SEC and Return of Value Add Basketball All-American Ratings

All-Southeastern Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Brandon Miller	Alabama	10.23	117	88.2	1-seed, 31-6, nba 2 in 2023
Santiago Vescovi	Tennessee	9.52	114.2	87.5	4-seed, 25-11 (PG), Poss 18.8%
Oscar Tshiebwe	Kentucky	8.83	122.6	98.8	6-seed, 22-12, Poss 24.5%
Tolu Smith	Mississippi St.	8.28	108.7	91.4	11-seed, 21-13, Poss 30.5%
Olivier Nkamhoua	Tennessee	8.06	110.4	27-Mar	4-seed, 25-11, Poss 22.1%
2nd T-Southeastern Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Wade Taylor	Texas A&M	7.89	113.8	97	7-seed, 25-10, Poss 29.1%
Makhi Mitchell	Arkansas	7.88	124.7	94	8-seed, 22-14, Poss 15.9%
Charles Bediako	Alabama	7.83	121.3	88.2	1-seed, 31-6, Poss 14.6%
Kobe Brown	Missouri	7.75	125.5	105.3	7-seed, 25-10, nba 30 in 2023
Josiah-Jordan James	Tennessee	7.57	107.2	87.5	4-seed, 25-11, Poss 23.2%
HM-Southeastern Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Zakai Zeigler	Tennessee	7.55	107.1	87.5	4-seed, 25-11, Poss 23.2%
Will Richard	Florida	7.54	124.6	95.5	16-17, Poss 15.6%
Liam Robbins	Vanderbilt	7.27	117.2	103.7	22-15, Poss 31.6%
D'Moi Hodge	Missouri	6.90	124.6	105.3	7-seed, 25-10, Poss 20.2%
Wendell Green	Auburn	6.35	102.2	95.7	9-seed, 21-13 (PG), Poss 28.4%
KJ Williams	LSU	6.23	118.3	105.1	14-19, Poss 24.5%
Colin Castleton	Florida	5.63	104.8	95.5	16-17, Poss 28.3%
Noah Carter	Missouri	5.35	116.3	105.3	7-seed, 25-10, Poss 21.4%

Above is a very late All-SEC 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.

Note also the the first three players listed were also All-Americans below, though of those only Tennessee's Santiago Vescovi returns this season.

With Texas and Oklahoma joining next year to a conference that is already ranked 2nd behind the Big 12, had eight teams in the NCAA tournament last year and always competes for most players in the NBA, no one tops the SEC in basketball talent. The only downside for the conference is they have more one-and-dones who don't stick around long enough to put together an NCAA title run as often as you would expect. Another case-in-point was Alabama last year who likely was the second best team during the season behind UConn, but was just pushed around by a physical, older team in the tournament to fall. 

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Alabama	SEC	SEC	SEC	1	5
Arkansas	SEC	SEC	SEC	8	38
Auburn	SEC	SEC	SEC	9	15
Florida	SEC	SEC	SEC		28
Georgia	SEC	SEC	SEC		85
Kentucky	SEC	SEC	SEC	6	21
LSU	SEC	SEC	SEC		65
Mississippi	SEC	SEC	SEC		126
Mississippi St.	SEC	SEC	SEC	11	18
Missouri	SEC	SEC	SEC	7	87
Oklahoma	B12	B12	SEC		24
South Carolina	SEC	SEC	SEC		62
Tennessee	SEC	SEC	SEC	4	10
Texas	B12	B12	SEC	2	32
Texas A&M	SEC	SEC	SEC	7	14
Vanderbilt	SEC	SEC	SEC		139

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%

Creighton 79, Alabama 78 in What Could Have Been 2023 Elite 8 Game

One reason we want to play each team once 8s to catch anything we missed in the cards. In this case Mark Sears and Brandon Miller only got the ball on a 2 or 3 roll on the 8-sided die. When a player had 19 percent to 31 percent of the possessions they get the ball on two of eight numbers which was the case with both of them, so I updated the cards so Sears gets the ball in a 2 & 7 while Miller gets it on a 3 & 8. You may note from a recent game Murray State's Ja Morant got the ball in a 1, 6 or 7 and that was because he had it more than. 32 percent of the time in 2019.

