Big Ten Boasts BY FAR the Best Player in Edey in the Return of Value Add Basketball Rankings

All-Big Ten Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Zach Edey	Purdue	13.17	125.9	94.5	1-seed, 29-6, nba 58 in 2024
Jalen Pickett	Penn St.	9.66	118.7	101.1	10-seed, 23-14 (PG), nba 32 in 2023
Trayce Jackson-Davis	Indiana	9.45	118.5	97.2	4-seed, 23-12, nba 57 in 2023
Cam Spencer	Rutgers	8.66	119.4	90.8	19-15, Poss 19.8%
Hunter Dickinson	Michigan	8.14	116.3	97.4	18-16, nba 53 in 2024
2nd T-Big Ten Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Boo Buie	Northwestern	7.96	106.4	94.3	7-seed, 22-12 (PG), Poss 28.6%
Joey Hauser	Michigan St.	7.84	121.4	96.6	7-seed, 21-13, Poss 19.5%
Jahmir Young	Maryland	7.76	106.7	95.6	8-seed, 22-13 (PG), Poss 29.4%
Terrence Shannon	Illinois	7.57	111.9	94.9	9-seed, 20-13, nba 43 in 2024
Mason Gillis	Purdue	7.48	121.5	94.5	1-seed, 29-6, Poss 16.6%
HM-Big Ten Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Keisei Tominaga	Nebraska	7.43	119.6	98.8	16-16, Poss 21.3%
Caleb Furst	Purdue	7.33	121.9	94.5	1-seed, 29-6, Poss 15.8%
Zed Key	Ohio St.	6.56	117	101.6	16-19, Poss 23.1%
Kris Murray	Iowa	6.53	118.3	104.6	8-seed, 19-14, nba 23 in 2023
Seth Lundy	Penn St.	6.46	117.5	101.1	10-seed, 23-14, nba 46 in 2023
Steven Crowl	Wisconsin	6.46	109	94.1	20-15, Poss 23.2%
Brice Sensabaugh	Ohio St.	6.34	112	101.6	16-19, nba 28 in 2023
Miller Kopp	Indiana	6.05	125.2	97.2	4-seed, 23-12, Poss 10.9%
Filip Rebraca	Iowa	6.05	118.9	104.6	8-seed, 19-14, Poss 21.3%
Payton Sandfort	Iowa	5.88	117.3	104.6	8-seed, 19-14, Poss 22.7%
Connor McCaffery	Iowa	5.34	123.9	104.6	8-seed, 19-14, Poss 12.1%

Above is a very late All-Big Ten 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.

The Big Ten boasted the second most top 300 players just behind the ACC, and that list starts with by far the best college basketball player last year and this, 7-foot-4 Zach Edey of Purdue. This doesn't mean Edey will be a dominant NBA player - he is projected to go at the end of the second round because the fast breaks in the NBA won't wait for him - but in college he is the guy who dominates both ends. While Purdue took an early exit last year - so did UVa the year before they won the national title, and this seems a great chance to end the stunning streak of the Big Ten not winning a title yet this Century (Michigan State's 2000 title is technically the last year of the 19th century).

What an incredible move to grab four of the best Pac-12 teams to basically combined the old Rose Bowl showdown into one conference. Both USC and UCLA have made Elite 8 runs in the last few years, and would give the conference 10 NCAA bids last year if they were already in the conference. Look down the current Pomeroy rankings on this chart - only one of the 16 teams would be outside the top 82 (Minnesota) in addition to Purdue being No. 1. Next season should be the greatest conference tournament in the history of college basketball.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Illinois	B10	B10	B10	9	29
Indiana	B10	B10	B10	4	79
Iowa	B10	B10	B10	8	49
Maryland	B10	B10	B10	8	57
Michigan	B10	B10	B10		39
Michigan St.	B10	B10	B10	7	22
Minnesota	B10	B10	B10		107
Nebraska	B10	B10	B10		42
Northwestern	B10	B10	B10	7	59
Ohio St.	B10	B10	B10		50
Oregon	P12	P12	B10		37
Penn St.	B10	B10	B10	10	82
Purdue	B10	B10	B10	1	1
Rutgers	B10	B10	B10		63
UCLA	P12	P12	B10	2	31
USC	P12	P12	B10	10	30
Washington	P12	P12	B10		61
Wisconsin	B10	B10	B10		23

