PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Air Force	Wyoming	2.5
Ball St.	Western Michigan	10.9
Belmont	Murray St.	4.9
Boise St.	Nevada	5.5
Buffalo	Bowling Green	5.3
Butler	Creighton	-4.0
Central Michigan	Akron	-7.6
Dayton	Davidson	11.1
Eastern Michigan	Kent St.	-15.6
Georgia Tech	North Carolina St.	-5.6
Iowa St.	Texas	1.3
Kansas St.	Kansas	-2.1
Kentucky	Georgia	9.0
Miami (O)	Northern Illinois	3.8
Mississippi St.	Tennessee	-8.1
New Mexico	San Jose St.	11.4
North Carolina	Boston College	17.5
Notre Dame	Florida St.	4.9
Richmond	Rhode Island	8.8
South Carolina	Mississippi	-6.7
Southern Illinois	Evansville	17.7
Texas Tech	Baylor	-0.5
Toledo	Ohio	6.2
Tulane	Houston	-10.8
Utah St.	UNLV	7.0
Valparaiso	Illinois Chicago	1.8
Vanderbilt	Alabama	-10.8
VCU	Massachusetts	7.0
Wake Forest	Clemson	0.8
Wisconsin	Penn St.	1.2

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	1/2/2023
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Purdue	Houston	Connecticut	Kansas
2	Tennessee	Arizona	Alabama	UCLA
3	Texas	Virginia	Gonzaga	Arkansas
4	Duke	Baylor	Indiana	West Virginia
5	Ohio St.	Miami (Fla.)	Xavier	Wisconsin
6	Auburn	Kentucky	North Carolina	Iowa St.
7	San Diego St.	Virginia Tech	Illinois	Mississippi St.
8	Maryland	Marquette	Saint Mary’s	Missouri
9	New Mexico	Memphis	TCU	Kansas St.
10	Creighton	Texas Tech	Utah	Florida Atlantic
11	Penn St.	Utah St.	Oklahoma	Michigan St.	Rutgers	Arizona St.
12	Charleston	Kent St.	Iona	Dayton
13	James Madison	Indiana St.	UC-Irvine	Oral Roberts
14	UMass Lowell	Liberty	Princeton	Colgate
15	Utah Valley	UNC Greensboro	Northern Kentucky	Eastern Washington
16	Longwood	SIU Edwardsville	Grambling	Texas A&M CC	Norfolk St.	St. Francis PA

Last Four Byes: Texas Tech, Utah, Penn St., Utah St.

Last Four In: Oklahoma, Michigan St., Rutgers, Arizona St.

First Four Out: Oklahoma St., Iowa, UAB, North Carolina St.

Next Four Out: Providence, Wake Forest, Northwestern, LSU

PiRate Picks — October 6, 2022

After coming back down to Earth last week with a 2-5 record against the spread, our seasonal record now stands at 18-10. That’s still abnormally high. Let’s hope we can get back on the winning side this week with seven selections, hoping to go 4-3 and be happy with a profit.

About 18 other games came within a point or two of being playable for us in our in-house method of picking games either against the spread, the total, or in creating a money line parlay where the odds are +120 or higher, preferably higher than +130 or +140.

Here are this week’s selections. Remember: We never wager real money on our selections, and we suggest you follow this lead.

Selection #1: Alabama and Texas A&M Over 51 1/2

First, we expect Bryce Young to be ready for this game, and he will only need a half or so of time he will be needed, as Alabama exacts some revenge against the Aggies. We chose to take the Over here, because ‘Bama could cover the total by themselves. We aren’t saying that a 52-0 game is in the offing, but 41-14 would be realistic.

Selection #2: Georgia Southern and Georgia St. Under 67 1/2

Both of these teams can put points on the scoreboard and score 35 points against a defense the caliber of their opponent this week, but this heated rivalry game is liable to have added defensive stops. Thus, we think the total is a little too high. We think this game could be 31-28, as high as 35-28, and we still win at 35-31. As long as this game doesn’t go to overtime, we think this is our top play of the week.