Yes we know it is 35 days until college basketball, but one day until the MLB playoffs. But we don't really want to be posting on baseball simulation as the real playoffs are starting, so instead we resume our all-time great tournament with two of last year's teams that are yet to play in the game.

What an Elite 8 Game this would have been last year if San Diego State had not pulled the upsets. In our simulated game, Creighton dominated the board 37-28, but Bama dominated the turnovers 16-8. Bama's Mark Sears and Brandon Miller nailed clutch 3-pointers throughout,,but Creighton's Arthur Kaluma seemed to get to the rim at will.  In the end there were nine lead changes before a winner emerged to advance in our All-Time great game that actually featured two teams from last season (our teams go back to Wyoming 1943 in the Value Add Basketball Game. Scroll down for our box score and results.

 In 2023, San Diego State upset the best regular season team of the year - Alabama - in the Sweet 16, then they edged out one of three Big East Elite 8 teams Creighton.

In our third all-time great tournament those two teams play each other. We had already verified the exact dunk numbers for Creighton and that Alabama was very close. on double check, Alabama's dunk range did drop just one to 51-54. 

With the defensive adjustment, that leaves Creighton at a 51-55 and Alabama at 51-52. Based on the Alabama +2 team rating at the top of the team sheet and the Creighton +1 team rating on their sheet, Alabama is a one point favorite in this game. However, one advantage we do see for Creighton is their starters played a lot more due to their deliberate pace, while Alabama needs a lot more possessions from their bench due to the up tempo.

Here are the line-ups. The box scores will be added after the game.

results

Creighton 2023	Ht	Pos	Pts	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fls	Actual Season Stats
Ryan Nembhard	6'0	1-PG	14	3	1	0	5	12.1 Pts, 4.0 Reb, 4.8 Ast
Trey Alexander	6'4	2-SG	10	3	1	1	1	13.6 Pts, 4.2 Reb, 2.6 Ast
Baylor Scheierman	6'6	3-SF	9	6	0	0	3	12.8 Pts, 8.3 Reb, 3.3 Ast
Arthur Kaluma	6'7	5-C	18	10	0	3	2	15.9 Pts, 6.1 Reb, 1.2 Ast
Ryan Kalkbrenner	7'0	4-PF	9	7	0	1	2	11.8 Pts, 6.0 Reb, 1.6 Ast
Shereef Mitchell	6'0	1-PG	6	2	0	0	2	1.8 Pts, 0.6 Reb, 0.5 Ast
Ben Shtolzberg	6'4	2-SG	2	1	0	0	1	1.5 Pts, 0.9 Reb, 0.6 Ast
Francisco Farabello	6'4	3-SF	7	1	0	0	1	3.0 Pts, 1.3 Reb, 0.9 Ast
Mason Miller	6'8	4-PF	2	1	0	0	1	2.3 Pts, 1.6 Reb, 0.2 Ast
Fredrick King	6'10	5-C	2	3	0	0	1	3.4 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 0.1 Ast
Totals			79	37	2	5	19	Game 16 turnovers
Alabama 2023	Ht	Pos	Pts	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fls	Actual Season Stats
Jaden Bradley	6'3	1-PG	13	4	2	0	1	6.4 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 3.1 Ast
Mark Sears	6'1	2-SG	10	1	2	0	2	12.5 Pts, 3.5 Reb, 2.6 Ast
Brandon Miller	6'9	3-SF	16	7	1	0	1	18.8 Pts, 8.2 Reb, 2.1 Ast
Charles Bediako	7'0	4-PF	4	1	0	0	2	6.4 Pts, 6.0 Reb, 0.6 Ast
Noah Clowney	6'10	5-C	10	9	0	4	3	9.8 Pts, 7.9 Reb, 0.8 Ast
Jahvon Quinerly	6'1	1-PG	5	2	1	0	1	8.7 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 3.6 Ast
Nimari Burnett	6'4	2-SG	7	1	0	0	1	5.6 Pts, 2.0 Reb, 0.7 Ast
Rylan Griffen	6'5	3-SF	5	1	1	0	1	5.9 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 0.7 Ast
Noah Gurley	6'8	4-PF	6	2	0	0	1	4.9 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 0.6 Ast
Nick Pringle	6'9	5-C	2	1	0	0	1	3.5 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 0.2 Ast
Totals			78	29	7	4	14	Game 8 turnovers

