In the 4th annual Value Add Basketball Tournament, we’re excited to feature a truly unique matchup: three of the greatest basketball coaches of all time—Jim Boeheim, Dean Smith, and Al McGuire—AS COLLEGE PLAYERS a competing against some of the most iconic players and dynasties in basketball history.
We’ve created new matchups for our fourth tournament by adding eight new teams based on two key criteria: ensuring that all 28 college dynasties included in my recent CBS Sports piece on the 28 greatest dynasties as well as any team with a player featured in the NBA's recent 75th Anniversary Team.
Seeding and Tournament Breakdown:
The seeding worked out beautifully, with four newly identified dynasties being added to the mix and matched against teams that have either already been in the tournament or are looking to regain their spot in the race for the title. Among the new teams, four are favored against underdog teams added because one of their players was named by the NBA as one of the 75 greatest in history, while the remaining four face off against previous favorites who have had to bounce back after surprising upsets.
8 New All-Time Great Teams from Dynasties:
While we’ve previously included teams from UCLA, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Kansas in our Value Add Basketball Game (read more here), we realized several key dynasties runs from those schools were missing. To fill this gap, we’ve added six teams from these storied programs, along with two “non-blue blood” teams that also had a lasting impact on college basketball.
Cincinnati 1962 (Paul Hogue)
Seed: 1 | All-Time Rank: 2
Cincinnati, featuring Paul Hogue, is ranked among the top teams, thanks to a dynastic stretch post-Oscar Robertson and his 1960 team already in the game (of the 234 teams, this broke our rule of no two teams within two years of each other to avoid much overlaps in players).
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UCLA 1964 (Walt Hazzard)
Seed: 2 | All-Time Rank: 3
With Walt Hazzard leading the way, this UCLA team remains one of the most dominant in history. We originally treated the 1964-75 UCLA run as one dynasty, but decided to instead threat it as four 3-year dynasties to include the 1964 and 1975 teams in addition to Kareem's 1968 and Walton's 1972.%20(6).png)
UCLA 1975 (Dave Meyers)
Seed: 3 | All-Time Rank: 14
This team, led by Dave Meyers, brings UCLA’s deep tradition into the fold, and not only did this team get John Wooden one final title, but they faced the toughest competition (Strength of Schedule) of any other dynasty EXCEPT Michigan's Fab 5 and Michael Jordan's UNC champs.
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Kentucky 1978 (Jack Givens)
Seed: 4 | All-Time Rank: 18
Jack Givens’ Kentucky squad had a magical run to the title and will be looking to make another deep tournament run.
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North Carolina 2017 (Justin Jackson)
Seed: 9 | All-Time Rank: 47
The 2017 Tar Heels, led by Justin Jackson, will try to prove they deserve a higher ranking in this competitive field. They would have one back-to-back titles except for Villanova's buzzer beater the year before these champs.
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Kansas 1952 (Clyde Lovellette)
Seed: 10 | All-Time Rank: 85
Clyde Lovellette’s Kansas team is a historical powerhouse, but if they lose their openers they will fall to 5th place among Kansas teams. Paul Pierce and Mario Chalmers both have teams in our all-time Final 5, the recent 2022 champs are ahead of this time, and if they lose their first game they will slip behind Wilt Chamberlain and the 1957 squad.
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Connecticut 2011 (Kemba Walker)
Seed: 11 | All-Time Rank: 95
UConn’s 2011 national title squad, led by Kemba Walker, faces an uphill battle to prove themselves once again. This team did not look that strong until the tournament, which they simply picked the dribbles of opponents to never let them set up their offense, which they will definitely have to do again if this surprise champ from 2011 hopes to pull an upset in their first game against the overpowering champ from the year after they claimed their title - Kentucky 2012 and Anthony Davis. Whether or not they win in the game, the actual season was one of Jim Calhoun's most incredible title runs.
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Dartmouth 1944 (Dick McGuire)
Seed: 12 | All-Time Rank: 128
The "Dartmouth 1944 and Friends" team is a unique entry, combining players from the 1940s, including NBA legends Dick McGuire and his brother, Al McGuire, alongside military trainees who played during World War II. Though this team near had the same lineup, they nearly captured a national title, and we’re thrilled to see them make their debut.
