SWAC's Texas Southern Shocks Patriot's Cousy, Holy Cross 1950

In what was supposed to be a NIT blowout game to warm up for our Michigan State vs. UCLA All-Time NCAA great, Fred Sturdivant rejected Matt Forman's attempted game-winning shot and grabbed the rebound to let SWAC champ Texas Southern pull off perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the Value Add Basketball Game.

The stunning 72-71 final eliminated Hall of Famer Bob Cousy, with our best team ever from the current Patriot teams Holy Cross, from our all-time great NIT tournament of the 20 all-time champs from non-power conference.

Mike Davis inherited the team heading into probation, leading to a 1-13 start and Texas Southern ranked as the 234th best team in the country at www.kenpom.com. The rest of the way they were 16-1 and were one of the best 100 teams in the country and believe this would have been the SWAC team who would have entered the tournament so hot I believe would have been the most likely SWAC team to pull a couple of upsets. Norfolk State 2012, also in our game, is the last HBCU team to win a game not counting the 1st Four in Dayton.

While it was the guard play of Ray Penn and incredible 3-point shooter Omar Strong who usually put up the big points that season, Sturdivant was in the top 1% of all shot blockers in the nation (more than 10% of all opponents' 2-point shots blocked) and field goal percentage (61.5% and 67% during the 16-1 finish) and in the last five games he blocked 30 shots for an incredible end to his career.

In our game this team already pulled an opening round upset against another all-time great - Calvin Murphy and Niagara, and our guess is they would have been quite a challenge opening weekend but for the probation. Davis did follow with incredible 16-2 SWAC seasons, and in the last few years Texas Southern teams have won Opening Four games in Dayton, but our money is that this was the perfect combo that would have given the SWAC its best show at 1st or even 2nd round upsets.

Texas Southern is likely the best HBCU basketball program again today.
 

Pos	Texas Southern 2013 (SWAC)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Ray Penn	10	2	2	0	0	1	1	0	1	5'9	12.2 Pts, 2.4 Reb
2-SG	Omar Strong	17	2	3	5	5	3	1	0	1	5'9	17.0 Pts, 3.4 Reb
3-SF	Madarious Gibbs	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	3	6'1	6.5 Pts, 3.7 Reb
4-PF	Fred Sturdivant	23	0	11	1	3	13	3	2	3	6'7	11.1 Pts, 8.2 Reb
5-C	Aaron Clayborn	8	0	3	2	4	7	0	1	2	6'6	7.6 Pts, 5.4 Reb
1-PG	Dexter Ellington	2	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	2	6'1	2.3 Pts, 1.8 Reb
2-SG	Lawrence Johnson-Danner	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4	8.5 Pts, 3.0 Reb
3-SF	Kyrie Sutton	8	0	4	0	0	5	0	0	1	6'9	5.1 Pts, 4.3 Reb
4-PF	Billy Rosenberg (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6'5	1.5 Pts, 0.9 Reb
5-C	Ethan Blackwell (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5'7	0.2 Pts, 0.6 Reb
	Turnovers 11	72	4	26	8	14	34	5	3	14
Pos	Holy Cross 1050 (Patriot)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Andy Laska	11	1	4	0	0	2	2	0	1	5'10	8.2 Pts
2-SG	Bob McMullen	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	3	6'3	6.5 Pts
3-SF	Bob Cousy	20	2	5	4	4	9	1	0	1	6'1	19.4 Pts
4-PF	Matty Forman	9	0	4	1	2	2	0	0	1	6'4	10.1 Pts
5-C	Frank Oftring	10	0	5	0	0	5	0	1	3	6'2	8.4 Pts
1-PG	Jim Dilling	6	0	3	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'5	5.5 Pts
2-SG	Bob McLarnon	5	0	2	1	2	1	1	0	2	6'0	4.4 Pts
3-SF	Gene Mann	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	1	6'1	2.6 Pts
4-PF	Bob McDonough	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	5'11	2.4 Pts
5-C	Dennis O'Shea	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	0	2	6'2	1.9 Pts
	Turnovers 12	71	3	28	6	8	25	7	2	17

Here is the all-time NIT Tournament with seven of the Elite 8 teams settled.

