We Rank A'ja as Better Than Caitlin Clark, but Still Glad Clark will Raise all WNBA Salaries and Deals

At this great moment for women's sports, I am sorry about the controversy regarding A'ja Wilson complaining that Caitlin Clark is getting this attention because of race. Even as an old white guy, I do understand. For the record, way before this issue arose I ranked the greatest 40 college women's basketball players of all time and believe A'ja Wilson was a greater college player than Clark.

In this post, I ranked Wilson as the 5th greatest college player ever and Clark as the 8th greatest college player ever - so on one level I understand the 5th greatest player ever asking why the 8th greatest ever is the one getting the biggest Wilson basketball deal since Michael Jordan. Here are my top 10 with their Value Add Basketball Game cards in the Value Add Basketball Game.

The +7 defense on Clark's card means she is not a good defender in the game, so even though she might be the best offensive player in our all-time great game we still rank seven players as greater all-time once you consider offense and defense.

But if you take a step back, the average guy in the NBA is making $10 million a year and the average WNBA woman until a couple of years ago made $100,000 - in large part because the WNBA has not made money in the past. Blame fans or whatever you want - I am sure I am not the only one who prefers the men's game if I have the choice because I like the game above the rim just as I always preferred women's soccer because of the pace of play without men falling all over the field faking injuries.

But whatever the reason, have Clark come out and fill arenas all over the country and more incredibly draw almost 20 million fans to watch the NCAA title game to unbelievably top the men's title game is good for all women college basketball players. So many more people tuning in to watch her play are more likely to then start following other women players they may never have seen if Clark didn't get them to turn on or come to the game.

Lots of women will make lots more money because of this. I understand Wilson's initial reaction to a player who overall I do not believe was quite as good as her suddenly making much more money. However, race is not the only possible explanation as fans generally like offense more than defense and particular players who can shoot from a long way from the basket. That is why the popularity of Stephen Curry exploded and he still gets three times as many views as the Player of the Year Nikola Jokic. In that case Curry is black and makes shots from another planet and Jokic is white and scores form much closer, just as Clark is white and makes shots from much further way that Wilson usually shoots.

The difference doesn't appear to be race, it appears to be fans have loved seeing really long shots go into the basket ever since the Harlem Globetrotters would shot off with half court shots.

I hope Wilson gets huge deals too now that the ceiling is bursting for women's players.

Our next Value Add Basketball Game between all-time teams will feature Clark's rival Angel Reese from LSU, who incidentally I have down as the 23rd greatest player of all time. I will have her LSU champions facing the Purdue 2003 team.

The Best 40 College Women Basketball Players Ever

Scroll down for the count down of the all-time top 40 college women's basketball players. The intro paragraphs below cover the decade of work we believe makes this list as accurate as can be. The decision to use all the research to rank the players resulted from some of the 70,000+ unique visitors to the Value Add Basketball Game, who having played games between some of the hundreds of greatest TEAMS ever said they'd like separate cards (click here to print all 40) for just the greatest PLAYERS  ever play the game. This allows a draft and fantasy league games rather than being tied to actual teams. 

This top 40 builds on my development of the www.valueaddbasketball.com system, which was used by NBA officials in draft prep. After a team official tipped off Sports Illustrated about the system, they gave this nice summary: 

As a longtime fan of Bill James' baseball books … Pudner (was) curious about adapting the baseball sabermetrics concept of "Wins Above Replacement (Player)," or WAR, to rate the value of individual college hoops players. The metric he settled on, called "Value Add," attempted to quantify the percentage drop-off if, say, Ohio State were to give all of Jared Sullinger's possessions to a generic, ninth or 10th man on a Division I bench.

We further built upon that system to develop the free Value Add Basketball Game, featured in SIMS magazine after NBA team officials who met with me regarding prospects asked me to attend the MIT Sloan convening of statistical experts such as Nate Silver.

This Top 40 has certain advantages over other methods that could be used to determine the best players in college basketball history.

Dominant Defenders Averaging < 15 ppg - Jordan, Taurasi, S. Bird

1.      We measure defense (and Strength of Schedule faced by each player) with the same precision and weight that is often used only on the offensive side of the court.  For example, Michael Jordan led UNC to the 1982 title despite averaging fewer than 15 points a game, and his 1 steal, 0 blocked shots and 4 rebounds per game also would not indicate how elite he was already. On the UConn Women’s undefeated run 20 years later neither did Diana Taurasi or Sue Bird averaged 15 points per game though some argue they were on the way to becoming the two best players in the world. 

