March Madness Top 50 Teams Based on NBA Talent (Shaka Smart's team is 4th)

With March Madness looming as the next billion dollar sports event now that the Super Bowl is over, many sports fans just tuning into college basketball may be surprised that Gonzaga is not only a projected No. 1 seed but also features the second most NBA talent behind only Kentucky based on www.valueaddbasketball.com. Below we list any team that qualify as a Top 50 team based either on how valuable each player has been to date (Value Add ranking above replacement player) or how much talent they have based on NBA prospects rated from 100 (Zion Williamson of Duke) down to "1" in the notes section at Value Add Basketball and based on the guru of hoops talent at NBADraft.net.  Click on this CBS247 story or the photo for the story, or on www.valueaddbasketball.com to sort all 4000+ players by team or conference.

Another great night of basketball starts in a few minutes on ESPN with Louisville (ranked between 15th and 17th in the three major rankings) visiting a Virginia Tech team ranked a little higher (9th through 11th) but without its injured point guard Justin Robinson.


The left column is the team's rank based on the potential of their players based on how well the main NBA ranking site since 2000, NBADraft.net, ranks them. The second figure is the value of all players' on the team above how well a replacement player would do (for example of Virginia's entire team were replaced by a standard borderline bench player, they would be 53 points per game worse than they are today for the best Value Add ranking even though they only have the 16th most potential NBA-level talent). On the flip side, Texas has the 4th most NBA-level talent though so far they have been only the 41st best team - though 8 years ago today Texas coach Shaka Smart was coaching the 88th ranked VCU team that went to the Final Four. For questions call 4046063163 or email back.

Team Most NBA Talent Value Add Value Add Rank Kentucky 1 38.2 14 Gonzaga 2 48.9 2 Duke 3 46.92 3 Texas 4 30.87 41 Kansas 5 38.71 10 North Carolina 6 40.93 7 Mississippi St. 7 33.24 29 UCLA 8 23.57 93 Arizona St. 9 27.69 58 Oregon 10 26.96 66 Auburn 11 36.06 19 Maryland 12 35.5 21 LSU 13 34.69 25 Villanova 14 35.3 22 Stanford 15 19.68 142 Virginia 16 53.84 1 Arizona 17 24.66 85 Tennessee 18 42.08 6 Michigan 19 42.84 5 Nevada 20 38.64 11 Alabama 21 29.41 49 Syracuse 22 30.02 48 Iowa St. 23 37.75 15 Florida St. 24 32.44 34 Penn St. 25 25.09 80 Providence 26 25.35 79 USC 27 24 88 St. John's 28 28.41 54 Minnesota 29 30.25 46 Washington 30 31.19 39 Kansas St. 31 32.87 32 West Virginia 32 21.47 119 Michigan St. 33 45.88 4 Colorado 34 22.93 102 Marquette 35 34.68 26 Louisville 36 38.31 13 Florida 37 32.92 31 Xavier 38 25.55 77 Notre Dame 39 23.91 90 Georgia 40 23.61 92 Nebraska 41 35.91 20 Washington St. 42 13.26 231 Virginia Tech 43 38.94 9 Indiana 44 29.14 51 Texas Tech 45 36.86 16 San Diego St. 46 19.34 145 North Carolina St. 47 31.23 38 Georgetown 48 22.43 108 Purdue 49 39.31 8 Boston College 50 23.03 100 Mississippi 54 32.03 35 Iowa 56 34.86 24 Cincinnati 58 32.53 33 Murray St. 60 30.28 45 Creighton 66 28.59 53 Yale 69 32.97 30 Wofford 71 31.64 37 Belmont 75 30.61 43 Wisconsin 78 38.48 12 Butler 79 31.15 40 TCU 82 34.29 27 Houston No NBA Prospect 36.4 17 Oklahoma No NBA Prospect 36.21 18 Buffalo No NBA Prospect 34.88 23 Saint Mary's No NBA Prospect 33.74 28 Ohio St. No NBA Prospect 31.99 36 San Francisco No NBA Prospect 30.73 42 Utah St. No NBA Prospect 30.55 44 Liberty No NBA Prospect 30.03 47 Lipscomb No NBA Prospect 29.24 50