NBA Greats from Small Conferences For Last NIT Spot

This is our third straight NIT game with a 1-point spread or even, as these two teams were added to our game when we were adding teams with an all-time great NBA player - in this case Detroit Mercy's Nate Thurmond (ranked as the 49th greatest pro player ever) facing up against Bowling Green's Dave DeBusschere (73rd).

Detroit Mercy will not be in the Horizon League semifinals Monday night, finishing near the bottom of the league a year after the replacement of Mike Davis, who was unable to repeat the magic he had taking Indiana to the national title, putting together incredible teams at Texas Southern, and then coaching his son Antoine Davis at Detroit Mercy to within three points of breaking Pistol Pete Maravich's all-time NCAA scoring mark. However, their 1960 team was the team we picked as the all-time greatest team from the schools currently in the Horizon League.

Their opponent in our all-time great NIT tournament of great non-power conference teams came just three years later - the 1963 MAC all-time great Bowling Green, which will be a longshot in this year's Mid-American tournament as they start as the 8-seed Thursday against 1-seed Akron. They came off a 20-14 season last year, and played Michigan State tough early in the year, but have slipped t 14-17.

The 1963 team came four years after the Bowling Green football team claimed the small college national championship. The football program has won 12 MAC titles and was coaches for several years by Urban Meyers.

Pos	Detroit Mercy 1963	Height	Season Stats	Highlights (to be added)
1-PG	Howie Komives	6'1,NBA	20.2 Pts, 3.5 Reb
2-SG	Pat Haley	6'3	5.9 Pts, 2.6 Reb
3-SF	Wavey Junior	6'2	11.8 Pts, 7.0 Reb
4-PF	Elijah Chatman	6'3	7.2 Pts, 6.7 Reb
5-C	Nate Thurmond	6'11,NBA	19.9 Pts, 16.7 Reb
1-PG	Bill Reynolds	5'10	4.6 Pts, 1.1 Reb
2-SG	Lyle Pepin	6'2	2.2 Pts, 0.7 Reb
3-SF	Mel Gilbert	6'4	3.3 Pts, 2.7 Reb
4-PF	Bob Carbaugh	6'4	1.9 Pts, 0.9 Reb
5-C	Tom Baker	6'5	2.9 Pts, 1.5 Reb
Pos	Bowling Green 1963	Height	Summary
1-PG	Ray Albee	5'9	14.4 Pts, 4.2 Reb
2-SG	Larry Hughes	6'4	11.7 Pts, 8.1 Reb
3-SF	George Heger	6'3	5.0 Pts, 5.4 Reb
4-PF	Dave DeBusschere	6'6,NBA	25.6 Pts, 20.0 Reb
5-C	Charlie North	6'6	19.8 Pts, 14.2 Reb
1-PG	Tom Villemure	5'9	2.1 Pts, 0.3 Reb
2-SG	Frank Chickowski	6'1	4.3 Pts, 3.1 Reb
3-SF	Bob Wright	6'4	1.4 Pts, 1.5 Reb
4-PF	John Parker	6'4	1.2 Pts, 2.1 Reb
5-C	Dick Dylus	6'8	1.3 Pts, 0.7 Reb

Results of the game will be added, as one team claims the final NIT spot:

The winner of that game will play the Dartmouth early 1940s team in one all-time NIT semifinal which as it turns out will produce one old-timers team in the title game.

Then the two newer teams will play in the other national semifinal. We did not a slight error in the 12 teams created at the end, so their Dunk Ranges and ratings were lowered by 5 as reflected in these cards.

Horizon League, Original Big Realignment Conference, and Return of Value Add Basketball Rankings

All-Horizon League	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Dwayne Cohill	Youngstown St.	7.11	119	109	24-10 (PG), Poss 26.1%
Trey Calvin	Wright St.	5.59	109.6	105.8	18-15 (PG), Poss 28.6%
Chris Brandon	No Kentucky	5.57	121.4	102.2	16-seed, 22-13, Poss 13.4%
Antoine Davis	Detroit Mercy	5.30	115.6	113.3	14-19 (PG), Poss 34.9%
AJ Oliver	Detroit Mercy	4.88	125.1	113.3	14-19, Poss 15.9%
HM-Horizon League	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Tristan Enaruna	Cleveland St.	4.84	113.1	105.6	21-14, Poss 24.5%
Marques Warrick	No Kentucky	4.74	108.4	102.2	16-seed, 22-13, Poss 28%

Above is a very late All-Horizon League 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.

It could be argued the Horizon League really started the whole realignment trend with the biggest acquisition of new schools in the history of college basketball in the 1990s. The pickups of Cleveland State, Butler and Dayton, and briefly even Notre Dame and Marquette, put incredible potential in place. From 10 to 20 years ago they had the best record in March Madness of any conference, 19-12, culminating with Butler's amazing consecutive Final Four runs. Having the team with the best record host the tournament helped them get their best team in the NCAA where they were more likely to win.

Unfortunately,in the next big realignment a decade ago the Horizon League became the victim, with the Big East grabbing Butler and then the dominoes of Creighton going to the Big East costing the Horizon teams.  Still fun teams but not at the same level of a true golden decade.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Cleveland St.	Horz	Horz	Horz		175
Detroit Mercy	Horz	Horz	Horz		312
Green Bay	Horz	Horz	Horz		342
IUPUI	Horz	Horz	Horz		344
Milwaukee	Horz	Horz	Horz		269
Northern Kentucky	Horz	Horz	Horz	16	203
Oakland	Horz	Horz	Horz		162
Purdue Fort Wayne	Horz	Horz	Horz		198
Robert Morris	Horz	Horz	Horz		261
Wright St.	Horz	Horz	Horz		131
Youngstown St.	Horz	Horz	Horz		208

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%

Horizon League (Horz) 25 MVPs and Top Freshmen

The following are the 25 most valuable players based on their value above a typical replacement player both offensively and defensively at www.valueaddbasketball.com in the Horizon League (Horz).    

Details to follow.