Selection #3: Army and Wake Forest Under 66 1/2

Our thinking here is that Army will try to reduce this game to a minimum of plays, and Wake Forest is coming off consecutive big games. Army’s offense isn’t assessing the real estate like it has in recent years, so scoring 20 points is not automatic, as they could only manage 14 against a weaker Georgia State defense last week. Wake Forest gave up 25 points to a Vanderbilt team that is somewhat comparable offensively to Army’s offensive abilities, and the Demon Deacons put up a strong defensive effort last week. We see this game as a 35-14, and 45-21 still wins this one.

Selection #4: Arkansas + 9 1/2 vs. Mississippi State

It is not in our DNA to play an underdog at 9 1/2 points, as 10 1/2 gives us so much better odds for the money. And, we know that teams that play Alabama frequently show the effects of the pasting they received in the next game.

Our internal game projection makes this spread playable for us, as we see this as almost a tossup and only give the Bulldogs the edge due to home field advantage. We don’t see State winning by more than a touchdown, if they win at all.

Selection #5: Money Line Parlay at +144.92

Notre Dame over BYU

Utah over UCLA

We wanted to find a way to get the Utes into our selections this week, and this appears to be the best possible play. After dropping the opener to Florida, the Utes have begun to look like the class of the Pac-12. As for the Notre Dame-BYU game, it is our belief that Notre Dame’s game with Marshall was a wake up call for the Irish. Looking at how close they came to winning at Ohio State compared to how the Buckeyes have fared since, we believe Notre Dame is sitting on their best game of the year this week. This is a neutral site game in Las Vegas, and it could be one of the more exciting TV games. But, we think the outcome is not all that much in doubt.

Selection #6: Money Line Parlay at +148.05

Nevada over Colorado St.

Tulane over East Carolina

These two games are simply a matter of our thinking that the ML is too low for the favorites, and thus, it gives us an inflated potential payout for playing the two favorites.

Money Line Parlay at +202.93

Oklahoma St. over Texas Tech

Kentucky over South Carolina

North Carolina St. over Florida St.

Similar to the #6 selection, our beliefs that these three favorites will win, while not as strong as the two-gamer above, still remains strong enough to make it playable at better than 2-1 odds.

Atlantic Coast Conference Preview

With all the rumored movement of teams from one conference to another, for now the Atlantic Coast Conference appears to be on solid ground. The league’s Grant of Rights deal with its members make it quite difficult, if not impossible for teams to exit the league. Under this deal, any team would have to forfeit all media revenue earned in another conference back to the ACC. An exit fee of $100 million or more would make leaving the ACC for the SEC or Big Ten financially unwise.

Of course, there are always loopholes that can be discovered by crafty legal departments, so impossible is not in the college football vocabulary. Impossible was a word associated with the words “beating Clemson” until last year. The Tigers failed to win the Atlantic Division for the first time 2014. Wake Forest was the surprise winner in the Atlantic, while Pittsburgh won the Coastal Division title. Wake Forest figured to be a contender for the division title again this year until last week, their starting quarterback, Sam Hartman, was ruled out indefinitely due to a non-football issue that required a surgical procedure. Hartman might return late in the season, but his loss will hit the Demon Deacons hard enough to take them out of the conference championship picture.

2022 will be the final year of divisional play in this league. Here are the preseason PiRate Ratings for the league.

ACC Preseason PiRate Ratings

Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	119.7	119.5	120.5	119.9
NC State	118.3	117.3	118.5	118.0
Wake Forest	113.9	113.2	113.2	113.4
Florida St.	111.7	111.0	110.9	111.2
Louisville	111.7	110.5	110.7	110.9
Syracuse	106.4	104.8	104.7	105.3
Boston College	100.5	102.5	100.2	101.1
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Pittsburgh	115.9	114.6	114.2	114.9
Miami (Fla.)	115.1	113.7	114.9	114.6
North Carolina	108.0	108.2	107.5	107.9
Virginia	104.0	104.2	102.3	103.5
Virginia Tech	100.9	101.3	98.4	100.2
Georgia Tech	95.6	95.5	93.6	94.9
Duke	84.2	86.7	81.1	84.0
ACC	107.6	107.3	106.5	107.1