However, the measures we first developed a decade ago measured the incredible lockdown defense of players on UNC Men’s 1982 team and UConn Women’s 2002 season and credits the players for STOPS beyond just steals, blocked shots and defensive ratings. Its not important for the reader to understand the Defense -6 rating for Bird and Taurasi vs. the +7 for Caitlin Clark, but that is a precise measurement of how much more likely each opposing player is to score if guarded by Clark than against either of the UConn players. 

2.     Clark and the Top 5 Ever at Hitting the Open Shot

 Having mentioned Clark is not an elite defender, rest assured how dominant we all know she is on offense. Strong defenders sometimes deny a shot or force an uncomfortable shot, while weaker defenses from lesser teams breakdown more often to allow an uncontested lay-up.

 However, in the game if neither of those things happen then basically the player gets an open shot to try to score or draw a foul while shooting. Based on our calculation, only four other players in history are comparable to Clark on converting a non-layup open shot. Per 20 shots (as measured in our game by a 1-20 die roll), if a player only needed to take about 25% of their teams shots (Clark’s figure was actually 44%), the only four players likely to produce more than 24.5 points per 20 shots excluding open lay-ups are (note we corrected a formula error after first posting to correct these figures): 

1. Nancy Lieberman, Old Dominion 1980 - 26.3 per 20 non-layup open looks
2. Breanna Stewart, Connecticut 2016 – 25.8
3. Caitlin Clark, Iowa 2024 – 25.6
4. Cheryl Miller, USC 1983 – 25.5
5. Maya Moore, Connecticut 2010 – 24.6

Based on the fact that Clark faced tougher competition than Lieberman’s 1980 ODU team (women's basketball was not an NCAA D1 sport until two years later), the case is good that Clark is the greatest offensive player in the history of college basketball. 

3.  Adjusting for Position - Point Guards and Centers

One other key to determining the best 40 players in history is understanding that a player must be valued above a likely replacement AT THEIR POSITION. The player card for a center who scores a few feet from the basket after catching a pass, cannot be used in the game as a point guard who would be dribbling up the court against pressure defense.

Some at the MIT convening argued with me regarding the extra valuation I credited in the Value Add Basketball system, but is simply must be done. A point guard handles the ball a lot more than other players and thus it is much tougher for them to avoid turnovers than other players. 

A special thanks go Ainsworth Sports for their incredible work to categorize and rank professional women's players - including this database ranking all the point guards. Ainsworth factors only professional careers, while the rankings below factor only college careers - but to have this master list of every player good enough to play point guard in a professional league was an invaluable cross reference to be sure was flagging elite point guard play.

In our great players game, the truly elite passing point guards have an extra mark on their card that lets them lower teammates shooting die by 1 to increase their chance of scoring by 5%. On the flip side, if a team is put on the court without a true point guard, we adjust in the other direction. You don’t need to play the game to get the idea, as for the Top 40 rankings, each group of five players (1^st through 5^th, 6^th through 10^th… etc) all had to include at least one point guard. 

If point guard were no harder or important to play than other positions, three players would have been ranked a bit lower, but due to this requirement; 

• Dawn Staley of the 1991 UVa team is moved up slightly to No. 20 all-time as the “all-time 4^th team” point guard, 
• Cynthia Cooper for the 1983 USC team is moved up slightly to No. 25 as the same for the “5^th team,” and
• Lindsay Whalen of the 2004 Minnesota team is move up slightly to No. 30 as the “6^th team” point guard. 

On the flip side, Centers for most of history have better stats because they caught the ball near the basket for higher percentage shots. For this reason, we do not allow more than one center in any of the groups of five or on the court at the same time in a game. A true center is defined in the game as a player with a 5-C on their card who also does not have any made 3-pointers on their card. To have two players in that category on the court would be clogging the middle. 

Therefore, if you just looked at stats regardless of position, you would likely rank our 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th team centers higher overall - but instead they are ranked at the top of each 5-group set:

1. Breanna Stewart of UConn 2016 is not effected as she ranks No. 4 overall as our "1st team Center,"
2. Brittney Griner is our all-time 2nd team Center so grabs the top spot of the next five players at No. 6
3. Pam Kelly of 1982 Louisiana Tech is our 3rd best all-time center and thus 11^th on the all-time list,
4. Tina Charles of 2010 UConn is our 4th best center and thus claims the 16^th all-time spot to stop the 4^th team
5. Finally, Chamique Holdsclaw of 1998 Tennessee is No. 21 as the “5^th team center.” As dominant as Holdsclaw was, her 56.7 percent shooting on 2-pointers as a center was a good 5% lower than the four centers we put above her in the ranking of the five dominant centers.

