UConn Dominates, Added as 1 of 4 New Women's Value Add Basketball Teams

While we had switched to our Statis-Pro baseball half of the season, today's basketball women's championship  required another post ...

UConn looked every bit as dominant as the great teams over the years in two blowout wins in the Final 4 this weekend to take the schools 12th championship. It has been a while (2016) since we added a UConn Women's team to the Value Add Basketball Game, so we have calculated their cards along with three other Sweet 16 teams we are adding because their school was not yet represented in the game - Mississippi, Kansas State, and the second best 2025 team we are adding - TCU. Last year's South Carolina team is already in the game, and we usually wait at least a few years to add a new team.

Here are the cards which you can use, but they will be added to the list on the game instructions soon for easier printing.

The following are links to the 10 players from each team in the game. Our format limits us to including the 10 main players for each team to fit on the one sheet - with five starters in the top row and five players off the bench in the bottom row.

Player	Great_Team	pos
Kaitlyn Chen	Connecticut 2025, 5'9, ppg 7.1	1-PG
Azzi Fudd	Connecticut 2025, 5'11, ppg 13.3	2-SG
Paige Bueckers	Connecticut 2025, 5'11, ppg 20	3-SF
Sarah Strong	Connecticut 2025, 6'2, ppg 16.2	4-PF
Jana El Alfy	Connecticut 2025, 6'4, ppg 5.1	5-C
KK Arnold	Connecticut 2025, 5'9, ppg 5.4	1-PG
Ice Brady	Connecticut 2025, 6'3, ppg 3.7	2-SG
Ashlynn Shade	Connecticut 2025, 5'10, ppg 7.8	3-SF
Morgan Cheli	Connecticut 2025, 6'2, ppg 2.5	4-PF
Aubrey Griffin	Connecticut 2025, 6'1, ppg 4.7	5-C
Serena Sundell	Kansas St. 2025, 6'1, ppg 14.1	1-PG
Zyanna Walker	Kansas St. 2025, 5'8, ppg 8.2	2-SG
Jaelyn Glenn	Kansas St. 2025, 6'1, ppg 9.7	3-SF
Temira Poindexter	Kansas St. 2025, 6'1, ppg 12.5	4-PF
Ayoka Lee	Kansas St. 2025, 6'6, ppg 15.4	5-C
Taryn Sides	Kansas St. 2025, 5'6, ppg 9.2	1-PG
Gisela Sanchez	Kansas St. 2025, 6'3, ppg 4.2	2-SG
Eliza Maupin	Kansas St. 2025, 6'3, ppg 3.9	3-SF
Imani Lester	Kansas St. 2025, 6'3, ppg 2.4	4-PF
Kennedy Taylor	Kansas St. 2025, 6'3, ppg 7.1	5-C
Tameiya Sadler	Mississippi 2025, 5'8, ppg 6.7	1-PG
Madison Scott	Mississippi 2025, 6'1, ppg 11.8	2-SG
Kennedy Todd-Williams	Mississippi 2025, 5'11, ppg 11.4	3-SF
Sira Thienou	Mississippi 2025, 6'0, ppg 10.5	4-PF
Starr Jacobs	Mississippi 2025, 6'2, ppg 10.9	5-C
KK Deans	Mississippi 2025, 5'8, ppg 9.3	1-PG
Mariyah Noel	Mississippi 2025, 5'10, ppg 2.2	2-SG
Ayanna Thompson	Mississippi 2025, 6'1, ppg 2.3	3-SF
Kharyssa Richardson	Mississippi 2025, 6'2, ppg 3.7	4-PF
Christeen Iwuala	Mississippi 2025, 6'2, ppg 6.8	5-C
Hailey Van Lith	TCU 2025, 5'7, ppg 17.9	1-PG
Donovyn Hunter	TCU 2025, 6'0, ppg 5.9	2-SG
Madison Conner	TCU 2025, 5'11, ppg 14.4	3-SF
Agnes Emma-Nnopu	TCU 2025, 5'11, ppg 6.5	4-PF
Sedona Prince	TCU 2025, 6'7, ppg 17.2	5-C
Una Jovanovic	TCU 2025, 5'9, ppg 2	1-PG
Knisha Godfrey	TCU 2025, 5'9, ppg 1.7	2-SG
Taylor Bigby	TCU 2025, 6'1, ppg 5.9	3-SF
Aaliyah Roberson	TCU 2025, 6'2, ppg 4.7	4-PF
Deasia Merrill	TCU 2025, 6'1, ppg 3.9	5-C

Toussaint Scores 16 for UVa in Replay - but UConn 1995 Still Too Strong

In the game we needed to replay because we accidentally left Dominique Toussaint's card out of the UVa 2018 team, the teams leading scorer scored their first two basket while getting an early steal, and finished with a team-high 16 points. He helped UVa keep the game within 30-26 early in the second half.

