No. 1 UCLA 1964 TOO SMALL for 1975 UCLA, 87-64

 The 1964 UCLA starters were all 6'5 or under and would have faced the ultimate modern "too small" taunt from the UCLA team from 11 years later, a team that had a 6'4 point guard and four other players who averaged 6'11.

As you can see from the scoresheet, the giant 1975 squad dominated the previous No. 1 squad 87-64 to advance to the final game against the winner of now No. 1 Cincinnati 1962 vs. No. 7 Kentucky 2012.

Here is the updated top 10, as the 1975 UCLA squad rises to No. 3:

1. Cincy 1962 - 2-0 and +16.6 rating

2. UCLA 1972 - 6-0 and +16.2

3. UCLA 1975 - 3-0 and +13.6

4. Kansas 2008 - 5-1 and +13.0

5. Kansas 1997 - 5-0 and +12.8

6. UCLA 1964 - 2-1 and +12.5

7. Kentucky 2012 - 6-2 and +11.8

8. Ohio State 1960 - 2-1 and +11.8

9. Indiana 1976 - 3-1 and +11.3

10. Duke 2001 - 3-1 and +11.1

All-Time Final 4 Teams Rise in Top 10 Ever

We updated our ranking of the 248 great all-time Value Add Basketball Game teams, and the teams that made the Final 4 of our 4th tournament are all in the Top 10.

Anthony Davis. 2012 Kentucky team started the season 3rd, but dropped after a couple of early losses, but dominated in this tournament and is all the way back up to 6th with a 6-2 mark as one of the original 21st century teams. They will face a team from two hours away, the 1962 Cincinnati squad with another dominant big man in Paul Hogue - a team we ranked as 2nd of all time based on their cards and is still 2nd place heading into this game.

The first and last teams of the 12-year UCLA dominance meet in the other semifinal. It is the all-time height mismatch. Dave Meyers leads the final team of the run, 1975, which features a 6-foot-4 point guard and four other players who average 6'11. They face the first team of the run, the 1964 squad that featured no starter taller than 6'5. However, itis the 1964 squad that has moved from 4th to 1st place all-time heading into the game, while the 1975 squad has moved up from 11th to 9th. 

The 1972 UCLA team won the first 96-team tournament and has still not played since then, and was ranked first until this week when both the 1964 squad and the Cincinnati 1962 team passed them for 1st and 2nd.  The two Kansas teams are surprises, starting the season at a strong but not elite 56th and 22nd of all time before Kansas 1997 won our second tournament, and won our second tournament while the 2008 team just dominated a season of all-time Big 12 teams.

You can review the ranking of all 248 teams and all game results on this google sheet.

The Final 4 teams are in red.

    

Rnk	Pre	Teams	Yr	Star	Conf	W	L	Rat	Pre	Off	OffR	Def	DefR	SOS	SoSR
1	4	UCLA	1964	Walt Hazzard	SEC	2	0	18.6	14	81.5	16	68.5	40	5	13
2	2	Cincinnati	1962	Paul Hogue	Amer	2	0	16.6	16	76.5	46	68.5	42	2	59
3	1	UCLA	1972	Bill Walton #64	B10	6	0	16.2	17	72	87	62	6	5	18
4	56	Kansas	2008	Mario Chalmers	B12	5	1	13	2	74.7	62	56	1	1	80
5	22	Kansas	1997	Paul Pierce #50	B12	5	0	12.8	7	76.8	42	62.4	9	0	95
6	3	Kentucky	2012	Anthony Davis #53	SEC	6	2	11.8	15	75.6	51	66.3	31	-2	121
7	8	Ohio St.	1960	Jerry Lucas #72, John Havlicek #29	B10	2	1	11.8	10	84	13	76.3	114	2	56
8	9	Indiana	1976	Scott May	B10	3	1	11.3	10	71.3	97	59.8	4	-2	123
9	11	UCLA	1975	Dave Meyers	SEC	2	0	11.3	10	75	56	72.5	82	4	22
10	6	Duke	2001	Shane Battier	ACC	3	1	11.1	12	78.3	33	72.5	81	5	14

Hurley's 2017 Rhode Island and Northern Iowa 2015 Added to Value Add Basketball Game

While we want to add teams for schools not yet in the Value Add Basketball Game, we decided on the criteria. The school must either put have two years within four years in which they win a tournament game or go Final 4 in the NIT, or have a team that makes an Elite 8 run.

