UMass 1996-NM State 1970 Final Four Before Packers-Cowboys Kickoff

The Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys playoff game will still be more than two hours away as we  roll the first dice of our tournament Final Four between New Mexico State 1970 (List E, page 19) and UMass 1996 (List D, page 24) in the Value Add Basketball Game. We will be done with our dice rolls in time for the Packers - and are as focused as the rest of Wisconsin after this announcement today that the former Chaplain of the Packers is the Chair of my Board.

John Calipari's UMass teams was our 1-seed with a +2 team rating, making them just a couple of points favorite against New Mexico State with a -1 (1 point worse than the average great team in the game, but that equals about a +16 against the 100th best team any given season). However, New Mexico State's 3 future NBA stars have dominated Richmond (77-54) and upset Temple (77-60) to look very impressive, while UMass barely survived a 33 point performance by Darius McGhee for a 78-76 win against Liberty 2023, then had an even closer scare in a 75-74 win against Cornbread Maxwell and UNCC.

The question might be why we are playing off basketball teams on an NFL playoff day, but luckily the NFL itself has allowed the same by moving to all primetime games Saturday, Sunday and Monday to allow great college hoops in real games during the afternoons. Illinois and Memphis are looking good in actual afternoon games and even Green Bay the college basketball team is playing a game this afternoon before the Packets kick off in Dallas.

Below is the starting line-up for the game.

New Mexico St. 1970	Season Actual
Charlie Criss	12.5 Pts-nba
Jimmy Collins	24.3 Pts-nba
Roy Neal	5.5 Pts
Jeff Smith	12.8 Pts
Sam Lacey	17.7 Pts-nba
Chito Reyes	8.2 Pts
Milt Horne	4.4 Pts
Bill Moore	2.0 Pts
John Burgess	4.7 Pts
Lonnie Lefevre	1.3 Pts
Massachusetts 1996	Season Actual
Edgar Padilla	8.9 Pts, 3.5 Reb, 6.7 Ast
Carmelo Travieso	12.6 Pts, 3.2 Reb, 2.1 Ast
Donta Bright	14.5 Pts, 5.8 Reb, 1.7 Ast
Dana Dingle	10.1 Pts, 7.4 Reb, 1.5 Ast
Marcus Camby	20.5 Pts, 8.2 Reb, 1.8 Ast-NBA
Charlton Clarke	1.4 Pts, 0.5 Reb, 0.7 Ast
Tyrone Weeks	5.8 Pts, 5.2 Reb, 0.4 Ast
Rigoberto Nunez	0.5 Pts, 1.0 Reb, 0.3 Ast
Inus Norville	2.4 Pts, 2.1 Reb, 0.0 Ast
Ted Cottrell	0.9 Pts, 0.9 Reb, 0.0 Ast

We did make a very minor tweak to the Stamina on the New Mexico State cards, lowering Roy Neal's Stsamina from 37 to 23 and having him play the last 23 possessions only, and increasing the Stamina of Chito Reyes and John Burgess from 7 to 14 and having them. It looks like four others were clear starters, and those three were the 5th through 7th spots in the rotation. Here is the slightly revised lineup looking at Stamina at the bottom.

The following is the opening lineup. Players with dimes get the ball on 2 of the numbers on the 8-sided die, while players with a penny get the ball on only one number.

The once we got to the 23 possession, below, all starters were in to finish the game, so all coins were on the top row.

NBA Great Camby Leads UMass 1996 vs. Liberty & No. 2 Scorer McGhee

I don't usually mix my professional life with this fun sports blog page, but at the risk of losing half my readers, our next Value Add Basketball Game tournament starts with a personally interesting match-up for me as I start a new faith-based organization. Liberty University has been a faith-based leader from the days of Jerry Falwell to DC Talk concerts and beyond, while their opponent is the first of three schools taken to the Final Four by John Calipari, who goes to Mass every morning no matter what - as recounted in this piece. OK, the rest is about basketball, no preaching :-).

This is the first match-up in a tournament of the 16 teams now being calculated and added to even our game at 200 great teams. The 1-seed UMass 1996 was truly an overlooked team when I did earlier cards, as I already rank them as one of the top 40 all-time great teams in my game. Our 16-seed Liberty 2023 is one of the two incredible athletic department stories coming out of Virginia today - the other being James Madison University whose current 2024 team will play our No. 2 seed Oregon State 1982. 

While the underdog, the amazing Darius McGhee of Liberty is the kind of opponents 1-seeds fear. He gets the ball a ton (on a roll of 2, 6 or 7 on the 8-sided die as the player in the country who shot more than any other player last year). If the defense doesn't stop him with a blocked shot or by forcing a turnover, then he hits a 3-pointer on a 1-5 on the 20-sided die. He lit it up with 821 points last season, the second highest total in the country. That included closing the season with 26 points in an NIT upset of Villanova and 31 points in a near upset at Wisconsin in the NIT, to end the season ranked as the 10th best player in the country at www.kenpom.com. At 5'9 he was not big enough for the NBA, but got on the court in the G-League. 

The favorites are John Calipari's first of three schools to make the Final 4 - the only other coach being Rick Pitino. Calipari's Minutemen featured National Player of the Year Marcus Camby, who was also the No. 2 player in the NBA draft being only AI, Allen Iverson. The writers picked UMass No. 1, and coaches said No. 1 behind Kentucky. While the Wildcats did beat them in the Final 4, UMass gave them their closest battle of the tournament - losing by only 7 after Kentucky had blown out their first four opponents by 20+. The Kentucky 1996 team is also u. The game and quite possibly the best of all times though right now we rank Bill Walton's UCLA champs at No. 1.

This left no doubt UMass was the No. 2 team that season, and Calipari would go on to take Memphis and Kentucky to the Final 4, getting his title in 2012 with Kentucky and Anthony Davis. Camby would just miss averaging a career double-double over 16 years in the NBA - including leading the league in blocked shots three years in a row. We are almost done with the cards for the 16 new teams - bringing our total to 200 great teams - but as we often do we start with these sheets for both teams which will be turned into cards soon. 

Liberty 2023, Ht, Pts, Pos – No. 16 Seed of 16 new Value Add Basketball Teams

Colin Porter, 5'9,7.8 ppg, PG-1

Darius McGhee, 5'9,22.8 ppg, SG-2

Joseph Venzant, 6'3,4.2 ppg, SF-3

Kyle Rode, 6'7,10.9 ppg, PF-4

Blake Preston, 6'9,6.7 ppg, C-5

Brody Peebles, 6'2,7.4 ppg, PG-1

Jonathan Jackson, 6'4,1.4 ppg, SG-2

Isiah Warfield, 6'5,2.9 ppg, SF-3

Zach Cleveland, 6'7,3.4 ppg, PF-4

Shiloh Robinson, 6'7,7.6 ppg, C-5

Massachusetts 1996, Ht, Pts, Pos – No. 1 Seed of 16 new Value Add Basketball Teams

Edgar Padilla, 6'2,8.9 ppg, PG-1

Carmelo Travieso, 6'2,12.6 ppg, SG-2

Donta Bright, 6'6,14.5 ppg, SF-3

Dana Dingle, 6'7,10.1 ppg, PF-4

Marcus Camby, 6'11,20.5 ppg,NBA, C-5

Charlton Clarke, 6'3,1.4 ppg, PG-1

Tyrone Weeks, 6'7,5.8 ppg, SG-2

Rigoberto Nunez, 6'7,0.5 ppg, SF-3

Inus Norville, 6'9,2.4 ppg, PF-4

Ted Cottrell, 6'9,0.9 ppg, C-5