Sunday, September 24, 2017

American East: Albany Chasing Vermont Again

Four American East schools have strong FCS football teams as well, but when it comes to basketball it should once again be Vermont making a run to pose a threat in the NCAA, with Albany in the best case to upset them.

Value Add projects the top seven players below are all in the top 10% of all players in the country.

Here is where Value Add ranks each American East team for the season, and the Massey Rankings rank the football teams against all other schools (including behind the 129 FBS schools. Updates will be provided here.

American East / 2017 SeedHoops 2017-18Football
Vermont 1397
Albany125130
UMBC155
New Hampshire233131
Binghamton235
UMass Lowell246
Maine257148
Stony Brook261126
Hartford298

Here are the top 15 projected players in the conference in order.

Top 15 AE PlayersValue AddSchoolHt
Tanner Leissner 216.48New Hampshire`6-06
Joe Cremo 35.84Albany`6-04
Anthony Lamb 35.60Vermont`6-06
Jahad Thomas 105.30UMass Lowell`6-02
Trae Bell-Haynes 25.30Vermont`6-02
Payton Henson 354.77Vermont`6-08
David Nichols 134.70Albany`6-00
Ernie Duncan 204.28Vermont`6-03
Greig Stire 433.76Albany`6-07
Joe Sherburne 133.62Maryland Baltimore Co`6-06
Jairus Lyles 103.50Maryland Baltimore Co`6-02
KJ Maura 113.40Maryland Baltimore Co`5-08
Devonte Campbell 123.26Albany`6-06
Tyrell Sturdivant 123.20Stony Brook`6-07
Travis Charles 303.08Albany`6-06

Ken Pomeroy ranked the American East 24th best of 32 Division 1 basketball conferences, which will all be previewed here with notes on which schools are now "basketball" or "football" schools based on which program is stronger this season. Football revenue is much higher, but programs are much more expensive between equipment and the requirement of matching enough women's scholarships in other sports. Therefore some programs forgo FBS football programs to focus on low cost basketball programs as their biggest revenue sport.

Sports IllustratedFox Sports and ESPN have lauded Value Add Basketball for estimating the number of points each college basketball players is worth to his team above a replacement player - similar to baseball WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Massey Ratings is used for the football rankings above.

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