Many would argue for all five of those centers, including Holdsclaw, to be in the top 10, but we believe this is more accurate because a good replacement center would provide more than good backups at other positions, and while the Shooting Guards, Small Forwards and even Power Forwards (now that even can be a 4th guard in the modern game) are a lot more interchangeable than centers or point guards even though those last four could all rank higher if we disregarded positions. 

The Top 40 – Count Down

With that as background, the following are the cards in our game for the Top 40 women’s college basketball players of all-time in count down order.  It is not necessary to play or know the rules of the Value Add Basketball Game to read through the cards – but the ranges will give you a basic idea of how often each player got off the shot (in blue – Clark joins Pistol Pete Maravich as the only players in history got have the ball almost 44% or more of their team’s positions as the ultimate “go-to” players who get the ball on four of eight rolls on the 8-sided die).

 Other ranges give you an idea of how often the player stole the ball, blocked shots, fouled, turned it over, got to the hoop for a layup or shut down their opponent (Adj op Lay-up is that number with negatives being great defenders). Then the 20-sided die range for shooting or drawing fouls, free throw percentage (Sue Bird’s 1-19 Free Throw Made and 20 missed reflects her hitting 95% of all free throws), offensive and defensive rebounds, and finally Stamina (44 indicated they play the whole game with no rests).

Note - we had a formula error that threw off the "Points per 20 open figures" so we corrected and reposted the 40 cards below. That catch mainly just updated that figure for all 40 cards as a guide for how good a shooter each player was - however, it did lead to one update in the Top 5 we will save for the end.

The 40^th to 31^st Best Women’s College Basketball Players in History:  40,  Clarissa Davis; 39,  Sylvia Fowles; 38,  Angel McCoughtry; 37,  Rebecca Lobo; 36,  Cappie Pondexter; 35,  Ivory Latta; 34,  Seimone Augustus; 33,  Tina Thompson; 32,  Ruth Riley; 31,  Nykesha Sales.

The 30^th to 21st Best Women’s College Basketball Players in History: 30,  Lindsay Whalen; 29,  Sue Wicks; 28,  Cindy Brown; 27,  Katie Smith; 26,  Lisa Leslie; 25,  Cynthia Cooper; 24,  Nnemkadi Ogwumike; 23,  Angel Reese; 22,  Katie Lou Samuelson; 21,  Chamique Holdsclaw.

 

The 20^th to 11^th Best Women’s College Basketball Players in History: 20,  Dawn Staley; 19,  Becky Hammon; 18,  Sheryl Swoopes; 17,  Penny Toler; 16,  Tina Charles; 15,  Kelsey Plum; 14,  Sabrina Ionescu; 13,  Elena Delle Donne; 12,  Nancy Lieberman; 11,  Pam Kelly.

We featured Pam Kelly's backup Debra Rodman, sister of Dennis Rodman.

The Top 10 Best Women’s College Basketball Players in History: 10,  Candace Parker; 9,  Cheryl Miller; 8,  Caitlin Clark; 7,  Diana Taurasi; 6,  Brittney Griner; 5,  A'ja Wilson; 4,  Breanna Stewart; 3, Sue Bird; 2,  Maya Moore; 

1,  Tamika Catchings.

At one point I thought of whimping out and putting teammates Taurasi and Bird in a tie for a particular spot, since they are so connected as teammates, doing the radio show together and really similar stats in college. I admit I just don't watch much NBA or WNBA because I'm so focused on college - but I believe Taurasi is considered by at least some the greatest pro ever with Bird a few spots lower. However, there stats (and thus player cards below) are just so similar that the fact that point guard is a harder position, and the fact that steals are such the crucial college stat, that those two are the reason I conclude that Bird was just a little more valuable than Taurasi to the 2002 undefeated season - but a close call.

Moore and Catchings are so close in value that they really could be listed as tied for Number 1, so I went to way too indepth reviews of both of them to determine the slight difference between the two of them to determine Catchings had a slight, slight edge over Moore for the all-time best.

Feel free to stop reading here and just consider them co-champs - but if you want way to much detail on why Catchings is No. 1 ...

As for Tamika Catchings being No. 1- she starts with a huge head start on the defensive side, as the only men's or women's player in the elite top level of STEALS (11-16,31 is not only the highest rating but the 31 indicates she can steal from any of the opposing five players) and BLOCKS (21-26,32 likewise indicates she can also block anyone's shot on the court - in both cases not just the player she is guarding.

However, with all that it still came down to a photo finish between her and Maya Moore for the best player of all-time from our calculations - as both finished a good distance ahead of Sue Bird and the rest of the field.

