ACC Boast Most Talent Despite Rough 3 Years as Value Add Rankings Return

All-ACC	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Ryan Young	Duke	9.37	128.7	93.9	5-seed, 27-9, Poss 18.3%
Jordan Miller	Miami FL	8.17	127.2	101.2	5-seed, 29-8, nba 48 in 2023
Hunter Tyson	Clemson	7.92	124	98.4	23-11, nba 37 in 2023
Matthew Marsh	Wake Forest	7.87	146.6	103.1	19-14, Poss 11.2%
Dereck Lively	Duke	7.76	131.1	93.9	5-seed, 27-9, nba 12 in 2023
2nd T-ACC	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Armando Bacot	North Carolina	7.65	114.3	97.2	20-13, Poss 27.2%
Kihei Clark	Virginia	7.40	107.6	94.5	4-seed, 25-8 (PG), Poss 22.1%
PJ Hall	Clemson	7.16	112.7	98.4	23-11, Poss 29.1%
Norchad Omier	Miami FL	7.09	119	101.2	5-seed, 29-8, Poss 23%
Tyree Appleby	Wake Forest	7.05	112	103.1	19-14 (PG), Poss 28.7%
HM-ACC	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Jarkel Joiner	N.C. State	6.82	116.6	100	11-seed, 23-11, Poss 23%
Casey Morsell	N.C. State	6.75	127.2	100	11-seed, 23-11, Poss 13.8%
Jack Clark	N.C. State	6.72	122.8	100	11-seed, 23-11, Poss 16.3%
Isaiah Wong	Miami FL	6.54	116	101.2	5-seed, 29-8, nba 55 in 2023
Federiko Federiko	Pittsburgh	6.54	127.3	101.3	11-seed, 24-12, Poss 13.6%
Jayden Gardner	Virginia	6.36	108	94.5	4-seed, 25-8, Poss 24.9%
Kyle Filipowski	Duke	6.20	105	93.9	5-seed, 27-9, nba 12 in 2024
Grant Basile	Virginia Tech	6.19	115.3	103.4	19-15, Poss 26.8%
Greg Elliott	Pittsburgh	6.05	121.8	101.3	11-seed, 24-12, Poss 14.9%
Maliq Brown	Syracuse	5.98	127.6	105.5	17-15, Poss 13.5%
Jesse Edwards	Syracuse	5.70	117.9	105.5	17-15, nba 40 in 2024
Nate Laszewski	Notre Dame	5.49	121.7	108.4	11-21, Poss 18.7%
Justyn Mutts	Virginia Tech	4.88	111.2	103.4	19-15, Poss 24.1%
Terquavion Smith	N.C. State	4.26	104.3	100	11-seed, 23-11, Poss 29.2%

Above is a very late All-ACC team from the 2022-23 season, and we will be updating these and the top 300 players at www.valueaddbasketball.com to go along with the rankings going back to the 2001-02 season. While this system received rave reviews from Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Fox Sports and many others, last season we skipped because we lost the ability to rank all 4000 players who take the court for D1 action.

Despite the stunning drop in the ACC's ratings at www.kenpom.com after years of dominance, the Value Add Basketball Rankings once again calculate the conference has the most basketball talent. The names above show the 24 elite players in the conference, more than any other conference and only the Big Ten is even close with 21. Duke and UNC seem primed for contention again, as long as the Tar Heels figure out what in the world happened last year when they went from No. 1 in the country to not in the tournament, and Armando Bacot when from the Value Add Basketball top returning player in the country to 2nd team all-ACC above. 

After decades of dominance, the conference slipped to 5th in the www.kenpom.com ratings in both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 and since then have not even ranked as one of the top five conferences as the move to bring in West Coast Stanford and Cal. While UVA was the highest seed last year at 4, Duke and North Carolina certainly could return the strong ACC seeds to the tournament. While the new teams did not make the tournament last year, SMU and Stanford are top 100 and have had strong teams recently and could make a jump.