Make no mistake, the star of this "Dartmouth and
Friends 1944" team and the actual 1944 team was Dick McGuire, who would go
onto dish out more than 4,000 assists in the NBA en route to being named an NBA
All-Star seven times and finishing 11th in MVP voting one year. This is our
only team of 310 Value Add Basketball Game teams in the game that does not use
the actual roster - but since the roster was changing every game anyway between
military training that year, we decided to put together this team to represent
the team that came so close to winning the title despite a new line-up every
game. As the only team in the game that includes players not
actually on the squad, I named them the “Dartmouth 1944 and Friends” team
with Dick McGuire -
Players were sharing time between
Marine and Navy training and playing some games but not others - making the win
over Big Ten champ Ohio State to improve to 19-1 to make their second national
title game in three years before an overtime 40-42 loss to Utah in the title
game even more impressive. We had left them out of the game due to how hard it
was to cobble together stats but decided to put together a "Dartmouth and
Friends" team using stats for five Dartmouth players from the 1940s that
made the NBA in addition to the two Marine trainees who played some of those
games between training and we let Dick bring his little brother Al McGuire to
play as well.
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- 4 New Teams Featuring All-Time Greatest NBA Players:
We also realized that several players who made ESPN’s
NBA 75th Anniversary Team (
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33297498/the-nba-75th-anniversary-team-ranked-where-76-basketball-legends-check-our-list) had college teams that deserved to be included. We’ve added these teams to the tournament, ensuring the best of both worlds: dominant college programs and some of the greatest NBA players ever.
Bowling Green 1963 (Nate Thurmond)
Seed: 13 | All-Time Rank: 129
Nate Thurmond led Bowling Green to the NCAA tournament twice, and his rebounding dominance will be critical in this competition. Bowling Green 1963 featuring Nate Thurmond #49 is
our tournament 13 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 129 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. Thurmond was the
first player NBA player to ever record a dradruple-double during his career,
and he once recorded 42 rebounds in a game – only topped by Bill Russell and
Wilt Chamberlain in the history of the NBA. He took Bowling Green to the NCAA tournament twice
and recorded 31 rebounds in his last college game.
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Detroit Mercy 1960 (Dave DeBusschere)
Seed: 14 | All-Time Rank: 140
DeBusschere, a unique two-sport athlete, led Detroit Mercy to national recognition before going on to an illustrious NBA career.Detroit Mercy 1960 featuring Dave DeBusschere #73
is our tournament 14 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 140 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. DeBusschere was also
an MLB baseball pitcher his first couple of years after taking Detroit Mercy to
the baseball and basketball national tournaments, but after two MLB seasons
focused on the NBA the rest of his career. According to Wikipedia, the only 12
other athletes to make the NBA and MLB are Danny Ainge, Frank Baumholtz, Hank
Biasatti, Gene Conley, Chuck Connors, DeBusschere, Dick Groat, Steve Hamilton,
Mark Hendrickson, Cotton Nash, Ron Reed, Dick Ricketts and Howie Schultz.
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Villanova 1950 (Paul Arizin)
Seed: 15 | All-Time Rank: 141
Arizin’s remarkable journey from being cut from his high school team to becoming a national player of the year is a testament to his incredible career. Villanova 1950 featuring Paul Arizin #66 is our
tournament 15 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 141 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. The coach at Arizin
high school deserved to be fired, because he cut Arizin from the team – but a
few years later Villanova’s coach saw him playing a CYO game and according to
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Arizin), “Severance approached
Arizin and asked him if he would like to go to Villanova, to which Arizin
answered: ‘I already go to Villanova.’" Perhaps the easiest and best recruiting
job ever. He scored 85 points in a game
and was named national player of the year in 1950.
Syracuse 1966 (Dave Bing, Seed: 16 | All-Time Rank: 198
Jim
Boeheim is our tournament 16 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H
and No. 198 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. He
revolutionized the point guard position as a tall athletic player who did all
the distribution you want in a point guard, but also scored at will - finishing fifth in the nation by his senior
season before a great NBA career. While he was certainly well known after
becoming Mayor of Detroit, his roommate and teammate Jim Boeheim went onto be arguably the greatest
coach in the history of college basketball. Ironically we stumbled on three
coaching legends accidentally by pulling up these teams, so now have player
cards for Boeheim, Dean Smith (from Kansas 1952) and Al McGuire’s brother Dick
McGuire from Dartmouth 1944.