Moore was a good shot blocker, but a big gap between Moore's 21-26 to block the shot of the player she is guarding, and Catchings' 21-26, 32 to block the shots of any of the five opposing player.

Both are perfect on steals, with the rare combo of almost never fouling - distancing themselves from the rest. 

Catchings gets another small but important edge by rarely turning the ball over (only 41-42). 

They are virtually even in scoring with Catchings hitting a few more 3-pointers and drawing more fouls, but Moore getting to the hoop more for 2-pointers. 

The two are by far the best rebounders among non-centers, with Moore taking a tiny edge back with her 1-9 rebounding on offense and defense, while Catchings is 1-9 on offense but one notch down at 1-8 on defensive rebounds. Only three all-time centers have better rebounding numbers than the two of them.

In the end, it's a photo finish with Catchings nudging out Moore for the greatest college basketball player of all time.

Her rebounding figures of 1-9 on Offensive Rebounds and 1-8 on Defensive Rebounds 

55 All-time Great Women's Teams Calculated for Game - Ranked in Order

We finished calculating the 55 great women's college basketball teams for our Value Add Basketball Game. The rest of the cards will be posted shortly after this post on the Value Add link, and our next post will list the top 40 women's players of all time in order, now that we have calculated all cards. Based on the cards we have a 3-way tie for the greatest team in history:

The 3 Best Women's Teams in the Value Add Basketball Game

Tennessee beat their average opponent 89-56 in 1998, and based on the cards we estimated they would average a 14-point win against the other great 54 teams in the game (81-67).

The UConn team we just created averaged winning 87-52 in 2002, and based on their cards we estimate they would also win by 14 against the other great teams (78-64).

Finally Maya Moore's 2016 team averaged beating teams 88-48, and we estimated would average a 77-63 win against other great teams.

Men's and Women's Title Games Top College Football Title Game TV Viewers by 10 Million

For all my "football only" fans - while the sport is king, consider these Championship TV ratings. The College Football Championship Game drew 25 million viewers, but the basketball women's title game drew 19 million and men drew 16 million for 35 million total. The Football News Year's 6 games drew an average of 13 million fans, while the 63 NCAA March Madness games averaged 10 million - so 630 million to 78 million. 

Now that the women's game seems to have arrived - lets look at the great 55 teams in our game and how we rated them.

We ran calculations based on the playing cards for each team - which are based on the players stats and level of competition they faced that season. We estimated the average score if each team played the other 54 great teams in the game averaging out to a 71-71 tie if both great teams were equal.

Three teams in the game ended up calculating as exactly even and the best teams of all time.

Included 1 Team from Every University with a Great Woman's Team

Please note while we believe the top several teams of all-time, this is not a complete list of all the top teams - because we only let each school have a new team in the game every five or six years at a minimum - and tried to keep each school to one team unless they had more than one truly all-time great team long enough after another great team to have all different players.

We will list the top 40 players of all-time in our next blog.

College Basketball Reference has recently added lots of women's stats from the 1990s and early 2000s that let us add lots of new teams. We had to do some estimates and piecing together of various games for great teams earlier than that. One team that is missing is the undefeated Texas team from the mid-80s for which we just couldn't piece together enough stats, so we included their Elite 8 team from a few years later.

One funny stats piecing together old box scores was a Nancy Lieberman game against Virginia Tech, when the box score I found indicated ODU had 36 turnovers and nine assists. Since they won handily I'm pretty confident those numbers with the team with the first great point guard were reversed. While stats are slight for that ODU 1980 team, consider that they lost one game by two points or they would have been 38-0, and the season ended with them dominating Pat Summitt and Tennessee 68-53 to push the start of her dynasty back a bit. 