The three new additions for next year are shown here.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Boston College	ACC	ACC	ACC		116
California	P12	P12	ACC		187
Clemson	ACC	ACC	ACC		43
Duke	ACC	ACC	ACC	5	9
Florida St.	ACC	ACC	ACC		69
Georgia Tech	ACC	ACC	ACC		157
Louisville	ACC	ACC	ACC		146
Miami FL	ACC	ACC	ACC	5	35
N.C. State	ACC	ACC	ACC	11	54
North Carolina	ACC	ACC	ACC		16
Notre Dame	ACC	ACC	ACC		179
Pittsburgh	ACC	ACC	ACC	11	51
SMU	Amer	Amer	ACC		88
Stanford	P12	P12	ACC		70
Syracuse	ACC	ACC	ACC		128
Virginia	ACC	ACC	ACC	4	41
Virginia Tech	ACC	ACC	ACC		56
Wake Forest	ACC	ACC	ACC		78

Better late than never - this is one of 32 lists of All-Conference teams based on the "resurrected" Value Add Basketball rankings at www.valueaddbasketball.com. The other 31 releases of Conference teams will all include this same explanation for the rest of the blog, including the 10 returning All-Americans and top 60 players from last season listed further down.

This paragraph is of interest to stat nerds only. The offensive ratings were easier to recreate, since the basis was to pull hundreds of players ranked as the most efficient last season (AdjO at www.kenpom.com) and adjusting their figures for their percent of possessions. A player who can produce about 1.2 points per time he has the ball who also gets the ball 25% of the time against tough competition and as part of a strong defense can be All-American level, but a player who doesn't get the ball nearly as often but produces even more at 1.3 points per possession can still be All-Conference even if fans feel other players handling and shooting the ball more are better due to higher points scored per game.

The new simplified system weighs their ability to produce points against the Adjusted Defense (AdjD) - that is how many points per 100 trips would their team allow against an average D1 team. This accounts both for defense and for level of competition. We also note if a player is a Point Guard, the most important position on the court.

The resulting "Value" listed in the third column is the Value Add of points the player would improve an average team over if he could not play if a decent replacement took his place. Zach Edey was by far the most valuable player in the country last year at 13.17 meaning typically he would turn a 65-70 loss for a team into a 72-64 win - a 13 point swing. The notes off to the first indicated the team's record, their seed if they made the tournament, and then if they went to the NBA in the 2023 draft or are projected to go in the 2024 or 2025 draft.

1st and 2nd Team Returning All-Americans; and Top 60 Players from Last Season

 

The table below is the list of the 30 most valuable players in college basketball for the 2022-23 season according to our simplified www.valueaddbasketball.com rankings. Obviously most of these top players finished their eligibility or went pro so are no longer playing. However, if we made this our All-American teams of returning players including transfers at their new school the headline would be from Creighton.

1st Team Returning All-Americans - Value Add Basketball calculates that Creighton now has two of the three most valuable players in 2022-23 in returning Ryan Kalkbrenner and Utah State transfer Steven Ashworth. Ironically, Thursday it was Colorado State that handed Creighton its first loss - a team that Ashworth had dominated four of seven times in conference games at Utah State. The other 1st Team All-Americans based on last year's Value Add would be J'Wan Roberts returning for Houston, and then Tylor Perry who transferred from North Texas to Kansas State.

Most Valuable Player for 2nd Year. However, the far and away Most Valuable Player in the Country could challenge Anthony Davis, Jon Scheyer and Zion Williamson for as the most Valuable college player of the century in the All-Time Value Add Basketball Rankings - Zach Edey who was almost 2 points better than anyone in the country last year at Purdue and has them at No. 1 this season.

2nd Team Returning All-Americans - The 6th most valuable returning player according to Value Add is Marquette Point Guard Tyler Kolek. He would be joined on a second team All-American squad of returning players by Tennessee's Santiago Vescovi, Texas transfer from Oral Roberts Max Abmas, Duke's Ryan Young, Arizona's Azuolas Tubelis and finally Cam Spencer, who transferred from Rutgers to UConn.