Preseason Official ACC Media Poll

		Votes
#	Atlantic	1st Place	Overall
1	Clemson	111	1080
2	North Carolina St.	44	959
3	Wake Forest	6	783
4	Louisville	0	591
5	Florida St.	2	509
6	Boston College	1	469
7	Syracuse	0	201
#	Coastal	1st Place	Overall
1	Miami	98	1036
2	Pittsburgh	38	911
3	North Carolina	18	823
4	Virginia	6	667
5	Virginia Tech	3	592
6	Georgia Tech	1	343
7	Duke	0	220
	Championship	Overall
	Clemson	103
	North Carolina St.	38
	Miami	8
	Wake Forest	4
	Pittsburgh	3
	Virginia	3
	Florida St.	2
	North Carolina	2
	Boston College	1

Poll Taken Prior To Hartman’s Non-Football Medical Condition

The PiRate Ratings are designed to look at just the next week’s schedule of games and not to use to look forward. Nevertheless, here are the predicted won-loss records for the league.

Predicted Won-Loss Records

Atlantic	Conf.	Overall
Clemson	8-0	12-1
North Carolina St.	7-1	11-1
Louisville	5-3	8-4
Wake Forest	4-4	8-4
Florida St.	4-4	7-5
Syracuse	2-6	4-8
Boston College	1-7	4-8
Coastal	Conf.	Overall
Miami	7-1	10-3
Pittsburgh	7-1	11-1
Virginia Tech	4-4	8-4
North Carolina	4-4	7-5
Virginia	2-6	5-7
Georgia Tech	1-7	2-10
Duke	0-8	2-10

Clemson picked to win ACC Championship Game

PiRate Ratings–College Basketball Spreads

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Texas	West Virginia	6.6
Wichita St.	Memphis	-1.7
South Florida	East Carolina	-0.3
Marquette	Creighton	1.6
Iowa St.	Baylor	-8.5
Seton Hall	Villanova	-0.1
DePaul	Providence	-0.2
North Carolina St.	Florida St.	-4.5
UNLV	San Diego St.	-4.1
Fresno St.	Air Force	16.0
Kansas	George Mason	20.0
Rutgers	Central Connecticut	20.5
Miami (Fla.)	Wake Forest	-0.6
Syracuse	Virginia	3.8
Cincinnati	Tulane	10.2
Saint Mary’s	San Francisco	2.2
Oklahoma	Kansas St.	8.0
Nevada	New Mexico	11.1
Oregon	Utah	5.2

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Friday, February 26, 2021

Home	Visitor	Spread
St. Bonaventure	George Washington	15.2
Saint Louis	Richmond	2.2
Cincinnati	Tulane	5.3
Stetson	North Florida	4.6
Kennesaw St.	Florida Gulf Coast	-7.7
Northern Arizona	Southern Utah	-7.2
Idaho	Montana St.	-13.0
Penn St.	Purdue	0.3
Cal Poly	UC Davis	-7.1
UC Irvine	UC San Diego	9.8
Cal St. Bakersfield	Cal St. Northridge	10.8
UC Riverside	UCSB	-2.3
Hawaii	Long Beach State	7.3
James Madison	Drexel	1.9
Marshall	North Texas	3.5
Old Dominion	Middle Tennessee	9.6
UTSA	UAB	-3.9
Louisiana Tech	Rice	9.1
Southern Miss	Florida Atlantic	-0.2
Siena	Manhattan	10.7
Saint Peter’s	Rider	10.5
Akron	Bowling Green	4.1
Bradley	Drake	-7.0
Evansville	Missouri St.	-7.2
Valparaiso	Indiana St.	-3.6
Loyola (Chi.)	Southern Illinois	21.3
Illinois St.	Northern Iowa	1.4
Utah St.	Nevada	6.8
UNLV	Fresno St.	4.8
Central Connecticut	Wagner	-9.5
Bryant	Long Island University	8.2
Merrimack	St. Francis (NY)	2.8
Sacred Heart	Fairleigh Dickinson	0.9
Texas St.	UL Monroe	10.1
Georgia Southern	Appalachian St.	-0.9
UT Arlington	Arkansas St.	2.1
Troy	Coastal Carolina	-5.6
Little Rock	Louisiana	0.1
South Alabama	Georgia St.	-1.9
Denver	Omaha	-1.6
South Dakota St.	UM Kansas City	8.7
Utah Valley	UT Rio Grande Valley	1.1
Tarleton	New Mexico St.	-6.4
Seattle	Grand Canyon	-6.5

Coming Later Friday: Updated Bracketology. There was considerable movement in the field of 68 since our Monday update. Teams like Duke, Michigan St., and North Carolina St. are making late pushes to sneak into the field. The first conference tournament began last night, and more tourneys will commence in the next few days, as March Madness lite begins Monday.

