8 Best College Basketball Video Games That You Should Know Update 07/2024

Best College Basketball Video Games

March Madness is living up to its name, just like runner Aaron Farr and Lieutenant Les McBurney of the Sun Prairie fire department. Gonzaga looks like this could finally be their year, Jaden Ivey’s draught stock is going through the roof, and there are real people at the games. What an event!

Sad to say, video game basketball doesn’t get as excited as college games do. It’s understandable – the NBA is a truly global product by comparison, and it took NBA 2K until recently to even include the women’s game. Outside the US, college basketball is probably seen as equivalent to junior racing formulas or under 21s soccer tournaments – a feeder system interesting for its young talents, rather than its own intrinsic spectacle.

It was the year 2002. The Xbox was the new console that everyone wanted. The Lakers were very strong. And our country’s love of basketball and video games was so strong that it made sense for an NCAA college basketball game to be on the shelves with two NBA franchises and a few streetball games.

The ESPN presentation from NBA 2K3 was brought over to NCAA College Basketball 2K3. This was a big deal at the time and made NBA Live look like a franchise that was getting lazy. It had a lot more teams than we had seen before, and the floors were the cleanest we had ever seen. So bright. Chris Hill was, strangely enough, one of the best players in the game.

NBA 2K17

NBA 2K17

College basketball only shows up briefly in 2K17, but it is an important part of the game. Your MyPlayer’s journey starts at either Kansas, Georgetown, Arizona, Louisville, UConn, Illinois, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, or Wake Forest, and you spend a lot of time there in the Prelude phase of the story. Long enough for you to really care about your team. Even coach Mike K makes an appearance.

Along with current and classic NBA teams, Play Now also had college teams. There are a lot of fantasy pairings.

College Hoops 2K8

Most people agree that this is the best college basketball title ever. This was Visual Concepts at its most ambitious and creative. The presentation was top-notch, and the game modes had a lot of depth, which is what any fan would want. Legacy Mode lets you choose a struggling college team from a small list and gives you the chance to turn its luck around, build a dynasty, or move on to a more prestigious school. You also have your own ratings as a coach and can change a team’s offensive or defensive stats.

Since 2007 was a long time ago, the visuals aren’t as good as they used to be. But the animations are still surprisingly different for the year 2020, and the presentation does a great job of capturing the crazy atmosphere of a college football game.

NCAA Basketball 10

NCAA Basketball 10

And there it is. This is the most recent licenced college basketball game. It came out in 2009, when Kanye was just a newcomer who interrupted a VMA speech and it was still okay to watch Glee. It’s too bad.

Blake Griffin, a young hopeful, was on the cover of NCAA Basketball 10. I wonder what happened to him? It was made by EA, and it was based on NBA Live, which didn’t help its chances. Even though the animations were not as smooth as 2K’s, it was still fun to start a franchise mode and see how players’ RPI ratings changed each week based on how they played in real life.

Coach K College Basketball

Last but not least, let’s go back to 1995 and the Sega Genesis. Coach K had only been working at Duke for 15 years when he got one of those newfangled licenced video game things.

Basketball has never been the easiest sport to play in a 2D isometric view, which is why NBA Jam was so great with its simple side-on view, but EA’s presentation at the time was unmatched.

ESPN College Hoops 2K5

ESPN College Hoops 2K5

ESPN College Hoops 2K5 is a video game for American University Basketball. It was made by Visual Concepts and put out by Sega. On Xbox and PlayStation 2, it can be used to simulate college basketball.

Josh Childress, who used to play basketball at Stanford, is on the cover. On November 17, 2004, the game came out. During the match, there are both fake and real ESPN broadcasts, and ESPN commentators and logos can be seen throughout the season. When it came out, people liked it.

The Xbox version got 86.28 percent and 86 out of 100 from GameRankings and Metacritic, while the PlayStation 2 version got 84.98 percent and 86 out of 100.

Dick Vitale’s “Awesome, Baby!” College Hoops

“Have a drink!” Dick Vitale’s College Hoop is a sports game for Sega Genesis that was made by Time Warner Interactive and is about college basketball. It came out in 1994.

Featuring Richard Seaborn, the game features the voice and image of basketball sports producer Dick Vitale, highlighting his quotes and phrases.

Players play on 3D tracks that move around in a way that fits their role as an American college basketball team. This was a good way to get people interested in the game.

College Hoops 2K6

College Hoops 2K6

College Hoops 2K6 is an American college basketball video game that came out for the Xbox on November 21, 2005, and then for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. As the first product in the franchise, it works with 7th-generation video game consoles. (In this case, Xbox 360).

It was also the first time since the first NCAA College Basketball 2K3 that the series didn’t have an ESPN licence.

Marvin Williams, who used to play for UNC but now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, is on the cover with head coach Roy Williams.

Fox Sports College Hoops ‘99

Fox Sports College Hoops ’99 is a video game developed by Z-Axis for college basketball and released by Fox Interactive for the Nintendo 64 under the Fox Sports Interactive brand.

It came out on October 31, 1998, in North America. On the front is a picture of Jeff Sheppard from the University of Kentucky.

This game has settings for Fox Sports TV to make it feel more like a real game. But there are no comments, and the game doesn’t have any battle songs or songs about each college