Big East Returns Most Dominant All-Americans in Return of Value Add Basketball Rankings

All-Big East Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Adama Sanogo	Connecticut	11.37	122.6	90.9	4-seed, 31-8, Poss 26.4%
Ryan Kalkbrenner	Creighton	10.80	133.4	93.2	6-seed, 24-13, Poss 19.4%
Jordan Hawkins	Connecticut	9.88	121.2	90.9	4-seed, 31-8, nba 14 in 2023
Tyler Kolek	Marquette	9.63	118	96.7	2-seed, 29-7 (PG), Poss 24.1%
Souley Boum	Xavier	8.87	119.2	98.6	3-seed, 27-10 (PG), Poss 21.2%
2nd T-Big East Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Joel Soriano	St. John's	7.95	120.1	98	18-15, Poss 22.4%
Oso Ighodaro	Marquette	7.93	123.8	96.7	2-seed, 29-7, Poss 18.2%
Ed Croswell	Providence	7.79	123.3	100.8	11-seed, 21-12, Poss 21.3%
Alex Karaban	Connecticut	7.77	124	90.9	4-seed, 31-8, nba 32 in 2024
Jack Nunge	Xavier	7.73	120.2	98.6	3-seed, 27-10, Poss 21.9%
HM-Big East Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Eric Dixon	Villanova	7.25	116.3	99.7	17-17, Poss 25.6%
Zach Freemantle	Xavier	6.04	110.9	98.6	3-seed, 27-10, Poss 24.7%
Umoja Gibson	DePaul	5.87	110.9	105.2	10-23 (PG), Poss 24.1%

Above is a very late All-Big East Conference 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.

Simply put, the Big East returns the most dominant conference based on having four of the top 10 returning players in the country according to the Value Add Basketball calculations. The Big East not only has four of the top 10 returning players in the country, but just misses having three different teams with two of the top 10 returning players.

Cam Spencer transferred to UConn as a top 10 All-American, and joins Ryan Karaban who just misses the top 10. 

Oso Ighodaro just missed joining Marquette's All-American point guard Tyler Kolek or Marquette would have two of the top 10 returning players.

Finally, while he hasn't shown last year's dominance yet, Steven Ashworth transferred to Creighton to join Ryan Kalkbrenner to give them two of the top 10 returning players.

Its easy to see why UConn, Marquette and Creighton were ranked in Pomeroy's top 8 until Creighton was upset on Thanksgiving. Amazing that the conference that seemed most decimated by realignment a decade ago is the most stable the past year. Then it appeared the conference was the loser and the football programs were ditching them to go from a Power 6 to a Power 5 - while instead it is the Pac-12 that is disappearing as the Big East remains as the basketball-only member of the new Power 5.

There is still talk of UConn leaving as the conference seems to have the best chance to win another title to grab a 4th title in 7 years, but even if that happens it seems Dayton (who may have been the team cost a title by the 2020 Covid cancellation) seems likely to be pulled in to keep the conference at 11. Here are the seeds from last year and current Pomeroy rankings.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Butler	BE	BE	BE		77
Connecticut	BE	BE	BE	4	3
Creighton	BE	BE	BE	6	13
DePaul	BE	BE	BE		168
Georgetown	BE	BE	BE		174
Marquette	BE	BE	BE	2	6
Providence	BE	BE	BE	11	47
Seton Hall	BE	BE	BE		55
St. John's	BE	BE	BE		71
Villanova	BE	BE	BE		19
Xavier	BE	BE	BE	3	33

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%

UConn 1999 vs. Arkansas 1994 for Last All-Time Top 25 Spot

We rescheduled a few games on our Value Add Basketball Game game log in order to continue to get top teams up to at least three games played.

#24 Arkansas 1994 will now play #31 UConn 1999 as the two highest ranked teams without three games played.

The two teams that were scheduled to play those two teams will now play each other for a super matchup of big men, Shaq's LSU team against Bill Russell's San Francisco team.

UConn will still need one more game played after that to hit three games, so they will play the next highest ranked team with fewer than three games played - #39 Michigan 1965.

After those we will get up to three games played through the top 44 teams with #40 Iowa 2021 plays both #43 Illinois 1943 and then the highest scoring team ever, #41 Loyola Marymount, who is 1-1 averaging 120 points scored and 110 points allowed both games.