The PiRates will be heading down to the galley to make a big bowl of stew and start crunching the numbers that will become Bracketnomics 2021. The recipe has changed–for the Bracketnomics, not the stew.

The Greatest NCAA Tournament That Never Was–National Championship Game

1974 North Carolina St. Wolf Pack

vs.

1968 UCLA Bruins

 

How They Got Here

 

North Carolina St.

Defeated 1999 Duke  94-72

Defeated 1980 Louisville 96-82

Defeated 1978 Kentucky 82-70

Defeated 2019 Virginia 75-64

Defeated 2018 Villanova 97-75

 

UCLA

Defeated 1973 Providence  91-70

Defeated 1962 Cincinnati 75-59

Defeated 2015 Duke  83-57

Defeated 1968 Houston 99-92

Defeated 1972 UCLA  95-92

The Starting Lineups For Tonight’s Championship Game

 

North Carolina St. Wolf Pack

Center–Tom Burleson  7-2  Sr.  from Newland, North Carolina

Forward–Tim Stoddard 6-7 Jr. from East Chicago, Indiana

Forward–David Thompson 6-4 Jr. from Shelby, North Carolina

Guard–Moe Rivers  6-1 Jr. from  Brooklyn, New York

Guard–Monte Towe  5-7 Jr.  from Converse, Indiana

The Wolf Pack are coached by Norm Sloan

 

UCLA Bruins

Center–Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  7-2  Jr. from New York, New York

Forward–Mike Lynn 6-7 Sr. from Covina, California

Forward–Lynn Shackelford  6-5 Jr. from Burbank, California

Guard–Lucius Allen 6-2 Jr. from Kansas City, Kansas

Guard–Michael Warren  5-11 Sr. from South Bend, Indiana

The Bruins are coached by John Wooden

 

And Your Winner is: UCLA

 

1968 UCLA	104
1974 North Carolina St.	77

Boxscore
1968 UCLA	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	C	13	20	0	0	4	6	6	14	20	3	0	7	3	3	30
Mike Lynn	F	4	10	0	0	1	2	2	12	14	1	2	2	1	4	9
Lynn Shackleford	F	4	11	0	2	2	2	1	6	7	2	1	0	2	3	10
Lucius Allen	G	7	16	3	9	3	5	0	3	3	5	3	0	2	2	20
Mike Warren	G	8	18	3	7	3	4	0	2	2	4	2	0	4	2	22
Jim Nielsen		1	2	0	0	0	0	1	2	3	1	0	1	0	2	2
Kenny Heitz		2	5	1	3	2	2	0	1	1	3	2	0	1	0	7
Bill Sweek		0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Gene Sutherland		1	2	0	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	2
Neville Saner		1	2	0	0	0	0	1	3	4	0	0	0	1	1	2
Team										3
Totals		41	87	7	22	15	21	11	44	58	20	11	10	15	19	104
North Carolina St.	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Tom Burleson	C	4	9	0	0	1	2	1	6	7	4	0	2	2	4	9
Tim Stoddard	F	5	14	0	0	0	0	2	8	10	0	0	0	4	5	10
David Thompson	F	7	17	3	8	4	5	2	10	12	3	2	1	5	3	21
Mo Rivers	G	3	11	2	7	2	3	1	4	5	2	1	0	3	1	10
Monte Towe	G	3	10	2	7	4	4	0	2	2	3	1	0	5	2	12
Phil Spence		2	4	0	0	1	2	1	3	4	0	0	0	1	3	5
Mark Moeller		2	5	1	3	2	4	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	7
Greg Hawkins		1	3	1	3	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	0	3
Steve Nuce		0	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	1	0
Dwight Johnson		0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Team										4
Totals		27	76	9	29	14	20	7	36	47	13	5	3	23	20	77
Player of the Game	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 

Score By Halves
Team	1	2	Final
UCLA	50	54	104
N.C. State	38	39	77

 

This concludes the Greatest NCAA Tournament That Was Never Played.  Our Congratulations go to the 1968 UCLA Bruins, the best college basketball team in the last 60 years, at least according to the tabletop basketball strategy board game.