Rnk	Team - Player	vs Great	All	Final Rate	Act Off	Act Def
1	Tennessee 1998 - Tamika Catchings, C Holdsclaw	81	67	14	89	56
1	Connecticut 2002 - Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi	78	64	14	87	52
1	Connecticut 2016 - Maya Moore	77	63	14	88	48
4	Connecticut 2010 - Breanna Stewart	72	59	13	81	46
5	Tennessee 2007 - Candace Parker	73	61	12	74	56
6	Baylor 2012 - Kalani Brown	72	62	10	78	51
7	Connecticut 1995 - Nykesha Sales, Rebecca Lobo	82	72	10	90	55
8	Louisiana Tech 1982 - Pam Kelly	76	66	10	82	55
9	South Carolina 2024 - Kamilla Cardoso	78	68	10	86	56
10	Baylor 2019 - Brittney Griner	75	67	8	82	56
11	Stanford 2021- Kiana Williams	72	64	8	78	54
12	Texas A&M 2011 - Danielle Adams	73	66	7	78	56
13	USC 1983 - Cheryl Miller	80	74	6	86	63
14	South Carolina 2017 - A'ja Wilson	71	66	5	76	56
15	Mississippi State 2018 - Victoria Vivans	73	69	4	81	56
16	Notre Dame 2018 - Arike Ogunbowales	81	77	4	85	68
17	Old Dominion 1980- Nancy Lieberman	71	67	4	75	58
18	Oregon 2019 - Sabrina Ionescu	78	74	4	85	62
19	Iowa 2024- Caitlin Clark	86	83	3	92	72
20	Notre Dame 2001 - Ruth Riley	70	68	2	77	55
21	Virginia 1991 - Dawn Staley	82	80	2	89	69
22	LSU - 2023 - Angel Reese	69	68	1	80	52
23	Maryland 2006 - Crystal Langhorne	76	75	1	83	65
24	Ohio State 1993 - Katie Smith	76	75	1	83	64
25	Long Beach State 1987 - Cindy Brown	68	68	0	75	56
26	NC State 2024 - Aziaha James	69	70	-1	74	60
27	North Carolina 2007 - Ivory Latta	71	72	-1	84	54
28	Rutgers 2007 - Kia Vaughn	61	62	-1	64	54
29	Duke 2006 - Alison Bales	62	64	-2	68	58
30	Stanford 2012 - Nnemkadi Ogwumike	67	69	-2	76	55
31	Texas 1989 - Clarissa Davis	77	79	-2	85	69
32	Vanderbilt 2002 - Chantelle Anderson	62	64	-2	72	53
33	Kentucky 2013 - DeNesha Stallworth	66	69	-3	75	58
34	UCLA 2018 - Monique Billings	70	73	-3	76	64
35	USC 1994 - Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson	72	75	-3	80	64
36	Washington 2017 - Kelsey Plum	75	78	-3	85	63
37	Colorado St. 1999 - Becky Hammon	70	74	-4	79	60
38	Texas Tech 1993 - Sheryl Swoopes	64	68	-4	74	60
39	Indiana 2024 - MacKenzie Holmes	72	77	-5	80	64
40	Louisville 2009 - Angel McCoughtry	62	67	-5	71	58
41	Louisville 2014 - Shoni Schimmel	69	74	-5	79	59
42	Marquette 2019 - Chloe Marotta, N Hiedeman	72	77	-5	82	62
43	Oklahoma 2010 - Abi Olajuwon	69	74	-5	72	66
44	Rutgers 1988 - Sue Wicks	73	78	-5	82	64
45	Texas 2018 - Ariel Atkins	72	77	-5	81	63
46	LSU 2005 - Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus	59	65	-6	72	52
47	Purdue 2003- Shereka Wright	62	69	-7	73	60
48	Minnesota 2004 - Lindsay Whalen	57	65	-8	68	55
49	Ohio State 2016 - Kelsey Mitchell	79	87	-8	86	75
50	Virginia Tech 2024 - Elizabeth Kitley	67	75	-8	75	62
51	Penn State 2012 - Maggie Lucas	68	77	-9	76	63
52	Delaware 2013 - Elena Delle Donne	56	68	-12	67	52
53	Auburn 2009 - Keke Carrier, DeWanna Bonner	64	78	-14	77	61
54	Virginia 2018 - Dominique Toussaint	57	71	-14	62	61
55	Georgia - 2013 - Jasmine James	54	69	-15	66	52
	Average	70.7	70.7	0.0	78.6	58.9

Vols Win Game of Streaks Over UConn in all-time semifinal

LaShonda Stephens and game MVP Tamika Catchings (14 points, 4 steals, 4 blocked shots) led a 19-9 streak to close the first half with the 1998 Vols leading 39-29. 

Maya Moore then dominated the first 10 possessions after halftime to lead a 20-10 run and tie the game 49-49 with 14:25 (24 possessions) to play.

It stayed close until the 5 minute mark, but the Vols had one more streak than UConn with Kellie Jolly. First Jolly stole a pass and on the break to hit a 3-pointer to make it 62-59. She scored again to make it 64-59, then drove to score and was fouled, hitting the free throw to make it 72-63.

On the next trip Catchings grabbed two straight offensive rebounds, putting in the last one to make it 74-65, and Tennessee 1998 to a 82-71 win to advance to our all-time championship and send 2010 UConn to our 3rd place game.