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%

Pac 12 Possible Relegation System Moving Forward and Return of Value Add Basketball Rankings

All-Pac 12 Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Jaime Jaquez	UCLA	9.80	113.1	88	2-seed, 31-6, nba 18 in 2023
Azuolas Tubelis	Arizona	8.68	116.1	96.3	2-seed, 28-7, Poss 28.7%
Boogie Ellis	USC	8.56	113.3	97.5	10-seed, 22-11 (PG), Poss 25.7%
David Singleton	UCLA	8.17	127.2	88	2-seed, 31-6, Poss 13.2%
Oumar Ballo	Arizona	7.40	115.6	96.3	2-seed, 28-7, Poss 22.8%
HM-Pac 12 Conf	Team	Value	AdjO	AdjD	Notes
Branden Carlson	Utah	7.16	111.1	95.8	17-15, Poss 27.2%
N'Faly Dante	Oregon	6.90	113.1	97.8	21-15, Poss 25.5%
KJ Simpson	Colorado	4.58	101.1	95.5	18-17, nba 47 in 2025

Above is a very late All-Pac 12 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 from below the top three players listed were also All-Americans last season, and both Tubelis and Ellis return this season.

After the shocking realignment taking all but Washington State and Oregon State from the conference, the one intriguing idea floated was that those two go to a soccer-style relegation system now that they have complete control of the conference moving forward.  If that were to be pursued, our brainstorm would be to ask the four tournament teams from the Mountain West and Saint Mary's and Gonzaga to join for an 8-team basketball Pac-12 next year, leaving the seven remaining Mountain West teams and perhaps UC Irvine in the "relegated" Mountain West. 

The tournament champion and regular season champion (or 2nd place regular season if they are the same) from the Mountain West move up for the 2024-25 season, while the bottom two Pac-12 teams drop down. 

In the meantime, the conference is going out with a bang as constructed - in position to improve from four NCAA bids to six if the season ended today.

Team	2023	2024	2025	Seed23	Rnk24
Arizona	P12	P12	B12	2	4
Arizona St.	P12	P12	B12	11	113
California	P12	P12	ACC		187
Colorado	P12	P12	B12		34
Oregon	P12	P12	B10		37
Oregon St.	P12	P12	P12		169
Stanford	P12	P12	ACC		70
UCLA	P12	P12	B10	2	31
USC	P12	P12	B10	10	30
Utah	P12	P12	B12		46
Washington	P12	P12	B10		61
Washington St.	P12	P12	P12		72

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%

College Hoops 5th Best Conference History - Pac-12 (2nd Best with All UCLA Teams)

Going purely by the mathematical ratings, the top six Pac-12 teams in our game rank as the 5th best conference of all time. 

However, subjectively it is clearly the 2nd best conference of all time for the following reasons:

1. In the game we made a point of only including a couple of teams from each program, and trying not to include teams from the same school within a few years of each other. We could have easily included another half dozen teams from the John Wooden years that would have made the Pac-12 the second greatest basketball conference of all time. The same applies in our all-time Statis-Pro Baseball Game where we only include a few New York Yankees teams - and UCLA is the Yankees of college basketball.

2. The 2nd through 5th greatest conferences of all time based on our rankings are all within 1.2 points of each other anyway, so a virtual tie, 

3. The top six Pac-12 teams in the game have dominated all-time great teams for an 18-6 mark, but for some reason several surprise blowout losses among those 6 losses - such as Kareem's UCLA team getting shocked by double digits again 1980 DePaul, have held the overall rating down just a bit.

Bill Walton's 1972 UCLA team so far has been 10 points better than the rest of the conference and in fact ranks #1 of our 135 great all-time teams. Their 6-0 mark was in the tournament of our first 96 teams, where they took the title with a win against Michael Jordan's UNC. 

In addition to the great UCLA teams of the past, that 2017 Oregon team was the best in the country - and I believe would have been the clear No. 1 if their one big guy Chris Boucher (a star) was not injured at the end of the regular season to miss March Madness.