 

The PiRates are now headed out to sea to find some remote Pacific Island until August.  Hopefully, there will be a college  and NFL football season that start as scheduled.  If not, we will have alternate programming when we return to land.

The Greatest NCAA Tournament That Never Was–Final Four Saturday

It is hard to believe that this would be the day of the National Semifinals of the Final Four in Atlanta.  Somehow, it feels like the end of the college basketball season was several months ago.  Thursday, March 12, 2020, was the day that a Big East Conference Tournament game between Creighton and St. John’s played the first half and went to the locker rooms never to be seen again, well at least not to finish the game at Madison Square Garden.

In the 23 days since, so much has happened globally that all cancelled sports seem to be just a speck of dust in the importance of every day life.  Most of us are now on house arrest for a crime that somebody else committed.  The punishment for violating this arrest could be death, to us or somebody we care about.  Basketball, and all other sports, doesn’t really seem to matter that much.

We thought about suspending this tournament, as it would be apropos.  We even thought about turning this entire site into a “how to grow a quick vegetable garden” with the most nutrient dense foods you can grow in your yard or patio.  But, we figured that if you have suddenly changed careers to small farmer, you probably already have done hours of research; the majority of you reading this site are analytical in nature.  That’s the perfect general description, and analytical people, like all of us on the PiRate ship, study and study and study before undertaking new endeavors.

Truth be told, our Captain, and his lady have been “farming” for 40 years.  The real reason this conclusion to this simulation almost didn’t happen was that the Captain was busy planting kale, collards, kohlrabi, lettuce, radishes, and several other early Spring crops in the ground while the monsoonal rains took a short hiatus.  These two games were just played early this morning, so the results are delayed being uploaded.

If this is your first time to this site, what you see here is a tabletop board game simulation of the Greatest Teams in College Basketball between 1960 and 2019.  We put them in a standard 68-team tournament just like the current March Madness.  All teams in this tournament received 3-point shooting ratings, even if they played in an era without the 3-point shot.  Outside shooting range was used to estimate the percentage of made shots and frequency taken of players from pre-1987.  For example, had we made a 1966 Kentucky Wildcats team, Louie Dampier’s 3-point shooting percentage would have been about 48%, and his frequency of 3-point shot attempts to 2-point shot attempts would have been about 40% to 60%.

What type of board game was used for this simulation?  The Captain is a wizard at code-breaking.  As early as the late 1960’s, he was buying tabletop games like Strat-o-Matic Baseball and cracking the codes and making his own teams.

In the late 1970’s, The Avalon Hill Company put out a new game called, “Statis-Pro Basketball.”  This was an NBA strategy game, and the Captain, now in college, quickly cracked the codes that rated the players. Soon, he began making college basketball teams.  It wasn’t so easy then to do this, because the Internet did not exist, and there were no periodicals that printed the statistics of the players.  He had to spend hours in a large university library looking at microfilmed old copies of multiple newspapers to get the stats he needed.  It wasn’t 100% accurate, as he had to do a lot of estimating, but it was close enough.

When the Internet brought sites like Sports-reference to peoples’ desktop computers, the Captain spend a lot of his hard-earned money on printing cartridges and created his own printed depository of statistics.  He was able to modify the ratings on all the players that played college basketball and were represented in his team cards, and the game became more accurate.

So, that’s where we are today.  There are four teams remaining,  Here are our Final Four participants.

 

East Region Champion: 1974 North Carolina State Wolf Pack

South Region Champion: 2018 Villanova Wildcats

Midwest Region Champion: 1968 UCLA Bruins

West Region Champion: 1972 UCLA Bruins

 

Note: You see two different shades of pale blue for UCLA above.  Between 1968 and 1972, the Bruins slightly darkened this blue color.

 

Here are the results of the Final Four Games:

 

Tiny Towe Towers over ‘Nova

 

1974 North Carolina St.	97
2018 Villanova	75

 

Monte Towe scored 20 points along with 8 assists and 6 steals, as the 1974 national champion Wolf Pack pulled away from the 2018 national champions in the second half.  Leading 60-56, North Carolina State scored 11 consecutive points to open a 71-56 lead.  Villanova never cut the lead to single digits, and after the Wildcats began to foul, NC State extended the lead past 20 points by connecting on 14 of their final 16 foul shots.

