Unseld v. McAdoo All-Time Great Center Match-up by Category

At 6'7, 245 pounds, Wes Unseld was immovable under the basket, and as the greatest outlet passing center in NBA history, had the edge in today's super match-up as a passer and rebounder. However, Bob McAdoo (taller at 6'9 but lighter at 210) has the edge as one of the greatest scoring centers and top half dozen shot blockers of all time.

Result of game added at bottom.

A look at the two Value Add Basketball Game cards for our next all-time tournament game between Louisville 1968 and UNC 1972 shows McAdoo with a better card on 4 items - steals, blocks, shooting and free throw shooting, while Unseld is stronger in another 4 including drawing fouls, rebounding when UNC misses as well as when Louisville misses, and finally passing. The explanation for each category appears below these photos.

Steals - Advantage McAdoo with an excellent steal range for a center of 11-15, compared to rare steals for Unseld at 11-11.

Blocks - Advantage McAdoo as one of a half dozen players in basketball history who not only blocks shots in the whole block range on the opposing center (21-26) but also blocks the shot of any player on the court on either a 32 or 66. The short Unseld is a good but not elite 21-25.

Fouls - both average at 35-36 committing fouls.

Turnovers - both average at 41-43.

Dunk and Adj Dunk - both a strong 51-56 dunking but also -6 on adjusting opponents dunk, so neither will get any automatic dunks or automatic stops in the 51-66 range against each other as those cancel out.

Field Goal Shooting - advantage McAdoo who scores on 1-11 when he gets a chance including a "and 1" on a roll a 1 on the 1-20 die. Unseld scores on 1-9.

Drawing Fouls - Advantage Unseld who draws fouls on a dominant five numbers - 10-14 - which can be the great equalizer since he has a much better chance of getting McAdoo in foul trouble to perhaps force UNC to use a much weaker defensive player like Craig Corson or Bobby Jones or worse yet foul out McAdoo.

Free throw shooting - Advantage McAdoo who makes free throws 80% of the time (1-16 on 20-sided die) while Unseld is 65% (1-13).

Rebounding on Louisville miss - Advantage Unseld whose 19 rebounds a game over 3 years is one of the greatest totals ever and gives him a 1-11 offensive rebounding meaning on an 10 or 20 on the 20-sided die for high rebounder in game goes to Unseld since offense gets the tiebreaker and McAdoo's defensive rebound is also 1-11. 

Rebounding on UNC miss - Advantage Unseld whose 1-11 defensive rebounding keeps the rebound against McAdoo's 1-8 offensive rebounding.

Assists - we do not have an actual assist factor on the cards, but it obviously improved every other players' shooting stats, and Unseld was one of the greatest passing centers in history and averaged 3.5 assists per game in the NBA compared to only 1.6 for McAdoo.

And we have an upset in this round. Unseld managed to play through 4 fouls and Louisville upset UNC 71-69 to survive and advance. Here is the scoresheet. UNC with 4 more rebounds but 3 mire turnovers.

Current tournament.

Seed	Men's unbeaten	Player #All-Time Rank	Round of 32 & Sweet 16
1	Connecticut 2023, #7	Adama Sanogo	bye (next Gonz-TX)
2	Connecticut 1996, #14	Ray Allen #52	bye (next SMU-KS)
3	Western Kentucky 1966, #24	Clem Haskins	bye (next UNC-Xavier)
4	Houston 2021, #26	Quentin Grimes	bye (next Duke-Mia)
5	Purdue 2024, #35	Zach Edey	W 69-42 vs. UMass 1971, #219 (2nd R Gtown-ASU)
6	Michigan 1993, #36	Chris Webber #65	W 73-62 vs Gonzaga 1981, #216 (if W TN-Ore St)
7	Rutgers 1976, #39	Phil Sellers	W 84-82 OT vs. Duquesne 2024, #203 (Col-LSU)
8	North Carolina 1972, #40	Bob McAdoo #54	L 69-71 vs Louisville 1968, #178 (eliminated)
9	UCLA 2008, #44	Russell Westbrook #46	v nc stare 2024, #153 (Lville)
10	Colorado 2021, #56	McKinley Wright	vs. LSU 1953, #147 (if W rutg)
11	Tennessee 2023, #59	Santiago Vescovi	vs. Oregon St. 1990, #140 (if W MI)
12	Georgetown 1989, #63	Alonzo Mourning #69	vs. Arizona St. 2009, #139 (if W Purdue)
13	Duke 2015, #65	Justise Winslow	vs. Miami 2023, #131 (if W Houston)
14	North Carolina 2022, #67	Armando Bacot	vs. Xavier 2023, #86 (if W West KY)
15	SMU 2017, #70	Semi Ojeleye	vs. Kansas 2022, #79 (if W Uconn 1996)
16	Texas 2023, #71	Marcus Carr	vs. Gonzaga 2023, #76 (if W Uconn 2023)
17	Gonzaga 2023, #76	Drew Timme	vs. Texas 2023, #71 (if W Uconn 2023)
18	Kansas 2022, #79	Ochai Agbaji	vs. SMU 2017, #70 (if W Uconn 1996)
19	Xavier 2023, #86	Jack Nunge	vs. North Carolina 2022, #67 (if W West KY)
20	Miami 2023, #131	Norchad Omier	vs. Duke 2015, #65 (if W Houston)
21	Arizona St. 2009, #139	James Harden #33	vs. Georgetown 1989, #63 (if W Purdue)
22	Oregon St. 1990, #140	Gary Payton #48	vs. Tennessee 2023, #59 (if W MI)
23	LSU 1953, #147	Bob Pettit #31	vs. Colorado 2021, #56 (if W Rutg)
24	NC St. 2024, #153	D.J. Burns	vs. UCLA 2008, #44 (if W Lville)
25	Louisville 1968, #178	Wes Unseld #60	W 71-69 vs. North Carolina 1972, #40 (UCLA-NC St)
26	Duquesne 2024, #203	Jimmy Clark	L 84-82 OT vs Rutgers 1976 (Eliminated)
27	Gonzaga 1981, #216	John Stockton #25	vs. Michigan 1993, #36 Eliminated
28	Massachusetts 1971, #219	Julius Erving #19	L 42-69 vs. Purdue 2024 #35, Eliminated