Arizona's great teams include the 1997 squad that beat Kentucky for the national title. I also really meant to include Utah's more recent team with Delon Wright, the subject of 2014 articles on my Value Add basketball ratings system, but forgot to make the team so we actually have 135 teams instead of 136. 

Rnk	Great Team	Year	Key Player	W	L	Pts	Allow	Rate
	Top 6 Pac-12			18	6	74.6	71.2	4.6
1	UCLA	1972	Bill Walton	6	0	72.0	62.0	15.5
2	UCLA	1967	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	2	1	83.0	87.0	5.6
3	Oregon	2017	Dillon Brooks	4	3	71.9	69.9	2.7
4	Arizona	2015	Stanley Johnson	3	1	75.3	70.5	2.6
5	Arizona	1997	Mike Bibby	2	1	68.7	71.0	1.0
6	USC	2021	Evan Mobley	1	0	77.0	67.0	0.0
7	Colorado	2021	McKinley Wright	1	0	86.0	82.0	-0.6
8	Utah	1998	Andre Miller	0	1	69.0	79.0	-4.6
9	UCLA	2006	Jordan Farmar	2	3	66.0	72.4	-5.2
10	California	1959	Jack Grout	0	1	69.0	71.0	-5.8
11	Arizona St.	1980	Byron Scott	0	1	64.0	79.0	-10.0

We invented the Value Add Basketball Game, and since then have grown it to to 135 teams of all-time great teams and players. We have played 188 games to date, and 63,000 unique visitors have clicked on the game. 

Seven current conferences have at least six all-time great teams in the game. We decided to rank those conferences based on the average rating of their top six teams so far in our games against other teams.

Click on the game to play yourself - it contains everything you need to play the Value Add Basketball game, which lets you pit any of 136 great all-time college teams against each other. To pick your two teams it is best to click on this Google doc and print the pages of the teams you want (each team is one page). I track my games on this google sheet, but play your own for free!

Cards for Epic Players and Team from 2021 Season to Print

We finally selected an calculated four great teams from the 2021 season to bring the total teams you can choose from to play in the Value Add Basketball Game to 128, going back in history to the inventor of the jumpshot (Kenny Sailors, Wyoming 1943 team). All four teams not only had great seasons, but each had one of the 6 most valuable basketball players in the country last year in the all-time Value Add Basketball Player ratings (click here, then put "2021" in the year search box).

Baylor 2021. The champs certainly earned a spot with their complete domination of excellent Final 4 teams Houston and Gonzaga. Jared Butler ranked as the 6th most valuable player in the country at Value Add Basketball, and www.kenpom.com had him even higher as the 4th best player.

Baylor starts out in our game rankings as the 29th best all-time team in the game, though we don't have games scheduled yet for these four new teams to see if they move up or down.

Colorado 2021. We loved watching McKinley Wright run point guard for Colorado, and ranked him as the 4th most valuable player in the country. He scored 24 points to eventual Elite 8 team USC in the Pac-12 tournament. Then we publicly picked him to destroy a red hot Georgetown team in the NCAA tournament, which he did with an amazing 13 assist performance.

While being a great team is one factor in adding new teams, we also factor in great players like him (e.g. Pistol Pete's LSU team was barely above average but we wanted him in the game). We also factor schools that have not yet had a team in the game. We passed over Final 4 teams UCLA and Houston because they already have multiple teams, and Gonzaga's other National Runner-Up from just a few years ago is in the game - so it was nice to add the first team from the state of Colorado.

Iowa 2021. The National Player of the Year Luka Garza was such an treat to watch his entire career. Even though both Value Add and www.kenpom.com ranked him 2nd in the country last year, KenPom ranked him 1st and Value Add 4th the year before to make him the rare player to be in the top 5 out of 4000+ players in consecutive years.

Even as his final game turned into a 1-on-5 against a great Oregon team in the tournament, watching him score 36 points on the way out was a fantastic sendoff.

USC 2021. As great as Garza was, we calculated 7-footer Evan Mobley was the most valuable player in the country last year. We would have still voted for Garza as the 4-year star against the freshman Mobley, but with the highest possible shot block ranking possible (21-30), a great steal guy for a 7-footer, and scoring or being fouled 65% of the time it gets to him on the 20-sided die (1-13), and an incredibly dominant rebounder at both ends (1-9 offensive and 1-8 defensive), he is the complete package. Seeing a 7-footer then dish out seven assists in a Sweet 16 win (vs. Oregon) just added to the complete picture.

