Good Morning, Illini Nation: Have you played 32-0?
- Story byThe News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
- Good Morning, Illini Nation: Have you played 32-0?
Jun. 12—The first basketball lineup-building game to take social media by storm this month was "82-0."
The concept? Build your best five-man lineup of NBA players based on randomized parameters of organization and decade that would, in theory, go 82-0. Unless you land prime Wilt Chamberlain and prime Oscar Robertson, actually securing an 82-0 caliber starting five seems impossible.
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Other similar games popped up in the wake of "82-0," including some that were team specific and others that crossed over into different sports.
It was only a matter of time until the college basketball version — "" — arrived. Considering my world has become college basketball-centric during the last decade, it's the one that resonated the most.
Piecing together a lineup of college basketball stars, with your choices defined by conference and era, is fun. Names pop that you've forgotten. Frustration that a seemingly perfect lineup doesn't yield a 32-0 makes you want to try again.
I'm a bit of a purist. I mostly turn stats off. Opportunities to re-roll on conference or era are avoided. Playing in hard mode is for those that get deep in the college basketball weeds.
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You never know what's going to happen:
* Sometimes you wind up with the MEAC from 2013-16 and blow up an otherwise solid lineup because your knowledge runs a little thin on Bethune-Cookman, Maryland Eastern Shore and Co.
* Sometimes you wind up with a backcourt of Santa Clara's Brandin Podziemski and UNLV's Dra Gibbs-Laworn. Both at their peak powers ... after they left Illinois.
* Sometimes you'll get South Carolina guard Devan Downey, and you'll immediate shout him out.
* Sometimes you have to remember top-tier pros hadn't reached their top form during their college careers.
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While the goal is always 32-0, I'm often inclined to just build fun five-man groups that I clearly think could run the table even if the algorithm says otherwise.
This group, though ... This group pulled it off. Not 32-0 — somehow just 31-1 — but a cakewalk to a national championship thanks to Oakland's Kay Felder and Arkansas ' Darius Acuff Jr. teaming up for a lights out backcourt, Illinois' Terrence Shannon Jr. obviously serving as a menace attacking the basket and a frontcourt featuring a pair of national players of the year in Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky and Duke's Cameron Boozer .
I did finally get to 32-0, though. Plus a championship.
Full disclosure, I did have stats turned on, but the choices were pretty clear either way. Starting with Montana's Tyler Hall was a bit of a risk for a perfect season, but I certainly got there with Kansas State's Michael Beasley and Purdue's Zach Edey teaming up in the frontcourt. Beasley feels like the "32-0" answer to peak Wilt Chamberlain for "82-0."
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Even with the primary mission accomplished — that first 32-0 squad — I'll keep playing. If only to have moments of "That guy was awesome!" providing a dose of college basketball nostalgia.