In setting this up for new potential teams, we actually realized we missed two teams - Dan Hurley's last two Rhode Island teams both won a tournament game in 2016 and 2017, and we added the 2017 team - while we added the 2015 Northern Iowa team. The following are their players and then the team in sheet form that will be added.

Northern Iowa is ranked as the 139th greatest team in our game. Their rating is -4, meaning they are about4 points worse than the average great team in the game, which is typically an Elite 8 team that was also ranked around 8th.

Rhode Island is ranked as the 177th greatest team in our game. Their rating is -7.

 

Northern Iowa 2015	Ht	ppg	Pos
Deon Mitchell	6'1	7.5ppg	1-PG
Matt Bohannon	6'4	5.7ppg	2-SG
Jeremy Morgan	6'5	5.6ppg	3-SF
Marvin Singleton	6'6	4.7ppg	4-PF
Seth Tuttle	6'8	15.3All-Am	5-C
Wes Washpun	6'1	7.6ppg	1-PG
Wyatt Lohaus	6'2	3.8ppg	2-SG
Paul Jesperson	6'6	5.9ppg	3-SF
Nate Buss	6'9	7.7ppg	4-PF
Bennett Koch	6'9	1.4ppg	5-C
Off 107 Def 94 Rating -4	Rnk 139
Rhode Island 2017	Ht	ppg	Pos
Jeff Dowtin	nba,6'3	5.5ppg	1-PG
Jared Terrell	nba,6'3	12.6ppg	2-SG
EC Matthews	6'5	14.9ppg	3-SF
Hassan Martin	6'7	13.6ppg	4-PF
Kuran Iverson	6'9	9.6ppg	5-C
Jarvis Garrett	6'0	6.0ppg	1-PG
Christion Thompson	6'4	2.5ppg	2-SG
Stanford Robinson	6'4	8.4ppg	3-SF
Nicola Akele	6'8	2.9ppg	4-PF
Cyril Langevine	6'8	3.2ppg	5-C
Off 109 Def 99 Rating -7	Rnk 177

Cincy 1962 Holds Off UNLV 73-71 to face Kentucky 2 hours to the South in Final 4

Pos	UNLV 1991 (Dunk 51-54)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Height	Actual Season
1-PG	Greg Anthony	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	2	nba,6'1	11.6 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 8.9 Ast
2-SG	Stacey Augmon	13	1	5	0	0	3	4	2	2	nba,6'6	16.5 Pts, 7.3 Reb, 3.6 Ast
3-SF	Anderson Hunt	10	2	2	0	0	4	0	0	1	6'1	17.2 Pts, 1.6 Reb, 2.9 Ast
4-PF	Elmore Spencer	4	0	1	2	2	2	0	1	3	nba,7'1	6.4 Pts, 4.0 Reb, 1.2 Ast
5-C	Larry Johnson	24	0	9	6	6	9	1	0	3	nba,6'6	22.7 Pts, 10.9 Reb, 3.0 Ast
1-PG	Evric Gray	7	0	3	1	5	1	0	1	2	nba,6'7	6.8 Pts, 3.7 Reb, 1.4 Ast
2-SG	Travis Bice	7	1	1	2	2	3	0	0	2	6'5	4.7 Pts, 0.6 Reb, 0.7 Ast
3-SF	George Ackles	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'9	8.2 Pts, 5.7 Reb, 0.8 Ast
4-PF	Bobby Joyce	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'7	2.3 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 0.3 Ast
		0
	Turnovers 16	71	4	24	11	15	28	5	4	17
Pos	Cincinnati 1962 (51-63)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Height	Summary
1-PG	Tony Yates	5	0	2	1	1	2	2	0	1	6'1	8.2 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 4.3 Ast
2-SG	Tom Thacker	20	1	7	3	4	2	6	0	1	nba,6'2	11.0 Pts, 8.6 Reb, 3.4 Ast
3-SF	Ron Bonham	13	1	5	0	0	6	1	0	2	nba,6'5	14.3 Pts, 5.0 Reb, 1.1 Ast
4-PF	George Wilson	3	0	1	1	4	7	1	0	2	nba,6'8	9.2 Pts, 8.0 Reb, 1.1 Ast
5-C	Paul Hogue	18	0	8	2	2	13	0	6	5	nba,6'9	16.8 Pts, 12.4 Reb, 0.6 Ast
1-PG	Tom Sizer	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	0	3	6'2	2.7 Pts, 1.3 Reb, 1.2 Ast
2-SG	Larry Shingleton	6	1	1	1	2	2	0	0	1	5'10	3.9 Pts, 1.4 Reb, 0.8 Ast
3-SF	Fred Dierking	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'6	4.1 Pts, 2.9 Reb, 0.6 Ast
4-PF	Dale Heidotting	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'8	3.1 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 0.4 Ast
		0
	Turnovers 14	73	3	28	8	13	36	11	6	17