In all, 18 of the top 30 players finished their college careers, leaving those 10 returning All-Americans and then two other players - JaKobe Coles of TCU and USC's Boogie Ellis.
 

All-American 1st Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Zach Edey	Purdue	13.17	125.9	94.5	1-seed, 29-6, nba 58 in 2024
Adama Sanogo (gone)	Connecticut	11.37	122.6	90.9	4-seed, 31-8, Poss 26.4%
Marcus Sasser (gone)	Houston	11.25	123.4	90.4	1-seed, 33-4, nba 25 in 2023
Ryan Kalkbrenner	Creighton	10.80	133.4	93.2	6-seed, 24-13, Poss 19.4%
Steven Ashworth (Creigh)	Utah St.	10.72	127.7	98.9	10-seed, 26-9 (PG), Poss 21.6%
All-American 2nd Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Tylor Perry (K-State)	North Texas	10.37	124.3	94.1	31-7, Poss 24.4%
Brandon Miller (gone)	Alabama	10.23	117.0	88.2	1-seed, 31-6, nba 2 in 2023
Xavier Castaneda (gone)	Akron	9.94	121.9	103.4	22-11 (PG), Poss 29.4%
J'Wan Roberts	Houston	9.90	127.9	90.4	1-seed, 33-4, Poss 18.4%
Jordan Hawkins (gone)	Connecticut	9.88	121.2	90.9	4-seed, 31-8, nba 14 in 2023
All-American 3rd Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Jaime Jaquez (gone)	UCLA	9.80	113.1	88	2-seed, 31-6, nba 18 in 2023
Jalen Pickett (gone)	Penn St.	9.66	118.7	101.1	10-seed, 23-14 (PG), nba 32 in 2023
Jordan Walker (gone)	UAB	9.64	114.7	97.9	29-10 (PG), Poss 30.6%
Tyler Kolek	Marquette	9.63	118	96.7	2-seed, 29-7 (PG), Poss 24.1%
Santiago Vescovi	Tennessee	9.52	114.2	87.5	4-seed, 25-11 (PG), Poss 18.8%
All-American 4th Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Max Abmas (Texas)	Oral Roberts	9.47	120.2	102.2	12-seed, 30-5 (PG), Poss 27.6%
Trayce Jackson-Davis (g)	Indiana	9.45	118.5	97.2	4-seed, 23-12, nba 57 in 2023
Ryan Young	Duke	9.37	128.7	93.9	5-seed, 27-9, Poss 18.3%
Kendric Davis (grad)	Memphis	9.24	111.1	96.1	8-seed, 26-9 (PG), Poss 31.6%
Drew Timme (grad)	Gonzaga	9.21	119.6	99.3	3-seed, 31-6, Poss 30.6%
All-American 5th Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Markquis Nowell (gone)	Kansas St.	8.92	111	95	3-seed, 26-10 (PG), Poss 27.6%
Souley Boum (gone)	Xavier	8.87	119.2	98.6	3-seed, 27-10 (PG), Poss 21.2%
Oscar Tshiebwe (gone)	Kentucky	8.83	122.6	98.8	6-seed, 22-12, Poss 24.5%
Terence Lewis (gone)	Louisiana	8.74	131.2	102.9	13-seed, 26-8, Poss 20.3%
Darius McGhee (gone)	Liberty	8.68	114.5	97.5	27-9, Poss 33.4%
All-American 6th Team	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Azuolas Tubelis	Arizona	8.68	116.1	96.3	2-seed, 28-7, Poss 28.7%
Cam Spencer (UConn)	Rutgers	8.66	119.4	90.8	19-15, Poss 19.8%
Sir'Jabari Rice (gone)	Texas	8.66	116.3	92.1	2-seed, 29-9, Poss 23.4%
JaKobe Coles	TCU	8.64	118.4	94.3	6-seed, 22-13, Poss 23.4%
Boogie Ellis	USC	8.56	113.3	97.5	10-seed, 22-11 (PG), Poss 25.7%