The other semifinal will feature 1982 Louisiana Tech against 2018 Notre Dame.

The game took 31 minutes to play from first dice roll to last in the Value Add Basketball Game. 

Back to the Future: HOF Mulkey PG beats Coach Mulkey - La Tech 77, Baylor 72

Score one for youth! In a Value Add Basketball Game featured a 19 year old guard defeating herself as a 56 year old coach.

Coach Kim Mulkey led her 2019 Baylor to a dominant all-time Elite 8 all-time performance until their were three minutes to play. However, a 37 year old younger Hall of Fame Point Guard came up with a steal and bucket to finally give 1982 Louisiana Tech a 64-62 lead with 2:44 (5 possessions) to play.

Angela Turner then made it two straight steals and fast break buckets to give Louisiana Tech a 66-62 lead and they continued to drive to the hoop and draw fouls to hold onto a 77-72 win. La Tech advances to the all-time Final Four to face the winner of Notre Dame vs UConn 2016.

The fun thing about how this played out is there will be one team from each of the past four decades in the all-time Final 4. La Tech from the 80s, Tennessee from the 90s, UConn from the first decade of the 21st century and the winner of the last Elite 8 game from the last decade.

Baylor's Lauren Cox (game high 23 points) dominated much of the game as Baylor did not let La Tech get the ball inside to Pam Kelly.

However after trailing 60-56 with just over four minutes to play, Turner, Janice Lawrence and Angela Turner continued.to drive and draw fouls. DiDi Richards and Chloe Jackson fouled out and Kalani Brown hung in with four fouls as Baylor committed 22 fouls to only 14 for the first national champions. While we do not keep track of missed shots or free throws, we count 17 made free throws for the Louisiana Tech starters alone - the highest we ever recall in a men's or women's game (remember we only play the final 44 possessions of games, assuming a 20-20 tie with all 10 players on each team having two points during the first 22 possessions).

Some believe the first official NCAA champs may have been the best ever, though the Baylor 2019 team had six future WNBA players.

Time to play the game from first roll was 33 minutes.

Cinderella Notre Dame Ladies Pull Miracle in OT Win Over Stanford and Elite 8

In the day the real Notre Dame Ladies overcame an injury to claim a share of another ACC title, their 2018 squad pulled off the first true miracle in our all-time great Ladies tournament ... 

Trailing Stanford 74-69 Notre Dame with 40 seconds to play, Notre Dame put all 3-point shooters in the floor in desperation. The normal line-ups is the top row of players in the Value Add Basketball Game, but we wrote the end of game positions from 1 to 5 with big circles on the team sheet below, along with each players stats. 

We also chose the strategy of trying for a 3-pointer. When this is done, each players 3-point made range is increased by 1 for every 1 2-point made at the top of the range that can be turned into a 2-pt missed and rebound automatically goes to the defense. However no player can more than double their 3-pt range. You do not need to use Advanced rules to play the game, but it does allow strategies like this.

In English, the Notre Dame made shot ranges on the cards below changed to:

8-sided	Name	3-pt made	2-pt-made	2-pt now missed, def reb
1	Cole	1-5	6	7
2	Thompson	1-6	None	7-8
3, 6 & 7	Ogunbowale	1-6	None	7-9
4	Mabry	1-7	None	8-9
5	Young	1-4	5-9	10-11
8	Poss TO

For the top square of the 1 possession (0:16 seconds) box the 8-sided die was a "5", so the ball went to Jackie Young, and the 20-sided die was a 6, which is a 2-pointer made. Note the 3-pointer range can only be doubled, so Young's 3-point range could only be increased from 1-2 to 1-4 since the Irish did not have a 5th player with a higher 3-point range. The 20-sided die was a "6," which meant Young made a 2-pointer, still leaving Notre Dame behind 74-71. 

Only a steal or foul results in the spot under the diagonal slash being used as a last possession, thus requiring Notre Dame to use the advanced strategy of going for a turnover or fouling to prolong the game. When going for the steal or foul the 20-sided shot dice is not used, and if the result of the other three is a steal or turnover that result stands with the extra possession created. Any other result is a foul and two shots. The 8-sided die was a "5" sending the ball to Haley Jones, meaning only a 11-16 could be a steal by Jackie Young, or a 41-42 as a turnover on Jones offensive card. It just missed that range as a 43, sending Young to the foul line needing 1 of 2 shots to seal the win.

Jones free throw range was 1-14, a decent 70%, but the 20-sided die came up "20" and then "16" to give Notre Dame one desperation trip down the court needing a 3-pointer to force overtime.