 

Boxscore
North Carolina St.	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Tom Burleson	C	7	13	0	0	4	6	3	6	9	1	0	4	4	3	18
Tim Stoddard	F	6	10	0	0	3	4	2	8	10	0	1	1	2	1	15
David Thompson	F	7	14	2	5	5	7	3	5	8	2	2	2	3	2	21
Mo Rivers	G	4	11	2	7	3	5	1	3	4	3	2	0	1	3	13
Monte Towe	G	5	9	3	6	7	9	0	2	2	8	6	0	2	1	20
Phil Spence		1	2	0	0	2	2	1	3	4	1	0	0	0	3	4
Mark Moeller		1	3	0	1	1	2	0	2	2	2	0	0	1	1	3
Steve Nuce		0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
Greg Hawkins		1	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	3
Team										4
Totals		32	64	8	20	25	35	10	30	44	18	12	7	14	15	97
Villanova	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Omari Spellman	C	2	5	1	3	1	2	2	5	7	0	0	2	4	5	6
Eric Paschall	F	5	14	1	4	0	0	2	3	5	2	0	0	3	5	11
Michael Bridges	F	5	11	2	5	2	3	2	7	9	3	2	0	5	4	14
Phil Booth	G	4	11	2	7	4	5	1	4	5	3	1	0	1	4	14
Jalen Brunson	G	4	10	2	6	3	4	0	3	3	4	1	0	5	3	13
Donte DiVincenzo		4	8	2	5	2	2	0	2	2	1	1	0	2	2	12
Collin Gillespie		2	5	1	3	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	5	5
Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree		0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0
Tim Delaney		0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	2	0
Jermaine Samuels		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Team										3
Totals		26	65	11	33	12	16	8	26	37	13	6	2	21	32	75
Player of the Game	Monte Towe

 

Score By Halves
Team	1	2	Final
N. C. State	51	46	97
Villanova	44	31	75

 

68 Bruins Kareem 72 Bruins

 

1968 UCLA	95
1972 UCLA	92

 

In a game that had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra, the 1968 UCLA Bruins took the lead late and kept it over their four year later counterpart.  The game was fast-paced and exciting with neither team enjoying a lead of more than eight points.

In the first half, the 1972 Bruins took an early 9-4 lead on baskets by Greg Lee and Larry Farmer.  The 1968 squad staged a comeback following a Lucius Allen made three-pointer, and then after a block by Kareem Abdul Jabbar on a shot attempt by Jamaal Wilkes, Mike Warren retrieved the rebound and found Mike Lynn open for a basket.  Lynn was fouled and made the foul shot to tie the game at 9-9.

The remainder of the first half was close with the lead changing hands six times.  On the last possession of the half, 1972’s Tommy Curtis sunk a three-point shot at the buzzer (the last card in the deck), as the 72’s took a 49-46 lead into the locker.

The 1968 Bruins grabbed the lead at 59-58, and then the 1972 team went on a 10-2 run to take a 68-61 lead, their biggest lead of the day.  At that point, the 1968 team, not noted for pressing like many other John Wooden-coached teams, decided to press full court, and they forced the 1972 Bruins into 6 turnovers in the next 9 possessions.  This allowed the 1968 team to make a 14-3 run to take a 75-71 lead.

The 1972 team was not done.  The 1968 team went cold at this point and missed five consecutive shots.  Bill Walton rebounded four of these missed shots, and the 1972 Bruins’ fast break produced eight points off the misses.  The 1972 team ran off 10 consecutive points to go ahead 81-75.

At this point, the 1968 team decided to sink or swim with its big star, the hero that won three national championship in three years in real life.  Jabbar took the 1968 team’s next five shots, hitting four, while the 1972 team committed three turnovers.  The 1972 Bruins enjoyed a 13-4 run to go ahead 88-85, and they held on to the lead for the remainder of the game.