College Hoops Best Conference History - ACC (By Far)

 When we played our initial All-Time Great tournament using the first 96 Value Add Basketball Game teams, Michael Jordan led the 1982 UNC Tar Heels all the way to the title game before falling short against Bill Walton's 1972 UCLA Team.

Perhaps nothing indicates the ACC is clearly the top conference historically then the fact that Jordan's team in our game ranks as the 7th best team in the conference so far.

We rank conferences based on the top six teams, and those six in front of Jordan's UNC team have gone 17-7 with an average win margin of 8 points (75-67) against some of the greatest teams of all time. A couple of the Duke teams (2001 and 1992) have only paid two games a piece, so still need to prove themselves in more games. However, the new teams the ACC added included the great 2013 Louisville team and the great Syracuse and Pittsburgh - all from the great Big East years. Add them to the great UVa champs from 2019, the Tim Duncan's 1996 team that already stunned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's team in our game, David Thompson's NC State team that ended UCLA's dynasty.

Despite growing up in Virginia, I adopted the Big East and rooted for them against the ACC from that point forward, but there is no way to argue this is not the top conference in history based on their current roster of teams.

Rnk	Great Team	Year	Key Player	W	L	Pts	Allow	Rate
	Top 6 Other Conf			17	7	74.8	66.9	9.1
1	Duke	2001	Shane Battier	2	0	84.5	74.0	12.8
2	North Carolina	2005	Sean May	3	2	72.2	64.4	9.6
3	Duke	1992	Christian Laettner	1	1	71.5	64.5	9.2
4	Virginia	2019	Kyle Guy	4	1	72.6	65.4	8.3
5	Duke	2010	Jon Scheyer	5	2	74.0	66.7	7.9
6	Louisville	2013	Russ Smith	2	1	74.0	66.3	7.0
7	North Carolina	1982	Michael Jordan	5	1	68.8	65.0	6.7
8	North Carolina St.	1974	David Thompson	2	1	72.0	72.7	5.1
9	Wake Forest	1996	Tim Duncan	2	1	66.0	64.7	3.9
10	North Carolina	1998	Vince Carter	2	1	80.7	83.7	2.7
11	Syracuse	2003	Carmelo Anthony	2	1	76.0	74.0	2.3
12	Syracuse	1987	Rony Seikaly	2	1	72.3	68.7	-0.3
13	Pittsburgh	2009	DeJuan Blair	1	3	60.0	62.3	-0.8
14	Duke	1986	Johnny Dawkins	0	1	106.0	108.0	-1.0
15	Georgia Tech	2004	Jarrett Jack	2	3	62.6	67.4	-1.1
16	Georgia Tech	1990	Dennis Scott	0	1	64.0	82.0	-5.2
17	Virginia	1981	Ralph Sampson	0	1	61.0	72.0	-5.4
18	Notre Dame	1981	Orlando Woolridge	0	1	68.0	74.0	-7.0
19	Notre Dame	1970	Austin Carr	1	1	67.0	76.5	-8.2
20	Wake Forest	2005	Chris Paul	0	3	64.3	85.3	-9.3
21	Louisville	1980	Darrell Griffith	0	1	52.0	82.0	-10.4
22	Miami FL	1965	Rick Berry	0	1	104.0	108.0	-14.6

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!