Danny Ainge's 1981 BYU Elite 8; Crowder and Butler's 1st of 3 Marquette Sweet 16 Teams,

The loaded Brigham Young trio of Danny Ainge, Fred Roberts and Greg Kite not only led the team to the Elite 8, but all three of those players had long NBA careers to show just how good they were. Both teams are on the updated google doc of 136 of the greatest college teams and players of all time. The cards are used with our free Value Add Basketball Game, still our most popular post with 56,800 visitors so far.

After adding a few teams from 2020 and 2021 we ended up with an odd number of teams per region, so we added the 1981 BYU team to the West Region and the 2011 Marquette team to the Midwest Region.

Ainge was WAC player of the year as three ranked teams battled through the season, with BYU finishing one game behind both Utah and Wyoming for the title. Not many saw BYU play as their only two nationally televised games before the tournament were a win against Washington early in the season, and then a crushing win over rival Utah to close out the season.

However the twin towers of future NBA players Roberts and Kite took over with Ainge to beat Princeton, destroy UCLA in an upset, and then stun Notre Dame 51-50 to reach the Elite 8, where they fell to Ralph Sampson and UVa. 

Both teams start ranked right around 75th of the 136 great all-time teams in the game.

The additional team to round out the Midwest is the 2011 Marquette team, which made a stunning run to the Sweet 16 as a No. 11 seed to set the stage for three straight Marquette teams to make the Sweet 16.

Under-the-radar Jimmy Butler led this team before his shocking selection by the Chicago Bulls in the 1st round of the next NBA draft, then going all-NBA within a few years.

Also off the radar was Jae Crowder, who was setting the stage to team up with his buddy DJO (Darius Johnson-Odom) to take the team the next year to the Sweet 16 before also being a surprise NBA pick who has gone onto hit 1,000 3-pointers in the NBA.

Coming off the bench were the much more heralded 5-star Vander Blue as well as Davante Gardner, who would survive near certain 1st round elimination by Davidson, then went all the way to the Elite 8.

West Coast Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

 For Immediate Release

John Pudner, 404.606.3163, johnp@takebackaction.org

West Coast Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

“Value Add Basketball is happy to provide the early list of the conferences 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.”

“Seven years ago we drew attention by tabbing Utah’s Delon Wright as the most valuable player in the country, and now it is their intra-state rival that has the best early season not only in the WCC,but in the nation - BYU’s Alex Barcello. San Francisco’s 12-1 start and chance to contend at least for 2nd place is led by a second non-Zag playing at an All-American level, point guard Jamaree Bouyea, who ranks as the 8th most valuable player in the country.”

“Gonzaga remains the team to beat with two players we rank as almost sure NBA players (Chet Holmgren 97% and Julian Strawther 85%) and another two who have a 50-50 shot (Drew Timme and Andrew Nembhard both 47%), but they will have some stars to contain to get there.

We list a few additional considerations for All-Defense and other NBA prospects below the Top 15.

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	WCC	Team	Value Add	Class	Ht	AdjD	NBA
1	Alex Barcello	BYU	10.78	Sr	6'2"	-1.37	47%
2	Jamaree Bouyea	San Francisco	9.27	Sr	6'2"	-2.67	70%
3	Chet Holmgren	Gonzaga	7.95	Fr	7'0	-3.94	97%
4	Matthias Tass	Saint Mary's	6.98	Sr	6'10"	-1.6	1%
5	Julian Strawther	Gonzaga	6.77	So	6'7"	-1.72	85%
6	Jalen Williams	Santa Clara	6.45	Jr	6'6"	-0.89	1%
7	Drew Timme	Gonzaga	6.44	Jr	6'10"	-1.42	47%
8	Keshawn Justice	Santa Clara	6.28	Sr	6'7"	-1.94	1%
9	Joe Quintana	Loyola Marymount	5.8	Sr	6'2"	-0.84	1%
10	Yauhen Massalski	San Francisco	5.03	Sr	6'9"	-2.53	1%
11	Tommy Kuhse	Saint Mary's	4.79	Sr	6'2"	-1.88	1%
12	Fousseyni Traore	BYU	4.73	Fr	6'6"	-2.4	1%
13	Anton Watson	Gonzaga	4.7	Jr	6'8"	-2.47	23%
14	Rasir Bolton	Gonzaga	4.43	Sr	6'3"	-0.46	23%
15	Dan Fotu	Saint Mary's	4.39	Sr	6'7"	-1.77	1%
Def	Kyle Bowen	Saint Mary's	4.33	Jr	6'8"	-2.85	1%
Def	Logan Johnson	Saint Mary's	2.32	Sr	6'2"	-2.62	1%
Def	Terrell Brown	San Diego	1.83	Sr	6'10"	-2.47	1%
Def	Caleb Lohner	BYU	1.54	So	6'8"	-2.09	1%
Def	Gideon George	BYU	2.26	Sr	6'6"	-1.99	1%
NBA	Andrew Nembhard	Gonzaga	4.05	Sr	6'5"	-1.94	47%
NBA	Hunter Sallis	Gonzaga	2.9	Fr	6'5"	-1.57	31%
NBA	Mitchell Saxen	Saint Mary's	0.84	So	6'10"	-0.97	5%
NBA	Nolan Hickman	Gonzaga	3.81	Fr	6'2"	-0.87	20%