Pages 6 and 17 provide the cards for the biggest left Arkansas vs. UConn game.

Big East Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

 For Immediate Release

John Pudner, 404.606.3163, johnp@takebackaction.org

Big East Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

“Value Add Basketball is happy to provide the early list of the conference’s top 15 men’s  basketball players based on proven analytics used by NBA teams for draft prep,as well as writers at Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBC Sports, Fox Sports,” said John Pudner, the inventor of the system.”

“Villanova’s Collin Gillespie is the 10th best player in the country and leads a list of an impressive 10 Big East players in the top 100 in the country. This may explain why even though the Big 12 and Big East are the top two ranked teams at www.kenpom.com, in the early season challenges the Big East split 5-5 with the Big 12 and for the first time beat the Big Ten to establish how strong the conference is this year.

“The Big East is an experienced lead with two of the best defender in the country with defending co-Big East Defender of the Year Posh Alexander of St. John’s ranking as both the second best defender and second best player in the conference. The top defender in the conference is Marquette’s Darryl Morsell, who was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year with Maryland last year.”

“The only sure fire NBA player in the conference is Georgetown’s freshman Aminu Mohammed, though seven other players have at least a 40 percent of making the NBA, Marquette’s Justin Lewis may join them after torching UConn double teams with Morsell out to increase his chances of making the NBA to 21%.”

You can click on this google doc with information on all 4,000+ players prior to it being posted on www.valueaddbasketball.com. You can also click here for the top 100 players in the country.

Information includes each player’s chance of making the NBA, his Value Add Rating for how many points he impacts a typical game (roughly 10 points is All-American level). The key to the table is: Rank = the player's conference ranking, Value Add = how many points he improves his team over a replacement player, Class = if he is in his 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th and final year of eligibility, Ht = his height, AdjD = how many points he takes away from opponents, and NBA = his percent chance of making the NBA.

Feel free to use any information contained in these statements as wanted, and email (johnp@takebackaction.org), or text/call 404.606.3163 for any questions or additional quotes from John Pudner.

Rank	BE	Team	Value Add	Class	Ht	AdjD	NBA
1	Collin Gillespie	Villanova	9.06	Sr	6'3"	-1.74	5%
2	Posh Alexander	St. John's	7.89	So	6'0	-4.2	24%
3	Javon Freeman-Liberty	DePaul	7.47	Sr	6'4"	-2.92	1%
4	Ryan Kalkbrenner	Creighton	7.22	So	7'1"	-1.78	1%
5	RJ Cole	Connecticut	6.89	Sr	6'1"	-1.49	1%
6	Jack Nunge	Xavier	6.88	Jr	7'0	-2.55	1%
7	Justin Moore	Villanova	6.71	Jr	6'4"	-2.04	48%
8	Colby Jones	Xavier	6.65	So	6'6"	-2.39	1%
9	Darryl Morsell	Marquette	6.59	Sr	6'5"	-4.5	44%
10	Ryan Hawkins	Creighton	6.47	Sr	6'7"	-1.59	1%
11	Julian Champagnie	St. John's	6.25	Jr	6'8"	-2.3	46%
12	Jared Rhoden	Seton Hall	6.02	Sr	6'6"	-2.49	45%
13	Isaiah Whaley	Connecticut	5.63	Sr	6'9"	-4.6	1%
14	David Jones	DePaul	5.59	So	6'6"	-2.68	1%
15	Nate Johnson	Xavier	5.52	Sr	6'4"	-0.71	1%
NBA	Andre Jackson	Connecticut	4.62	So	6'6"	-3.45	43%
NBA	Justin Lewis	Marquette	4.86	Fr	6'7"	-2.38	21%
NBA	Jermaine Samuels	Villanova	4.52	Sr	6'7"	-2.04	20%
NBA	Paul Scruggs	Xavier	2.66	Sr	6'5"	-1.95	29%
NBA	Aminu Mohammed	Georgetown	3.61	Fr	6'5"	-1.88	81%
NBA	Adama Sanogo	Connecticut	2.45	So	6'9"	-1.25	42%
NBA	Jordan Hawkins	Connecticut	1.28	Fr	6'5"	-0.57	42%

Suns Big Men in B10 Showdown - MD vs. WI

A Big Ten showdown in our NBA Finals alumni team featured two current Phoenix Suns. 