His 13 rebound, MVP performance in the incredible 85-51 win against Kansas to move to the Sweet 16 was epic, and his brother Isaiah has kept it up by leading USC to a 12-0 start - the last undefeated team besides Baylor. 

Pac 12 Conference Top 15 Men’s Basketball Players To Date

 For Immediate Release

John Pudner, 404.606.3163, johnp@takebackaction.org

Pac 12 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.”

“Last year we calculated that Isaiah Mobley’s brother was actually the National Player of the Year over Luka Garza, and this year Isaiah himself is dominating as the 3rd most valuable player in the Pac-12 to give USC a chance to compete against loaded UCLA and Arizona teams. In addition to placing Jaime Jaquez and Tyger Campbell as 4th and 5th for 1st team all-Pac 12 status, note that we listed Peyton Watson and Johnny Juzang among likely future NBA players, and for Arizona both Christian Koloko and

Bennedict Mathurin are likely to end up in the NBAand give the Pac-12 an impressive seven of the top 100 players in the country.”

“While Washington is unlikely to challenge Pac-12 powers for the title, Arizona transfer Terrell Brown is playing at an All-American level in leading the Huskies. His ranking as the 13th best player in the country is calculated based on incredible numbers of steals and assists with very few turnovers, and of drawing fouls while rarely fouling.”

In addition to the top 15 players, we list five other outstanding defenders in the conference, and several other players likely headed to the NBA who could begin to dominate at some point this season.

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	P12	Team	Value Add	Class	Ht	AdjD	NBA
1	Terrell Brown	Washington	8.93	Sr	6'3"	-2.04	1%
2	Andre Kelly	California	7.66	Sr	6'9"	-2.22	1%
3	Isaiah Mobley	USC	7.24	Jr	6'10"	-3.11	17%
4	Jaime Jaquez	UCLA	6.98	Jr	6'7"	-3.5	56%
5	Tyger Campbell	UCLA	6.96	Jr	5'11"	-0.89	1%
6	Christian Koloko	Arizona	6.65	So	7'1"	-3.96	43%
7	Bennedict Mathurin	Arizona	6.61	Fr	6'6"	-1.83	94%
8	Michael Flowers	Washington St.	6.28	Sr	6'1"	-0.97	1%
9	Jules Bernard	UCLA	6.11	Sr	6'7"	-1.08	26%
10	Azuolas Tubelis	Arizona	5.95	Fr	6'11"	-2.6	5%
11	Chevez Goodwin	USC	5.49	Sr	6'9"	-1.46	1%
12	Will Richardson	Oregon	5.48	Sr	6'5"	0.25	30%
13	Kimani Lawrence	Arizona St.	5.42	Sr	6'6"	-2.42	1%
14	DJ Horne	Arizona St.	5.22	So	6'1"	0.18	1%
15	Harrison Ingram	Stanford	5.05	Fr	6'8"	-1.36	41%
Def	Myles Johnson	UCLA	5.01	Sr	6'10"	-3.8	1%
Def	Marco Anthony	Utah	3.2	Sr	6'5"	-2.8	1%
Def	Kim Aiken	Arizona	3.05	Jr	6'7"	-2	1%
NBA	Jabari Walker	Colorado	4.6	So	6'9"	-2.27	74%
NBA	Peyton Watson	UCLA	1.68	Fr	6'8"	-2.1	66%
NBA	Dalen Terry	Arizona	4.4	Fr	6'7"	-1.8	48%
NBA	Boogie Ellis	USC	4.68	Jr	6'3"	-1.63	45%
NBA	Warith Alatishe	Oregon St.	3.82	Sr	6'8"	-1.35	22%
NBA	Johnny Juzang	UCLA	4.06	Jr	6'7"	-1.28	57%
NBA	De'Vion Harmon	Oregon	2.81	Jr	6'2"	-0.4	14%
NBA	Marcus Bagley	Arizona St.	0.35	So	6'8"	0.18	37%