Alabama entered a 1-point favorite based on the cards, but Creighton emerged with the 79-78 win. Twice Bama pulled ahead based on a flurry of 3-pointers by Brandon Miller and then Mark Sears, but Creighton kept fighting back behind Kaluma muscling to the hoop against Bama's tall but thin front court.

Bama built leads of 43-35 and with just five minutes to play 67-60.

Trey Alexander hit a 3-pointer to cut it to 67-63 and with five possessions (2:44) to play,Baylor Schelerman hit a 3-pointers to make it 72-71 Creighton. 

Both defenses locked down from then on, and noone scored another basket until the final possession for each team - which was actually extended to two possessions due to a foul. 

Kaluma was fouled to extend the game and hit two free throws to seemingly seal the game 77-72, but Brandon Moore started a wild sequence when he was fouled. Moore had been hitting 3-pointers, so it seemed the foul worked fine to only give him a chance at two points, but he hit the first free throw to make it 77-73 and missed the second free throw - which only the offensive power forward or center have a chance to get, and center Noah Clowney did get it and passed it to Charles Bediako, who scored for a unusual 3-point play to make it 77-75. 

Creighton then missed a shot on their last possession, which seemingly gave Bama one last chance to win - but backup point guard Shereef Mitchell, only in the game because Ryan Nembhard had fouled out earlier, grabbed a rare offensive rebound and laid it in to make it 79-75 Creighton. Creighton was lucky he did, and Bama's Mark Sears hit another 3-pointer at the end to make it a 79-78 final with Creighton advancing to our next round.

Best 25 College Basketball Teams on the Road

Look for the feature story on the CBS Sports Site Dodds on Sports that will run down the top road teams in the country.

This blog is a link for anyone who wants to look further down the list of the best road teams this year, or for the fellow stat geeks who want to read the way kenpom calculations are made - below these lists.
 