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4 Teams Rebounding from Surprising Upsets:
Finally, we have four teams that experienced shocking upsets in previous tournaments. These teams are hungry for redemption and will look to prove that their losses were mere flukes.
Kentucky 2012 (Anthony Davis)
Seed: 5 | All-Time Rank: 21 Kentucky 2012 featuring Anthony Davis #53 is our
tournament 5 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 21 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. Kentucky is 4-2 in
our game, and has looked dominant in winning those four games by an average of
17 points – just what we thought would happen in our game. One of their two
losses was in our first big tournament of 96 teams, where they can be excused
for being upset by Michael Jordan. However, when we had only developed teams
since the www.kenpom.com pages were compiled
in 2002, they were stung by another upset by the Auburn 2019 team. We put them at No. 2 in our preseason rankings,
but they dropped to their current No. 21 due to that loss, so we want to see if
they are elite.
Duke 1992 (Christian Laettner)
Seed: 6 | All-Time Rank: 26
Duke 1992 featuring Christian Laettner is our
tournament 6 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 26 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. The legendary Duke
1992 team was No. 10 all-time in our preseason ranking, and the Laettner years
is ranked as one of the best five dynasties of all time in our recent CBS
Sports piece https://247sports.com/college/marquette/article/john-pudner-marquette-kryptonite-only-blemish-as-22-24-uconn-soars-in-top-10-all-time-rankings-242853394/.
However, after never losing the heartbreakers during their actual run, they did
lose two heartbreakers – on a last second shot by Michael Jordan and their hated
rivals, and then again to their hated Big East rivals UConn 2004 to drop from
our 10th all-time best team to 26th for now – hoping for
a win to shoot back up.
UCLA 1967 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
Seed: 7 | All-Time Rank: 35
UCLA 1967 featuring Kareem Abdul-Jabbar #3 is our
tournament 7 -seed currently ranks as our No. H:H and
No. 35 in our rating of the greatest teams ever. Kareem’s UCLA only
lost once in our game – as they did in real life against Houston in the “Game
of the Century,” but it was the biggest upset in the 304 games we’ve played
since inventing the Value Add Basketball Game.
UCLA’s team is rated a +13 in our Value Add Basketball Game, good enough
to start the season as our No. 3 team in addition to being ranked our No. 1 dynasty,
and was therefore a 16-point favorite up against the DePaul 1980 team that was a
-3. Hoewver, Mark Aguire and Terry Cummings no only pulled the biggest upset in
our 304 games, but kept the tempo fast with steals to not let UCLA settle and
work it into Kareem, and the Blue Demons not only won but pulled away 86-71 to
send UCLA plunging all the way to 35th all-time in our game.
UNLV 1991 (Larry Johnson)
Seed: 8 | All-Time Rank: 45
The Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV were once considered a top-tier team, but a string of upsets has dropped them down the rankings. Now, they’re back for redemption.UNLV 1991 featuring Larry Johnson is our
tournament 8 -seed currently ranks as our No. 45 in our
rating of the greatest teams ever. This story was familiar – UNLV looked like one
of the best ever as the 11th ranked team all-time in our game.
However, they dropped all the way to 45th after two losses and need
this tournament to try to reestablish themselves as elite. It was the 1991 Christian
Laettner team that stunned them in the rematch in real life in 1991, and in the
game it was the 2001 Duke team from a decade later that beat them. That was not the game that dropped them a lot
though – rather it was the 1966 national champs from Texas Western, the same
team that would become UTEP and made history as the first all-Black starting
team in a title game that beat the all-white Kentucky team of Adolf Rupp and
his white socks.
Conclusion:
This year's Value Add Basketball Tournament promises to be one of the most exciting and unpredictable yet, with fresh faces, familiar dynasties, and historic players competing for the ultimate title. Will the new additions prove their place among the greatest teams of all time, or will the established powers reclaim their spots? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: it’s going to be an unforgettable tournament for someone like me who loves to relive and learn about the greatest teams and players by seeing their strengths in the course of games..
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