Instead, Arike Ogunbowaie was fouled for two shots. The normal starting five were put back on the court for Notre Dame since at this point the only hope was to make the first free throw, miss the second and then have the two best possible offensive rebounders in the game. In actual basketball the home team grabs an offensive rebound about 33% of the time on a regular shot, but only 17% on a missed free throw - so in the game a missed free throw resulting in an offensive rebound by the Point Guard, Shooting Guard or Small Forward goes to the defense instead. Only the Power Forward (in this case Jackie Young, with a good 1-6 offensive rebound) or Center (in this case Jessica Shepard, with an even better 1-8 offensive rebound).

With the first free throw cutting it to 74-72, the rebound chart was a "10" on the 20-sided die, and a 10 or 20 goes to the highest rebounding range on the entire court (ties go to offense). In this case, Shepard's 1-8 Offensive Rebound topped Haley Jones Defensive Rebound of 1-7, so Jones had the rebound, and on the roll of the four dice scored herself for an unbelievable 74-74 tie and the first overtime came in our women's tournament.

We wrote the stats by each players name on the Notre Dame team sheet above, and the Stanford sheet below, which is followed by the scoresheet which includes the running score through the 5-minute overtime off to the right.

Ogunbowaie's 28-point, 6-rebound, 3-steal, 3-blocked shots game included a 12-6 personal run that cut Stanford's lead from 51-43 to 57-55. 

The overtime went back-and-forth, with Ogunbowaie hitting the final bucket to make it 87-84, and then Stanford also putting in their 3-point shooters as indicated below. 

The Irish will try to continue their Cinderella run next against the #1 all-time seed, 2016 UConn in the Elite 8.

The last Elite 8 spot will be filled by the winner of South Carolina 2017 vs. Cheryl Miller's 1983 team - a USC vs. USC battle. 

Notre Dame Lady's Pull 1st Road Upset

 With the history of upsets by Notre Dame in multiple sports, perhaps the fact that their ladies pulled the first road upset of our all-time great Women's Tournament.

This Value Add Basketball Game was won 76-69 behind a dominant double double by Arike Ogunbowale (20 points, 10 rebounds), despite being fouled twice in the opening possessions on calls missed due to Texas A&M 2011 team being at home.

The 2018 Notre Dame team overcame those and another missed call and there would have been additional calls on Ogunbowale and Jackie Young except both players avoid all fouls on their card so even changing a 66 to 36 roll twice did not become a foul.

The lead was only 71-66 with 2:07 (4 possessions) to play. Ogunbowale then hit a 3-pointer to make it 74-66. Texas A&M scored to make it 74-68 and then put on a press, which entails not rolling the 20-sided die to men any result other than a steal or turnover becomes a foul and two free throws but creates and extra possession by stopping the clock.

Texas A&M got what they wanted, a 42 in the turnover range with a "5" on the 8-sided die to give the ball to Young (15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 blocked shots) who moved from power forward to center after a 5th foul on Jessica Shepard (11 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocked shots). Note another rebound for each and the Irish would have had three players with double doubles.

However, because Young's turnover range is a great 41-41 the 42 was not a turnover but a foul. Young hit both free throws to make it 76-68, then at the other end of the court she rejected a 3-point shot by Danielle Adams that would have gone in (the 20-sided shot die was a 3 so in her 1-3 range for a made 3-pointer, but you always check defense as well and it was a 22, which any player in the court with a 21-26 can block). Young even grabbed the rebound and Notre Dame advanced 76-69.

The first 10 games of this tournament features the better seed as the home team, but then the rest of the games will be in a neutral court. The only remaining home game is South Carolina 2017 hosting Ohio State 2016.

#1 UConn (2016) 98, #20 Long Beach State (1987) 53

UConn 2016 lived up to our billing of them as the greatest women's team of all time by scoring on their first 11 possessions and crushing to a 98-53 win against Long Beach State.

In the final possession UConn had a chance to be our first Value Add Basketball Game women's team to hit the century mark,  but Long Beach State Center Cindy Brown grabbed a miss to end the game.

The game took 26 minutes to play from first dice roll to last, a reminder of how quick we made this game if you want to play. We have now played the top four all-time teams in our tournament, and all won, with only UConn 2010 being threatened until late in teh game by Duke 2006.