 

Boxscore
1968 UCLA	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	C	8	15	0	0	4	7	5	14	19	1	1	5	2	3	20
Mike Lynn	F	6	13	1	2	3	4	1	8	9	2	3	0	5	2	16
Lynn Shackleford	F	4	11	1	4	2	2	0	5	5	0	2	0	4	4	11
Lucius Allen	G	6	14	2	5	3	5	1	4	5	5	4	0	3	4	17
Mike Warren	G	6	14	3	7	5	6	0	2	2	6	2	0	2	1	20
Jim Nielsen		2	5	0	0	0	0	2	4	6	1	0	1	2	3	4
Kenny Heitz		3	8	1	3	0	0	1	2	3	2	1	0	3	4	7
Team										3
Totals		35	80	8	21	17	24	10	39	52	17	13	6	21	21	95
1972 UCLA	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Bill Walton	C	7	13	0	0	3	5	4	11	15	3	2	3	4	5	17
Jamaal Wilkes	F	5	11	2	5	3	4	3	9	12	1	1	1	2	3	15
Larry Farmer	F	4	9	1	3	0	0	1	5	6	0	0	0	6	2	9
Greg Lee	G	4	14	2	8	4	5	1	4	5	2	3	0	3	2	14
Henry Bibby	G	5	12	2	6	5	6	0	3	3	4	2	0	5	3	17
Tommy Curtis		4	11	2	7	3	4	0	1	1	3	2	0	2	2	13
Larry Hollyfield		2	5	1	3	0	0	1	2	3	2	1	0	2	3	5
Swen Nater		1	2	0	0	0	0	1	2	3	0	0	1	1	2	2
Team										3
Totals		32	77	10	32	18	24	11	37	51	15	11	5	25	22	92
Player of the Game	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 

Score By Halves
Team	1	2	Final
1968 UCLA	46	49	95
1972 UCLA	49	43	92

 

National Championship Game Monday Night

 

1974 North Carolina State Wolf Pack vs. 1968 UCLA Bruins

 

 

The Greatest NCAA Tournament That Never Was–Elite 8 Saturday

We are down to the Elite 8, and after today’s East and South Regional Finals, there will be six teams left in the field.  We’re just 24 hours away from knowing which of these best teams of all time (1960-2019) will make the Final Four.

If you haven’t been following this simulation since its beginning, we took 68 of the best NCAA basketball teams between 1960 and 2019.  No school could have teams from consecutive seasons, or else this would have been the UCLA Invitational.

The games were simulated by actually playing the college made version of Statis-Pro Basketball, a game made by Avalon Hill and Sports Illustrated between the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Our Captain solved the codes for that game and applied them to college.

Here are the results for the East and South Region Championships.

 

EAST REGION

 

Wolf Pack Dominates On Boards/Towe Magnificent

 

1974 North Carolina St.	75
2019 Virginia	64

In it’s first three games in this tournament, Virginia had been able to limit turnovers and force the opponent into bad shots.  In the Elite 8, the Cavaliers committed just seven turnovers, but they could not prevent North Carolina State from getting open shots.  Thanks to point guard Monte Towe’s excellent passing, the Wolf Pack shooters were open more often than a normal UVa opponent.

Towe dished out 10 assists in the game, five in both halves.  Towe also contributed 22  points, hitting all eight of his foul shots in the second half when North Carolina State increased their lead from five to 11 points.

Boxscore
North Carolina St.	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Tom Burleson	C	8	13	0	0	4	6	4	6	10	0	0	3	2	2	20
Tim Stoddard	F	2	5	0	0	2	3	1	7	8	1	0	1	1	2	6
David Thompson	F	5	11	1	3	6	8	3	7	10	2	1	2	2	2	17
Mo Rivers	G	2	7	1	4	1	2	0	3	3	1	1	0	2	3	6
Monte Towe	G	5	12	4	9	8	9	0	1	1	10	2	0	3	0	22
Phil Spence		1	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0	0	1	0	1	2
Greg Hawkins		0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	3	0	0	0	1	0	0
Steve Nuce		1	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	2	2
Mark Moeller		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0
Team										3
Totals		24	52	6	16	21	28	9	30	39	14	4	7	11	13	75
Virginia	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Mamadi Diakete	C	1	3	0	0	0	0	2	2	4	0	0	1	0	5	2
De’Andre Hunter	F	2	7	0	3	3	4	1	4	5	1	0	0	2	4	7
Ty Jerome	F	5	12	2	6	3	4	0	4	4	6	1	0	2	5	15
Kyle Guy	G	6	14	3	8	3	3	0	4	4	2	0	0	1	4	18
Kihei Clark	G	2	5	1	2	0	0	0	1	1	3	1	0	1	3	5
Braxton Key		5	9	1	2	1	2	1	4	5	0	1	0	1	2	12
Jack Salt		2	5	0	0	1	2	0	3	3	1	0	0	0	2	5
Jay Huff		0	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Team										2
Totals		23	57	7	22	11	15	4	22	28	13	3	1	7	26	64
Player of the Game	Monte Towe