Rnk	Top 25 Road Warriors	SoS	Wins	Loss	Margin	Away kenpom
1	Kansas	20.3	3	0	15.0	35.3
2	Houston	13.3	3	0	19.0	32.3
3	UCLA	14.0	4	0	16.8	30.8
4	Alabama	19.0	3	0	9.0	28.0
5	Tennessee	12.7	2	1	14.0	26.7
6	UConn	18.8	2	2	5.3	24.0
7	Oklahoma St.	16.8	2	2	6.8	23.5
8	Rutgers	24.7	1	2	-2.3	22.3
9	Marquette	17.6	3	2	3.6	21.2
10	West Virginia	16.2	2	3	4.0	20.2
11	Providence	11.8	4	1	8.0	19.8
12	Kansas St.	16.5	2	2	3.0	19.5
13	Purdue	14.3	3	0	5.0	19.3
14	San Diego St.	10.7	3	0	8.7	19.3
15	Wisconsin	20.7	2	1	-1.3	19.3
16	Creighton	27.7	0	3	-8.3	19.3
17	Gonzaga	16.3	4	1	4.4	19.2
18	Xavier	11.5	4	0	7.3	18.8
19	Virginia	15.0	2	2	3.8	18.8
20	Missouri	18.0	2	1	0.0	18.0
21	Penn St.	18.7	1	2	-0.7	18.0
22	Seton Hall	23.0	2	4	-6.3	16.7
23	Utah St.	5.7	3	0	10.7	16.3
24	New Mexico	10.5	3	1	5.5	16.0
25	Auburn	12.3	1	2	2.7	15.0
Rnk	Others Qualified	SoS	Wins	Loss	Margin	Away kenpom
26	Indiana	24.0	1	3	-9.3	14.8
27	Memphis	16.5	1	3	-1.8	14.8
28	Iowa St.	19.3	2	1	-4.7	14.7
29	Clemson	10.5	3	1	3.8	14.3
30	Utah	10.8	3	1	3.3	14.0
31	FL Atlantic	5.4	4	1	7.6	13.0
32	Sam Houston St.	11.3	5	3	1.1	12.4
33	North Carolina	15.8	1	3	-3.5	12.3
34	Washington St.	14.9	1	7	-6.1	8.8
35	Nebraska	17.2	2	4	-9.5	7.7
36	Va Tech	10.0	0	3	-3.0	7.0
37	Kentucky	24.7	0	3	-18.7	6.0
38	Weber St.	8.9	2	5	-5.4	3.4
39	Southern Illinois	4.5	4	4	-1.4	3.1
40	Colorado St.	16.2	1	4	-13.2	3.0
41	Duke	12.3	1	2	-11.3	1.0
42	Northwestern St.	6.8	4	5	-8.9	-2.1
Rnk	Only 1 or 2 road games	SoS	Wins	Loss	Margin	Away kenpom
	Texas	20.5	2	0	5.5	26.0
	Saint Mary's	24.5	1	1	-1.0	23.5
	Ohio St.	19.5	1	1	3.5	23.0
	TCU	20.0	2	0	2.5	22.5
	Oklahoma	18.0	0	2	-0.5	17.5
	Arizona	17.5	1	1	-3.0	14.5
	Texas Tech	20.0	0	1	-6.0	14.0
	Arkansas	17.5	1	1	-8.0	9.5
	Illinois	18.0	0	2	-9.0	9.0
	Baylor	22.5	0	2	-20.5	2.0

These would be the standings (give or take a rounding error) if teams were rated using Ken Pomeroy's method but only based on the road games they played this year. Too often a team looks really dominant at home in a few early games, and then cannot handle hostile crowds. On the flip side, the teams that can handle the pressure of a hostile crowd seem more likely to handle the pressure of March Madness.

The 42 teams we did calculated fit one of two categories:

1. One of the 30 teams who were both in the overall www.kenpom.com Top 40 AND played at least three road games, or

2. One of the 12 teams who are not in www.kenpom.com top 40 but have won a road game at a Top 40 team AND have played at least three road games.

It is very unlikely any other teams we did not calculate would be in the Top 20.

There are 10 teams who are in the top 40 at www.kenpom.com but have NOT played three road games yet, so we list them at the bottom. The Texas Longhorns ranking of 26.0 in the bottom set of teams would rank them 6th in our road Top 25, but based on only two games we want to wait until they get their tough road tests in Big 12 player shortly.

How we simulated KenPom's rankings:

SoS - the strength of schedule is the average www.kenpom.com AdjME for the team's road games today rounded to the nearest number. The number on this table is then increased by +4 to give credit for the four point edge to the home team opponent, and we did include "semi-road" games but in that case only two points were added to the SoS.

For example, our #1 road team Kansas played road games at Missouri, West Virginia and Texas Tech, and those three teams average a 16.3 AdjEM at www.kenpom.com. However, because these are all true road games, we add +4 to each and the average comes out to 20.3. 

Not only did Kansas beat all three, but they averaged beating them by 15.0 points, so the kenpom system adds the SoS and the margin of the scores, and together the www.kenpom.com rating if only road games were counted would be 35.3 - making Kansas the best team in the country in this small sample.