Despite Rim Protecting Star early Foul Out, Cincy Stakes Claim to Best Ever in Beating Syracuse

In light of their best player Paul Hogue fouling out to only play 22 of 57 possessions in the game, and going up against one of the greatest players and scoring point guards in history in Dave Bing who led this Syracuse team to 99 points per game in 1966, the Cincinnati 1962 team staked their claim as the best team in history with an 80-66 win in their Value Add Basketball Game debut.

Jim Boeheim was the only major college men's coach to top 1000 wins besides coach K, but it was his college roommate Dave Bing who was named as one of the 75 greatest by the NBA.

Our games start in a 20-20 tie with 22 possessions assumed already played, when Vaughn Harper drew a 5th foul despite Hogue "playing to avert the foul, Syracuse took the lead 43-42, but the Bearcats responded by stopping Syracuse's high powered offense on the next 13 possessions to take a 54-43 lead. Teams average about 1.0 points per trip down the court, but the Bearcats only allowed Syracuse 0.81 points per trip.  Not on the scoresheet that Syracuse 1966 games are so high paced that both teams get an extra 10 possessions because of their fast pace.

 

Team	Dunk Range	Pts	Possessions	Per Trip
Syracuse 1966	51-51	46	57	0.81
Cincinnati 1962	51-66	60	56	1.07

Except for a few high paced teams like Syracuse, Value Add Basketball Games actually last 44 to 53 possessions in actual play depending on how many of the last nine possessions (fine 5 minutes) result in an extra possession due to a fast break style or foul, and since that happened three times in this game in addition to the 10 extra possessions at the beginning based on Syracuse's cards, that totalled 57 possessions actually played (remember this is really a 77 possession game since we assumed that 22 possessions at the beginning of each game resulted in a 20-20 tie before we start rolling the dice).

The reason Cincinnati had one extra possession is that we always have the team leading the game by more than a few points hold the ball on the final possession rather than try to run up the score.

Strategy Tip: Avoiding a Foul

Hogue was in foul trouble so playing to avoid the foul which meant the following three adjustments are made:

The defender does not commit a foul on his own card but the three possible four possible foul numbers - 33-36 - all turn into made baskets.

The player avoiding the foul also cannot attempt a steal in the 11-16,31 possible steal numbers OR for Hogue more importantly not attempt a blocked shot on the 21-26, 32 numbers all of which are normally blocked shots for Hogue.

The only way to commit a foul despite this strategy is if the offensive player you are guarding draws a foul on the 20-sided die, Therefore Hogue started guarding George Hicker who only has one foul drawn number (10) on the 20-sided die, instead of Vaughn Harper (9-11 draws foul) or Val Reid (10-12) who both have three foul numbers. However, when Hicker took his normal rest on possessions 37-31 Hogue was back on Harper, and with 32 possessions left Harper drew the 5th foul.

Even without Hogue, the Bearcats have so many dominant, physical players, that they still dominated the Board 45-33 behind 10 rebounds each by George Wilson and Tom Thacker.

Thacker was the MVP of the game for his defense on Bing. Thacker is one of only a few of the 3000+ players in our game to have steals and blocks on all 6 numbers of each - so when the ball goes to the opposing player on an 8-sided die roll of 2, Thacker steals it on 11-16 or blocks a shot on 21-26 - so one third of every time the opponent tries to score.

The rules are different when a star player gets the ball on a 6,7 or 8 as it is considered team defense and any defensive player can steal or block on any player BUT on far fewer rolls On team defense:

Roll of

11 - only a defender with 11-13 or better steals

12 - only a defender with 11-16 steals.

13 - only a defender with 11-16 AND 31 steals.

14-16 or 31 - NOT a steal if 8-sided die was 6, 7 or 8.

21 - only a defender with 21-23 or better blocks shot.

22 - only a defender with 21-26 blocks shot.

23 - only a defender with 21-26 AND 31 blocks shot.

24-26 or 32 - NOT a block if 8-sided die was 6, 7 or 8.