While Anthony Davis lead Kentucky 2012 to an easy Elite 8 win, their Final 5 opponent two hours to the north had to go to the wire to make the game. That game pitted two great centers with the threat that if either fouled out guarding each other it would give the other team a great chance. (see Value Add Basketball Game)

UNLV's 1991 center Larry Johnson, whose powerful game resulted in 22.7 point per game and a game-high 24 points in this game, did finally draw a 5th foul on Cincinnati 1962 Center Paul Hogue (16.8 pts and 12.4 average and 18,13 in this game) but it was not until less than a minute to play. Johnson hit both free throws to finish 6-6 from the line to cut it to 72-69, but Tom Thacker hit the first of two free throws to wrap up the win, and Stacey Augmon's bucket at the buzzer still left Cincinnati with the 73-71 win.

While this Final 4 Game will feature two teams just two hours from each other (the Cincinnati airport is actually in the state of Kentucky), while the other Final 4 game will be between teams in the same arena, as UCLA teams from1964 and 1975 face off.

AD Lays 2012 Claim to Top KY Team after 92-76 Win Over 1978 KY

In a game where 3 centers and 4 total players fouled out, Anthony Davis' 2012 team laid claim as best of the many Kentucky champs with a 92-76 win over Kentucky's 1978 squad.

The win puts moves our preseason #3 team back up to #13 and within half a rating point of #7 in our all-time ratings heading into a Final 4 against either UNLV or a team 2 hours to the north in Cincinnati.

Davis and the 1978 center Rick Robey are two of the greatest foul drawing centers in the history of college basketball. Davis is incredible at avoiding fouls and turnovers as the greatest college player of the century, and he drew the 5th foul first on Robey, but still had to contend with a great backup center in Mike Phillips, and both of them eventually fouled out. 

The 2012 squad then went small with an extra point guard Darius Miller, who also fouled out as well guarding all-time great pg Kyle Macy. Macy's elite PG status led to a 12 not being a steal late in the game, at which point Macy drilled a 3-pointer to finish 21 points.

However with Robey's early foul out, Davis scored 24 before fouling out then Terrence Jones scored 20 with 10 rebounds and 3 steals.

,

For Lack of a Rebound, Laettner Falls to Undefeated 1975 UCLA in Elite 8

When Pete Trogvich missed a shot in the closing moments it appeared his 1975 undefeated UCLA team would finish regulation 75-75 and need five minutes to try to beat Christian Laettner and 1992 Duke to Advance to the Final 4 in our current all-time great Value Add Basketball Game tournament.