Score By Halves
Team	1	2	Final
N. C. State	34	41	75
Virginia	31	33	64

 

 

WEST REGION

 

Brunson and Bridges Bring Back The Wildcats

 

2018 Villanova	75
1970 UCLA	69

 

Trailing by six points eight minutes into the final half, Villanova’s Jalen Brunson and Michael Bridges scored a combined 19 points to bring the Wildcats back into the lead at 68-67 with less than two minutes remaining.  Foul shooting and multiple missed three point shots sent the Bruins back to Westwood.

 

Boxscore
Villanova	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Omari Spellman	C	0	2	0	1	0	0	2	4	6	0	0	1	1	5	0
Eric Paschall	F	2	5	1	3	6	6	1	5	6	0	0	2	0	2	11
Michael Bridges	F	7	12	3	5	5	5	1	7	8	0	0	0	2	1	22
Phil Booth	G	2	4	2	3	4	6	0	2	2	3	1	1	2	2	10
Jalen Brunson	G	7	17	3	5	6	8	0	1	1	6	2	0	2	3	23
Donte DiVincenzo		2	6	1	4	2	3	0	2	2	3	1	0	3	1	7
Collin Gillespie		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree		1	4	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	2
Team										3
Totals		21	50	10	21	23	28	4	22	29	12	5	4	10	15	75
UCLA	Start	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Steve Patterson	C	5	11	0	0	2	2	2	7	9	1	0	1	2	4	12
Sidney Wicks	F	7	15	0	2	3	5	4	8	12	3	1	2	5	4	17
Curtis Rowe	F	6	12	1	3	2	3	2	8	10	1	2	0	2	4	15
John Vallely	G	4	8	2	6	3	4	0	2	2	5	1	0	3	3	13
Henry Bibby	G	4	10	2	7	2	2	1	1	2	2	1	0	2	4	12
John Ecker		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0
Jon Chapman		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
Bill Seibert		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0
Team										3
Totals		26	56	5	18	12	16	9	26	38	12	5	3	15	26	69
Player of the Game	Jalen Brunson

 

 

Score By Halves
Team	1	2	Final
Villanova	40	35	75
UCLA	41	28	69

 

Coming Tomorrow: The Midwest and West Region Finals

 

Midwest Region Championship: 1968 UCLA vs. 1968 Houston

West Region Championship: 1972 UCLA vs. 1982 North Carolina

 

PiRate Ratings Bracketology For March 9, 2020

Date	3/9/2020
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Kansas	Gonzaga	Dayton	Baylor
2	San Diego St.	Florida St.	Villanova	Creighton
3	Duke	Kentucky	Seton Hall	Maryland
4	Michigan St.	Louisville	Oregon	Wisconsin
5	Ohio St.	Auburn	Butler	BYU
6	West Virginia	Iowa	Penn St.	Illinois
7	Virginia	Colorado	Michigan	Arizona
8	Houston	Providence	LSU	Florida
9	Saint Mary’s	USC	Marquette	Oklahoma
10	Arizona St.	Rutgers	Texas Tech	UTAH ST.
11	East Tennessee St.	Indiana	Stanford	Xavier	Cincinnati
12	Yale	Stephen F. Austin	LIBERTY	Richmond	Wichita St.
13	Vermont	Akron	North Texas	New Mexico St.
14	BRADLEY	BELMONT	Hofstra	Colgate
15	UC-Irvine	Wright St.	Little Rock	E.  Washington
16	North Dakota St.	WINTHROP	Siena	Prairie View	St. Francis (PA)	N. Carolina A&T

Teams in all CAPS have earned automatic bids

 

The Bubble

 

Last Four BYES: Rutgers, Texas Tech, Indiana, and Stanford

Last Four IN: Xavier, Cincinnati, Richmond, and Wichita St.

 

First Four OUT: UCLA, Texas, North Carolina St., and Mississippi St.

Next Four OUT: Rhode Island, Northern Iowa, Arkansas, and Memphis