in 2019.  

This occurred after a stretch of posts on our first women's basketball tournament using the game - which now features 20 of the greatest women's teams of all-time. As shown on the blogger graph below, generally 100 to 200 unique visitors come to the page. The vast majority go straight to www.pudnersports.com, and we will hit a few hundred when someone takes an interest and reposts the page.

The other thing we cannot ignore is the impact of Notre Dame on the popularity of all sports. In our tournament, the Irish have pulled off the two big upsets to date to become the surprise team of the tournament.

This is just one of many good signs for women's basketball, which had five million viewers for their final last year (best since 6 million for Tennessee vs. UConn in 2004), several recent TV games have shown sell out arenas, and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley noted tickets for their visit to UConn were going for $700.

Here are the stats on the 15,800 unique visits the last three months, led by the 990 who clicked on the Value Add Basketball Game to bring that all-time total to 64,000 to date.