However, Dave Meyers grabbed the offensive rebound and drew a foul, and after he made the first of two free throws, Ralph Drollinger grabbed UCLAs 44th rebound of the game to only 28 for Duke and passed to Marques Johnson, who scored to secure the 78-75 win. Drollinger had already done his part at the other end when Duke tried to go to Laettner for a game-winning buzzer beater, but Drollinger stole the ball to keep the score tied.

Ucla had a 6'4 point guard and their other 4 starters averaged 6'11.

Thomas Hill drew a 5th foul on UCLAs Richard Washington with 13 minutes left, made the shot and added the and-one to pull Duke within 52-50. However, Washington is only one of four UCLA players to have averaged more than 7 rebounds a game and have an exceptional 1-8 rebound range on offense and defense, while none of Duke's players had even the 1-6 ranking, though Laettner just missed with a 1-5.

The teams were so good that both had players who went onto play in the NBA but did not even get into this game. The only players on the court who did NOT make the NBA were Trgovich,  who had a game high 19 points, and Grant Hill's brother Thomas,who had 15 points.

The 1975 UCLA team, which was undefeated to cap John Wooden's run of 10 titles in 12 years, will now face the 1964 undefeated UCLA team that started the streak. Bill Walton's 1972 undefeated UCLA team already won our first 96-team tournament.

 

Pos	Duke 1992	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,nba	Actual Season
1-PG	Bobby Hurley	16	1	5	3	4	1	3	0	3	nba,6'0	13.2 Pts, 2.0 Reb, 7.6 Ast
2-SG	Grant Hill	16	0	5	6	6	4	1	1	3	nba,6'8	14.0 Pts, 5.7 Reb, 4.1 Ast
3-SF	Thomas Hill	15	1	4	4	4	6	3	1	4	6'5	14.6 Pts, 3.4 Reb, 1.5 Ast
4-PF	Brian Davis	9	0	4	1	2	5	1	0	3	nba,6'7	11.2 Pts, 4.5 Reb, 1.9 Ast
5-C	Christian Laettner	17	1	6	2	2	11	1	2	3	nba,6'11	21.5 Pts, 7.9 Reb, 2.0 Ast
	Antonio Lang	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	nba,6'8	6.4 Pts, 4.1 Reb, 0.7 Ast
	Cherokee Parks	DNP									nba,6'11	5.0 Pts, 2.4 Reb, 0.4 Ast
	Turnovers 15	75	3	25	16	18	28	9	4	17
Pos	UCLA 1975	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,nba	Actual Season
1-PG	Pete Trgovich	19	2	5	3	3	3	4	0	3	6'4	10.2 Pts, 3.3 Reb, 2.9 Ast
2-SG	Dave Meyers	17	1	6	2	3	12	2	1	2	nba,6'8	18.3 Pts, 7.9 Reb, 2.6 Ast
3-SF	Marques Johnson	10	0	4	2	2	11	0	2	5	nba,6'7	11.6 Pts, 7.1 Reb, 1.7 Ast
4-PF	Richard Washington	11	1	4	0	0	7	0	2	3	nba,6'11	15.9 Pts, 7.8 Reb, 2.2 Ast
5-C	Ralph Drollinger	9	1	3	0	0	8	1	4	3	nba,7'2	8.8 Pts, 7.4 Reb, 1.2 Ast
	Andre McCarter	12	2	3	0	0	3	2	0	4	nba,6'3	7.0 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 5.0 Ast
	Brett Vroman	DNP									nba,7'0	3.5 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 0.5 Ast
	Raymond Townsend	DNP									nba,6'3	1.9 Pts, 0.7 Reb, 0.4 Ast
	Turnovers 17	78	7	25	7	8	44	9	9	20

Kareem's Record 20 Rebounds vs. UCLA 6'5 and Under Not Enough

As we watched a strong UCLA team playing a road Big Ten game, we rolled dice with two other UCLA teams facing each other. (UPDATE: the Elite 8 game to determine the next opponent for UCLA 1964 just went final behind Christian Laettner's Duke and the undefeated team that capped the streak in 1975).)