Rookie big man Jalen Smith brought his 2020 Maryland team with the best inside-outside duo with his point guard Anthony Cowan against teammate big man Frank Kaminisky and his 2015 Wisconsin team that won a stunner in the 2015 Final 4 against a Kentucky team many considered the greatest team in history.

We start this blog by setting up the teams. Here is who we put in the game at the beginning (44th possession) and leaving Smith on the bench for the first three possessions so that he could then play the final 41 possessions of the game. Here is the line-up.

The coins are the five players in the game, and we drew in the order the get the ball on the 8-sided die or top reading on the fast action card, with a roll of 1 to Cowan, 2 to Ayala, 3 to Scott, 4 to 2021 Big Ten defensive player and now Marquette player Morsell and 5 to Mitchell.

The dimes only go to players with a 2nd number on the "gets ball on" reading on the player card, so a 6 alos goes to Cowan, a 7 to Morsell and 8 to Mitchell.

We then put coins on the players who will start on the court for Wisconsin, and we chose:

1 to Jackson, 2 to Gasser, 3 to Hayes, 4 to Kaminsky and 5 to Dukan.

You may notice the "play time" space was accidentally left blank, which leaves two options. The simple option in any game is to play the bottom row from possession 44 to 38, and then the top row from 37 to 1, the final possession.

However we took the other option of adding the stamina for each player by going to www.kenpom.com and then taking half the % minutes number (Kaminski's 82% min means he can play 41 of the 44 possessions without getting tired.

By the time we made it to the 26th possession to go, wisconsin led 48-40 all all the starters were in the game with enough duration to play the last 26 possessions without getting tired.

However we did have one unplanned substitution with 10 possessions left. Cowan drew a 5th foul on WI PG Koenig.

We could have brought Jackson back in the game, but he had already played 14 possessions earlier in the game, so only had 2 possessions left st full strength of his 16 possessions.

However, Zak Showalter had not played and can play up to 8 possessions, so we decided to play him from the 10th to the 3rd possession to go, and then save Jackson's final two possessions at full strenght for the final two possessions of the game.

Surprisingly Zak would end up sealing the game with a 4-point play with 2 minutes to play to give the Badgers a 77-65 lead.

Cowan (26 points) and Smith (25 points, 11 rebounds, 5 blocked shots) were an unbelievable inside-outside duo we would have loved to see in the cancelled 2020 March Madness.

However, they received no help as Wiggins (7 points) was the only other Terp to score besides the 2 automatic points when we start at 20-20.

The game was closer than the final score indicated, as Cowan's scored with 7:03 left to cut it to 63-60, but they could get no closer.

However, the Badgers played their normal balanced game with only 8 total turnovers.

Kaminsky led the way with 14 points and 10 rebounds, but all 5 starters had double figures in addition to the 6 from showalter and another 8 from Jackson off the bench.

We did not plan to line up the conferences, the seeding just worked out that way.

One semifinal is an ACC semifinal, with UVA's national champs taking on the Louisville 2020 team that nudged Chris Paul's 2005 Wake Forest team 80-79.

With the Wisconsin win above the Big Ten clash, they face the winner of a Big East clash between 2018 national champs Villanova and the one other actual NBA Finals star Bridges against the Creighton team that won our 2020 March Madness title over Duke.

We have no way of knowing who would have one thr tournament that covid ruined, but Creighton was by far the hottest team entering the tournament - having risen for  23rd to 7th in the final month of the season, so the threes should be flying.

Ddd

NBA Finals Stocked with Players from Value Add Basketball Game All-Time Great Teams

Great NBA players did not always have great college careers. Among the players suited up for the NBA Finals, 2-time Bucks MVP Giannis Anteokounmpo, as well as a couple of guys on the bench – his big brother Thanasis Anteokounmpo and the Suns Dario Saric – did not play college.

However, this year's NBA Finals includes some of the highest rated college players in the history of the Value Add Basketball ratings, as well as eight players who also played on one of the all-time great basketball teams included in the popular Value Add Basketball Game. (50,800 visitors have now pulled up the game, which includes these free player cards.)