Southwestern Athletic Conference and Return of Value Add All-Americans

Southwestern Athletic Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Cameron Christon	Grambling St.	4.61	107.8	100.7	24-9, Poss 22.7%
Carte'are Gordon	Grambling St.	4.21	105.8	100.7	24-9, Poss 23.8%
Michael Moton	Grambling St.	4.19	99.1	100.7	24-9 (PG), Poss 19.2%
Jourdan Smith	Grambling St.	4.01	106.4	100.7	24-9, Poss 17.8%
Tevian Jones	Texas Southern	3.36	108.1	106.6	16-seed, 14-21, Poss 24%

Above is a very late All-SWAC 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.

When Gramling State rolled into Vanderbilt for an upset to add to an earlier win over Colorado, it certainly looked like they were good enough to become the fifth team from the SWAC to win a tournament game (Alcorn State, Florida A&M, Texas Southern and Grambling's rival Southern were the others). Texas Southern was a much weaker team despite edging Grambling in the conference title game and did not fair as well.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Alabama A&M	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		346
Alabama St.	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		350
Alcorn St.	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		277
Arkansas Pine Bluff	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		352
Bethune Cookman	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		347
Florida A&M	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		333
Grambling St.	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		323
Jackson St.	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		281
Mississippi Valley St.	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		362
Prairie View A&M	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		245
Southern	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC		290
Texas Southern	SWAC	SWAC	SWAC	16	257

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%

Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) 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 Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC).    

Details to follow.

Southwestern Athletic Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

 For Immediate Release

John Pudner, 404.606.3163, johnp@takebackaction.org

Southwestern Athletic 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.”

“This may sound absurd to say about someone on a 2-9 team, but Jayveous McKinnis has been one of the most dominant players in the country while Jackson State faced one of the most brutal schedules in the country. He grabbed 14 rebounds while holding Marquette to a 29-29 tied through halftime, and held Iowa State to 47 points in the entire game. He is clearly the Conference Player of the Year so far, but Texas Southern looks like the team to beat with three of the top six players in the conference by our calculations in John Walker, Brison Gresham and Joirdon Karl Nicholas.”

"While MJ Randolph comes to Florida A&M as a previous all-MEAC defensive player and we list several other defensive stars after the top 15 who might join McKinnis on an impressive SWAC all defensive team."

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	SWAC	Team	Value Add	Class	Ht	AdjD	NBA
1	Jayveous McKinnis	Jackson St.	6.28	Sr	6'7"	-5.53	1%
2	MJ Randolph	Florida A&M	4.21	Sr	6'4"	-2.41	1%
3	Shawn Williams	Arkansas Pine Bluff	3.91	Sr	6'1"	0.55	1%
4	John Walker	Texas Southern	3.87	Sr	6'9"	-0.55	1%
5	Brison Gresham	Texas Southern	3.34	Sr	6'9"	-2.14	5%
6	Joirdon Karl Nicholas	Texas Southern	3.14	Sr	6'9"	-1.84	1%
7	Tyrone Lyons	Southern	3.12	Jr	6'7"	-1.11	1%
8	Devin Carter	Alcorn St.	2.95		6'3"	0.06	1%
9	Jayden Saddler	Southern	2.88	Sr	6'1"	-0.37	1%
10	DeWayne Cox	Prairie View A&M	2.79	Sr	6'2"	-1.32	1%
11	William Douglas	Prairie View A&M	2.78	Sr	6'5"	-0.19	1%
12	Brandon Brown	Arkansas Pine Bluff	2.61	Jr	6'5"	-2.18	1%
13	Gerald Liddell	Alabama St.	2.48	Jr	6'8"	-1.03	1%
14	Dontrell McQuarters	Alcorn St.	2.31	Jr	6'7"	0.16	1%
15	Jalen Johnson	Alabama A&M	2.27	Jr	6'7"	-1.5	1%
Def	Damien Sears	Southern	0.91	Sr	6'7"	-1.87	1%
Def	Bryce Moragne	Florida A&M	1.07	Sr	6'5"	-1.72	1%
Def	Damani McEntire	Bethune Cookman	1.4	Jr	6'4"	-1.65	1%
Def	Garrett Hicks	Alabama A&M	0.82	Jr	6'0	-1.64	1%
Def	Ken Evans	Jackson St.	1.14	Fr	6'5"	-1.41	1%