Friday, September 22, 2017

West Coast: After Football BYU Will Challenge Basketball-only St. Mary's & Gonzaga

Brigham Young withstood bids from power conferences to maintain an independent football program, but Value Add projects the BYU basketball team to be better than their football squad this season. TJ Haws (worth 6.00 extra points per game) gives the team a chance in West Coast play to catch national runner-up Gonzaga and Saint Mary's and National Player of the Year candidate Jock Landale (worth 10.38 extra points per game).

Here is where Value Add ranks each West Coast team for the season, and the Massey Rankings of the BYU and San Diego football teams so far this season. Updates will be provided here:


Team - 2017 Seed   Hoops Value   Football
Saint Mary's 723
Gonzaga 130
BYU51football: 68
Santa Clara110
San Francisco112
San Diego199football: 222
Pacific220
Portland307
Loyola Marymount325
Pepperdine347

Opening day for Gonzaga and Saint Mary's students occurs in November on the basketball court, and the two programs continue to be two of the best. Gonzaga battled for the national title before finally falling to UNC in last year's championship game. They should be ranked again, behind three projected 1st team all conference players worth more than 6.00 points per game, but Value Add gives Saint Mary's the chance to improve behind Value Add preseason All-American Landale and Calvin Hermanson, the fifth projected 1st team All-West Coast player along with the three Gonzaga stars.

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


Player, jerseyValue AddTeamHt
Jock Landale 3410.38St. Mary's`6-11
Killian Tillie 336.99Gonzaga`6-10
Johnathan Williams 36.80Gonzaga`6-09
Calvin Hermanson 246.78St. Mary's`6-06
Rui Hachimura 216.43Gonzaga`6-08
Henry Caruso 216.19Santa Clara`6-04
TJ Haws 306.00Brigham Young`6-04
Josh Perkins 135.70Gonzaga`6-03
Emmett Naar 35.24St. Mary's`6-01
KJ Feagin 25.10Santa Clara`6-01
Emmett Haar5.00St. Mary's
Yoeli Childs 234.90Brigham Young`6-08
Silas Melson 04.81Gonzaga`6-04
Nick Emery 44.70Brigham Young`6-02
Chase Foster 224.47San Francisco`6-05

While BYU seems to be the only team to consistently challenge the two WCC perennial powers, San Francisco brings incredible balance after a group of 13 freshmen and sophomores shocked everyone with a 20-win season. However, in the end it appears BYU is the team with the best chance to give the WCC three bids to the NCAA tournament.

Ken Pomeroy ranked the WCC as the 11th 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 Illustrated, Fox 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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