In addition, the entire Bearcats defense is an elite -5 on adjusting opponents dunks, which meant Syracuse only got a bucket at the hoop on a roll of 51 (Normal Syracuse dunk range of 51-59, minus 5 for Cincinnati defense to get to 51-53, then minus another two because the Cincinnati 51-59 PLUS the really bad Syracuse defense of +5 actually meant Cincinnati was two numbers higher than the maximum 51-66 on the dunk chart, and if we have to lower one team by 2 to fit the maximum 51-66 dunk range the we lower the other team by 2 as well.

So Bing did get free some, and in fact had a game high 21 points, but Thacker's incredible defense held him well below is 28.4 ppg average.
 

Pos	Syracuse 1966, #198 all-time	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Season
1-PG	Frank Nicoletti	3	0	1	1	2	4	1	0	5	6'2,1.9pt
2-SG	Dave Bing	21	1	9	0	0	6	1	0	4	6'3,NBA^28.4pt
3-SF	Jim Boeheim	5	1	1	0	0	4	0	0	4	6'4,14.6pt
4-PF	George Hicker	13	0	5	3	4	3	4	2	2	6'2,15.1pt
5-C	Vaughn Harper	5	0	2	1	2	9	3	4	3	6'4,9pt
1-PG	Richard Dean	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	6'6,12.9pt
2-SG	Richard Cornwall	6	1	1	1	2	7	0	0	1	5'10,6.7pt
3-SF	Sam Penceal	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	6'3,3.8pt
4-PF	Norman Goldsmith	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	6'3,3.4pt
5-C	Val Reid	5	0	1	3	4	0	0	0	1	6'9,3.2pt
	Totals	66	3	24	9	14	33	9	6	24
Pos	Cincinnati 1962, #2 all-time	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Season
1-PG	Tony Yates	11	0	1	9	11	5	4	0	2	6'1,8.2pt
2-SG	Tom Thacker	12	2	1	4	6	10	2	5	1	6'2,NBA^11.0pt
3-SF	Ron Bonham	17	1	4	6	7	5	1	2	3	6'5,NBA^14.3pt
4-PF	George Wilson	9	2	1	1	3	10	1	4	3	6'8,NBA^9.2pt
5-C	Paul Hogue	8	0	4	0	0	7	0	2	5	6'9,NBA^16.8pt
1-PG	Tom Sizer	5	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2,2.7pt
2-SG	Larry Shingleton	8	0	4	0	0	4	0	0	2	5'10,3.9pt
3-SF	Fred Dierking	8	1	2	1	1	1	0	0	1	6'6,4.1pt
4-PF	Dale Heidotting	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'8,3.1pt
	Totals	80	7	19	21	28	45	8	13	19

Boeheim Leads Fast Pace Syracuse in Upset Bid vs. Cincinnati

 Jim Boeheim ran a disciplined 2-3 zone to take Syracuse to championships, but as a player with all time great Dave Bing the 1966 Syracuse team road a "defense optional" style to average 99 points per game to take the Orange Men to their first Final 8 in nine years.

Even No. 2 Vanderbilt could not slow them down during the season, though Vandy did survive a 113-98.

This is the 2nd of 4 games pitting a team added to the game because they were part of the 10 greatest dynasties ever (Cincinnati, the 1-seed) vs. four teams added because one of their players has broken into the NBA top 75 players of all time - in this case 16-seed Syracuse's case Dave Bing.

Note at the bottom of Syracuse's team sheet that an extra 10 possessions will be played because of the number of extra possessions Syracuse created due to their fast pace. As shown in the bracket at the bottom, the winner of this game gets the winner of the 8 v 9 game between UNLV 1991 and UNC 2017.

Cincinnati already had the 1960 team of Oscar Robertson in the Value Add Basketball Game, but this team with their next batch of stars comes into the game as the No. 2 ranked team in our entire game.

The 2-seed right behind them, UCLA's undefeated team from two years later, was already impressive in the first "great team against great player" match-up when they beat Villanova 85-65.

Cincinnati has a +17 rating, which combined with Syracuse's -7 makes Cincy a 24-point favorite in the game which would make an upset the biggest upset yet in our 305 games played since the invention of the game. DePaul 1981 with Mark Aguire and Terry Cummings won despite being 18-point underdogs against Kareem's UCLA teams to capture the biggest upset yet.

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!