This Elite 8 game would be a rematch of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his UCLA freshman 1964 team (since freshman could not play varsity at the time) against the UCLA varsity, which became the first undefeated UCLA champ of the incredible 10 of 12 run.

With no other starter on the court for either team taller than 6'5, the 7'2 Abdul-Jabbar set a Value Add Basketball Game record with 20 rebounds, slightly above the 15.5 rebounds he actually averaged when he was a senior in 1967. The 1964 UCLA team led the the entire game until there were just 7 possessions left, at which point Kareem drew a fifth foul on opposing center Keith Erickson to take the 68-67 lead.

He did miss the and-one, with his only weakness for the game being only 2 of 6 on free throws, despite normally be a decent 65% free throw shooter (1-13 dice roll good, 14-20 miss). 

However, the 1964 backcourt of future NBA players Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazzard kept up their suffocating defense to combined for 41 points, 5 three-pointers, and 9 steals to keep the ball from getting down to Kareem most of the game and register a 78-72 win to advance to the Elite 8 where they will either face the last of the UCLA undefeated champs UCLA 1975 - Dave Meyers vs  Duke 1992 - Christian Laettner.in a complete tossup game.

The other Elite 8 games feature Cincinnati 1962 - Paul Hogue as a 6-point favorite against UNLV 1991 - Larry Johnson and another intramural blue blood battle of Kentucky 2012 - Anthony Davis as a 6-point favorite over Kentucky 1978 - Jack Givens.

Here is the box score and scoresheet.

Pos	UCLA 1967	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,nba?	Actual Season
1-PG	Mike Warren	8	0	2	4	4	2	2	0	2	5'11	12.7 Pts, 4.5 Reb
2-SG	Lucius Allen	12	0	5	2	4	7	1	0	3	nba,6'2	15.5 Pts, 5.8 Reb
3-SF	Kenny Heitz	9	1	1	4	4	4	0	0	1	6'3	6.1 Pts, 3.2 Reb
4-PF	Lynn Shackelford	4	0	2	0	0	6	0	0	1	nba,6'5	11.4 Pts, 5.9 Reb
5-C	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	18	0	8	2	6	20	0	5	3	nba,7'2	29.0 Pts, 15.5 Reb
1-PG	Don Saffer	9	1	3	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'1	2.9 Pts, 0.8 Reb
2-SG	Gene Sutherland	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'1	1.9 Pts, 0.8 Reb
3-SF	Bill Sweek	4	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3	4.7 Pts, 2.8 Reb
4-PF	Jim Nielsen	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	0	1	6'7	4.6 Pts, 3.4 Reb
5-C	Neville Saner	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'6	1.4 Pts, 1.9 Reb
	Turnovers 16	72	2	27	12	18	45	5	5	15
Pos	UCLA 1964	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,nba?	Actual Season
1-PG	Gail Goodrich	12	2	2	2	4	3	6	2	3	nba,6'1	21.5 Pts, 5.2 Reb
2-SG	Walt Hazzard	19	3	4	2	4	5	3	1	2	nba,6'2	18.6 Pts, 4.7 Reb
3-SF	Fred Slaughter	8	0	4	0	0	7	1	4	3	6'5	7.9 Pts, 8.1 Reb
4-PF	Jack Hirsch	4	0	2	0	0	6	0	3	1	6'3	14.0 Pts, 7.6 Reb
5-C	Keith Erickson	10	0	5	0	0	6	1	1	5	nba,6'5	10.7 Pts, 9.1 Reb
1-PG	Mike Huggins	5	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'11	1.6 Pts, 1.0 Reb
2-SG	Kenny Washington	9	1	3	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3	6.1 Pts, 4.2 Reb
3-SF	Rich Levin	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4	2.0 Pts, 0.6 Reb
4-PF	Kim Stewart	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'5	2.2 Pts, 2.0 Reb
5-C	Doug McIntosh	7	1	2	0	0	4	0	0	2	6'7	3.6 Pts, 4.4 Reb
	Turnovers 16	78	8	25	4	8	35	11	11	20

Here is the scoresheet.