1st Round All-Time Women's Tournament	Home Favored	Actual Score
#20 Long Beach St. 1987 at #1 Connecticut 2016	34	UConn wins 98-53
#19 Duke 2006 at #2 Connecticut 2010	32	UConn wins 75-66
#18 Old Dominion 1980 at #3 Tennessee 1998	31	Tennessee wins 80-55
#17 Texas 2018 at #4 Louisiana Tech 1982	25	La Tech wins 84-62
#16 Louisville 2014 at #5 Baylor 2019	14	TBD
#15 Oregon 2019 at #6 Baylor 2012	13	TBD
#14 Washington 2017 at #7 USC 1983	9	TBD
#12 Mississippi St. 2018 at #8 Stanford 2021	9	TBD
#13 Notre Dame 2018 at #9 Texas A&M 2011	7	TBD
#11 Ohio St. 2016 at #10 South Carolina 2017	4	TBD

We are working toward the more competitive first round games. Based on the cards, the closest match-up appears to be Ohio State vs. South Carolina, where we estimated South Carolina is about one point better. However, because the game includes a home court advantage (home team can flip rolls of 36 or 66) worth about 3 points a game, South Carolina is a 4-point favorite in that game as the home team.

Scoresheet for UConn 98, Long Beach State 53

We show the points, rebounds, steals and blocked shots in the columns for each team in the scoresheet in the photo.

Moriah Jefferson was the star of this game out of the eight future WNBA players - scoring 28 points and with four steals.

She was part of a UConn starting front line that outscored the Long Beach front line 59-18. Morgan Tufk had 16 points and superstar Breanna Stewart had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

Despite the 35 point loss, Penny Toler was her normal incredible self with 17 points and six steals. We ranked the Final Four team that dominated the west in the 1980s as possible the weakest of our all-time great teams, but the duo of point guard Brown (21.9 ppg) and center Brown (27.8 ppg) could be the greatest duo in women's history. However, in this game UConn simply prevented the ball from getting isnide to Stewart.

Based on their player cards we estimated they were about 34 points better than the Long Beach cards if playing at home, so the 45 point win was an even better performance. After the game we looked at their actual season scores and saw they opened with a similar score of 100-56 at #7 Ohio State, and their last four tournament wins (all against ranked opponents) were by an average of 35 points.

Teams from Baylor, USC, Louisiana Tech, Stanford, Tennessee and Maya Moore's UConn team from six years earlier all have a chance against UConn 2016 in our game tournament, but they do look like the team to beat.

20 All-Time Great Women Basketball Teams Now a Click Away

 Click here for player cards for each of the 20 All-Time Great Women's Basketball teams for use with the Value Add Basketball Game.

Here is an image of one of the teams - the 2010 National Champs from UConn.

Women's BB All-Time Great Team Player Cards Debut for Value Add Basketball Game

For the first time, we now have All-Time great college women's basketball teams for use with our Value Add Basketball Game. We will turn these into cards, but you can play the game using them as sheets. Just find the team you want to play and print out that sheet and it will print that sheet with three teams. The last of seven sheets with Cheryl Miller's USC team includes notes on what each range means by the player. 

Once I calculated the cards, I ran the numbers and it appears the two UConn teams and Pat Summitt's undefeated Tennessee team have the best cards, and all three would probably beat the average women's college basketball team by 50 points.

Not far behind them it appears both Baylor teams, the original NCAA champ Louisiana Tech, and Cheryl Miller's USC team could be the next best. After watching South Carolina destroy #3 LSU before the Super Bowl last night, it looks to me like they will be even better than the 2021 team I have in the game, which looks like the 8th best team in the game.

Seed	Great Team	Year	Cards pts above average
1	Connecticut	2016	49.9
2	Connecticut	2010	48.6
3	Tennessee	1998	47.7
4	Louisiana Tech	1982	43.6
5	Baylor	2019	41.5
6	Baylor	2012	41.0
7	USC	1983	39.8
8	Stanford	2021	39.3
9	Texas A&M	2011	37.9
10	South Carolina	2017	35.0
11	Ohio St.	2016	34.3
12	Mississippi St.	2018	33.7
13	Notre Dame	2018	33.7
14	Washington	2017	33.6
15	Oregon	2019	30.9
16	Louisville	2014	30.2
17	Texas	2018	21.9
18	Old Dominion	1980	20.0
19	Duke	2006	19.1
20	Long Beach St.	1987	18.6

While we have had more than 64,000 unique visitors to the game, I'm sure many others with no interest in playing a board game might still like looking over the sheets to get a feel for how good great players were.

We did try to keep it to one team per school to include as many schools as possible, but as you can see at the top did include two teams each for both Baylor and UConn out of our 20 total colleges represented. 

Stats are much hard to pull together for many of these teams, and we also calculated in WNBA stats for everyone who played there, and in other cases had to pull together multiple box scores from individual games to accurately rank a player.