However, the 35-0 UConn 1995 women's team that started it all with the first men's or women's national basketball title, was way too much in the second half. That championship was the first of 17 UConn basketball championships in the last 30 years (11 women's and seven men's).

It was a match-up of the two shooting guards, Toussiant and UConn's Nykesha Sales who had a game high 19 points, three 3-pointers and four steals in the 81-57 win. Despite the game staying close much longer than the game without Toussaint, in the end the domination was only one point less than the first match-up.

    

Pos	Virginia 2018	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	J'Kyra Brown	9	0	2	5	5	1	2	0	1	5'11,9.5 Pts
2-SG	Dominique Toussaint	16	1	4	5	6	3	2	0	2	5'9, 11.4 Pts
3-SF	Aliyah Huland El	8	0	4	0	0	3	1	0	1	6'1, 10.1 Pts
4-PF	Jocelyn Willoughby	8	0	3	2	2	7	1	0	1	6'0, 9.6 Pts
5-C	Felicia Aiyeotan	6	0	3	0	0	8	0	5	1	6'9, 7.4 Pts
Pos	Visitor Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Brianna Tinsley	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'7,4.1 Pts
2-SG	Khyasia Caldwell	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'5,0.9 Pts
3-SF	Mone Jones	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3, 0.5 Pts
4-PF	Lauren Moses	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	2	6'2, 7.2 Pts
5-C	Lisa Jablonowski	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3, 2.3 Pts
	3 Turnovers	57	1	21	12	13	28	6	5	12
Pos	Connecticut 1995	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Jennifer Rizzotti	8	0	4	0	0	2	1	0	3	12.5 pts, 5'5
2-SG	Nykesha Sales	19	3	5	0	0	1	4	1	4	11.4 pts, 6'0
3-SF	Jamelle Elliott	4	0	2	0	0	4	0	0	1	10.9 pts, 6'0
4-PF	Rebecca Lobo	9	1	3	0	0	12	1	5	2	17.1 pts, 6'4
5-C	Kara Wolters	16	0	8	0	2	7	0	2	1	15.2 pts, 6'7
Pos	Home Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Actual Stats
1-PG	Pam Webber	5	1	1	0	0	7	0	0	1	4.6 pts, 5'6
2-SG	Kim Better	8	1	2	1	2	3	1	0	1	4.8 pts, 5'7
3-SF	Carla Berube	8	0	4	0	0	3	0	0	1	8.5 pts, 6'0
4-PF	Kelley Hunt	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.2 pts, 6'2
5-C	Brenda Marquis	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.6 pts, 6'3
	3 Turnovers	81	6	31	1	4	41	7	8	16

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. 

#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.

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. 

16 All-Time Great Women's College Teams to be Added to Game

Basketball Reference is doing a great job of building up women's historic stats. Still a work on progress, but I believe I have pulled enough from them and other sources to pull together an initial all-time great Women's teams for the Value Add Basketball Game.

I try to pull the greatest teams but also teams with the greatest players of all time so they have cards. Here is a great piece on Nate Silver's site tracking the women's dynasties.

I try to pick as many different schools as possible, so to do that Baylor and UConn are the only schools with two teams even though they and Tennessee and the new South Carolina teams could fill out a whole game.

We are also limited by which teams have stats, or at least enough accounts of games that I can compile the player cards. 

Here are the 16 teams I intend to roll out as early as this weekend if the calculations go well.

School	Year	Season	Star Player - POY at some point in career
Baylor	2012	Nat'l Champs	Odyssey Sims & Brittney Griner (both POY)
Baylor	2019	Nat'l Champs	NaLyssa Smith (POY)
Connecticut	2010	Nat'l Champs	Maya Moore (POY)
Connecticut	2016	Nat'l Champs	Breanna Stewart (POY)
Duke	2002	Final 4	Alana Beard
Louisiana Tech	1982	Nat'l Champs	Pam Kelly (POY)
Notre Dame	2018	Nat'l Champs	Arike Ogunbowale (POY)
Ohio St.	2016	Sweet 16	Kelsey Mitchell (POY)
Oregon	2019	Final 4	Sabrina Ionescu
South Carolina	2017	Nat'l Champs	A'ja Wilson (POY)
Stanford	2021	Nat'l Champs	Haley Jones
Tennessee	1998	Nat'l Champs	Chamique Holdsclaw (POY)
Texas	2018	Sweet 16	Brooke McCarty
Texas A&M	2011	Nat'l Champs	Danielle Adams
USC	1984	Nat'l Champs	Cheryl Miller (POY)
Washington	2017	Sweet 16	Kelsey Plum

Trying to figure out if we can cobble together numbers for an Old Dominion University and/or Long Beach State team.

We can go with Madison Montgomery's 2017 Long Beach State team as we have their stats, though obviously would prefer to pull together some info on the back-to-back Final Four teams from 1987 and 1988.

For Old Dominion we don't even have their 2008 team stats, though would love to have 1985 of course.