I happened to just return from Wyoming, whose 1943 team is the earliest in the game due to Kenny Sailor leading the Cowboys to the National Title after inventing the jump shot.

At the bottom of this blog we show the college rating of each NBA Finals player, including five players who ranked as one of the top three players in all of college basketball when they played.

Two of those elite Value Add Basketball 1st Team All-Americans do not have cards in the game:

The Suns' reserve Jevon Carter was the top ranked player in the 2012 season with West Virginia, which is represented in the game by Jerry West's 1959 team and Kevin Jones' 2010 team.

The Suns' Jae Crowder was ranked as the second best player in the country behind Anthony Davis in 2012 when he beat out Jones as Big East Player of the Year while playing for Marquette, across the street from the Buck's home court where he drilled 6 of 7 three-pointers Sunday night for the visitors. Marquette is represented in the game by Al McGuire's National Championship team of 1977, and Dwyane Wade's 2003 Final Four team.

The first three player cards below from the Value Add Basketball Game also finished in the top three - Chris Paul ranked as the third best player of the 4,000+ players in 2005 when he played for Wake Forest, Mikal Bridges ranked as the 2nd best player when on the 2018 Villanova National Champs, and Frank Kaminsky ranked as the third best player in the country in 2015, when we shocked many readers by declaring the Wisconsin Badger the 1st team All-American more than a month before he shocked the undefeated Kentucky team in the Final Four. 

Mamadi Diakite's was rated higher in the 2020 season, but we show his 2019 card below when he was part of the national championship team at the University of Virginia.
(Note: thanks to this great blog for showing how to insert these photos side-by-side in blogger)

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If we seeded the eight teams of these NBA Finals Players based on the ratings at www.kenpom.com, we would end up with this tournament bracket:

While the eight players shown above were great players on great teams included in the game, many Suns' players and some Bucks' players were also great college players. The following is a table indicating the highest ranked college players now at least suited up for the NBA Finals for either the Suns or Bucks.

We consider any player that finishes in the top 41 players out of 4,000 college players an elite player, since they rate in the top 1 percent of all college players. I suspect this is the first time an NBA Finals has had 15 players who were in the top 1 percent of college players.

Rnk	Best college season	NBA	Game	College	Year
1	Jevon Carter #2	Suns		West Virginia	2018
2	Mikal Bridges #25	Suns	Yes	Villanova	2018
2	Jae Crowder	Suns		Marquette	2012
3	Frank Kaminsky 44	Suns	Yes	Wisconsin	2015
3	Chris Paul	Suns	Yes	Wake Forest	2004
8	Jalen Smith #25	Suns	Yes	Maryland	2020
9	Sam Merrill #5	Bucks	Yes	Utah St.	2020
11	Deandre Ayton #13	Suns		Arizona	2018
13	Ty-Shon Alexander #5	Suns	Yes	Creighton	2020
18	Cameron Payne 1	Suns		Murray St.	2015
19	Bobby Portis 10	Bucks		Arkansas	2015
20	Langston Galloway	Suns		St. Joseph's	2014
23	Cameron Johnson #13	Suns		North Carolina	2019
34	Justin Jackson 44	Bucks		North Carolina	2017
41	Elijah Bryant #3	Bucks		Brigham Young	2018
44	PJ Tucker	Bucks		Texas	2006
47	Jordan Nwora #33	Bucks	Yes	Louisville	2020
49	Devin Booker 1	Suns		Kentucky	2015
63	E'Twaun Moore	Suns		Purdue	2011
73	Jeff Teague	Bucks		Wake Forest	2009
75	Pat Connaughton 24	Bucks		Notre Dame	2015
77	Mamadi Diakite #25	Bucks	Yes	Virginia	2020
101	Brook Lopez	Bucks		Stanford	2008
186	Khris Middleton	Bucks		Texas A&M	2011
190	Torrey Craig	Suns		South Carolina Upstate	2012
214	Bryn Forbes 5	Bucks		Michigan St.	2016
311	Jrue Holiday	Bucks		UCLA	2009
711	Abdel Nader 2	Suns		Iowa St.	2016
	Giannis Antetokounmpo	Bucks		No College
	Thanasis Antetokounmpo	Bucks		No College
	Dario Šarić	Suns		No College