As I get ready to play the Final 4 who made it through our latest Value Add Basketball Game Tournament to the Final 4 - I wanted to step back and list who I believe the 50 greatest teams actually are based on actual results.
In celebration of Indiana winning the actual football championship, I plan to next play the last undefeated team - Indiana 1976, against my current No. 1 of all time - the 1972 Bill Walton UCLA. The other semifinal game that has played out is Duke's 2001 team - which does come out 5th in the actual ratings below, against another UCLA dynasty team but not the one you would quite pick - in 1975.
However to get the true Top 50 of all time I used this method.
1. The SRS rating, except for teams from the early years who did not have one - in which case I took their current Value Add Basketball Game rating and multiplied it by 2.5 to get an estimate.
2. If there were more than 100 teams, I then subtracted the SRS of the 100th best team that season which really is needed to put teams on par since with more than 300 teams the best teams stretch further and further ahead of the middle team.
3. Almost all these teams won the title, but if they did not they lost 2 points for every game they fell short. So 1999 Duke would have been a 30.89 for 3rd greatest team ever, but they lost in the title game so they slipped to 6th.
No team who did not make the title game made the top 50, so I would give the honorable mention to four Final 4 teams - Houston in both 1968 and 2021, Auburn in 2019 and Kentucky in 2015 - all of whom would be on this list with one more win in their season.
The most fascinating note is that I wondered about the miracle 1983 NC State team ranking so high in my game, since they were a 7.5 point underdog to Houston when they won the title. However, the SRS rating actually picked NC State as the better team than Houston that season, though Houston also makes the list.
| Rnk | Team | Year | SRS>100th | Tourney | Adjusted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UCLA | 1972 | Bill Walton #44 | 32.56 | Champion | 32.56 |
| 2 | UCLA | 1968 | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar #3 | 32.18 | Champion | 32.18 |
| 3 | UCLA | 1967 | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar #3 | 29.04 | Champion | 29.04 |
| 4 | Long Island University | 1939 | Irv Targoff | VABG * 2.5 | Champion | 27.5 |
| 5 | Duke | 2001 | Shane Battier | 26.94 | Champion | 26.94 |
| 6 | Duke | 1999 | Shane Battier | 28.89 | Runner-up | 26.89 |
| 7 | UCLA | 1969 | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar #3 | 26.64 | Champion | 26.64 |
| 8 | Indiana | 1976 | Scott May | 25.88 | Champion | 25.88 |
| 9 | UCLA | 1973 | Bill Walton #44 | 27.63 | Runner-up | 25.63 |
| 10 | Ohio State | 1960 | Jerry Lucas #46, John Havlicek #29 | 25.46 | Champion | 25.46 |
| 11 | NC State | 1974 | David Thompson | 25.04 | Champion | 25.04 |
| 12 | San Francisco | 1956 | Bill Russell #6 | VABG * 2.5 | Champion | 25 |
| 13 | UCLA | 1970 | Sidney Wicks | 24.97 | Champion | 24.97 |
| 14 | Kentucky | 1996 | Antoine Walker | 24.79 | Champion | 24.79 |
| 15 | North Carolina | 1993 | Vince Carter | 24.52 | Champion | 24.52 |
| 16 | UCLA | 1975 | Dave Meyers | 24.3 | Champion | 24.3 |
| 17 | Georgetown | 1984 | Patrick Ewing #40 | 23.5 | Champion | 23.5 |
| 18 | North Carolina | 2005 | Sean May | 22.68 | Champion | 22.68 |
| 19 | North Carolina | 1982 | Michael Jordan #1, James Worthy #56 | 22.6 | Champion | 22.6 |
| 20 | NC State | 1983 | Lorenzo Charles | 22.2 | Champion | 22.2 |
| 21 | Michigan | 1989 | Glen Rice | 23.29 | Runner-up | 21.29 |
| 22 | Kansas | 2008 | Mario Chalmers | 21.09 | Champion | 21.09 |
| 23 | Duke | 1992 | Christian Laettner | 20.95 | Champion | 20.95 |
| 24 | UNLV | 1990 | Larry Johnson | 20.28 | Champion | 20.28 |
| 25 | Villanova | 2018 | Mikal Bridges | 20.23 | Champion | 20.23 |
| 26 | Michigan State | 2000 | Mateen Cleaves | 20.02 | Champion | 20.02 |
| 27 | CCNY | 1950 | Floyd Lane | VABG * 2.5 | Champion | 20 |
| 28 | Cincinnati | 1962 | Paul Hogue | VABG * 2.5 | Champion | 20 |
| 29 | Connecticut | 1999 | Richard Hamilton | 19.83 | Champion | 19.83 |
| 30 | North Carolina | 2009 | Tyler Hansbrough | 19.81 | Champion | 19.81 |
| 31 | Arkansas | 1994 | Corliss Williamson | 19.72 | Champion | 19.72 |
| 32 | Connecticut | 2023 | Adama Sanogo | 19.7 | Champion | 19.7 |
| 33 | Duke | 2010 | Jon Scheyer | 19.45 | Champion | 19.45 |
| 34 | Duke | 1991 | Christian Laettner | 21.44 | Runner-up | 19.44 |
| 35 | Connecticut | 2004 | Ben Gordon | 19.4 | Champion | 19.4 |
| 36 | Virginia | 2019 | Kyle Guy | 19.05 | Champion | 19.05 |
| 37 | Kentucky | 2012 | Anthony Davis #71 | 18.98 | Champion | 18.98 |
| 38 | Louisville | 2013 | Russ Smith | 18.94 | Champion | 18.94 |
| 39 | Duke | 2015 | Justise Winslow | 18.9 | Champion | 18.9 |
| 40 | Houston | 1983 | Hakeem Olajuwon #13, Clyde Drexler #53 | 20.7 | Runner-up | 18.7 |
| 41 | Gonzaga | 2017 | Nigel Williams-Goss | 20.7 | Runner-up | 18.7 |
| 42 | North Carolina | 2017 | Justin Jackson | 18.63 | Champion | 18.63 |
| 43 | Baylor | 2021 | Jared Butler | 18.61 | Champion | 18.61 |
| 44 | Maryland | 2002 | Juan Dixon | 18.4 | Champion | 18.4 |
| 45 | Florida | 2007 | Walter Clayton Jr. | 18.24 | Champion | 18.24 |
| 46 | Michigan | 1993 | Chris Webber #76 | 18.2 | Champion | 18.2 |
| 47 | Villanova | 2016 | Josh Hart | 17.78 | Champion | 17.78 |
| 48 | UCLA | 1995 | Ed O'Bannon | 19.2 | Runner-up | 17.2 |
| 49 | Kansas | 1997 | Paul Pierce #62 | 17.2 | Runner-up | 15.2 |
| 50 | Cincinnati | 1960 | Oscar Robertson #9 | VABG * 2.5 | Champion | 15 |
.png)


.png)
.png)
.png)

.png)
.png)