It was released for the Super NES, Genesis, Game Boy, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PC.

The two sports reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the PlayStation version scores of 6.0 and 5.5 out of 10.

Though they acknowledged that some players would find the college license appealing, they remarked that the game differs too little from NBA Jam to stir real interest, with one of them noting that "Some of the players look exactly the same as they did in Jam except for a color palette change.

"[2] Tommy Glide and Greasy Gus of GamePro concurred that the game retains the fun of NBA Jam, but that the new alley-oops and player substitutions do not significantly enhance the game, leaving College Slam a pointless clone.

[4] Reviewing the Genesis version, a Next Generation critic argued that even the college licensing does nothing for the game, since it does not use real players and in some cases gets the teams' uniform colors wrong.