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%

Giannis Bucks teammates Diakite (UVa 2019) and Nwora (Lville 2020) Star in Semifinal

There is a link between the championship celebrated by my UVa friends in my native Virginia, and the championship team being celebrated in my beloved college town of Milwaukee - and he has orange hair for easy identification, and had one of the greatest 6 seconds in March Madness history.

During breaks of the Milwaukee Bucks' Game 6 triumph and first NBA title in 50 years, we pitted two of their players in our Value Add Basketball Game. In real life the two Bucks' in our VABG game watched from the bench as their teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo ("the Greek Freak") delivered Milwaukee's first NBA title in 50 years with one of the greatest NBA Finals performances in history.

Mamadi Diakite did get in the TV screen coming off the bench with his orange hair as several Bucks' playfully tried to keep Chris Paul from getting to the ref to argue an out-of-bounds ball. In the Value Add Basketball Game he had 5 blocked shots, a steal and 7 rebounds to lead a 1-seed UVa defense that simply shuts everyone down, winning 71-58.

Jordan Nwora already led his 5-seed Louisville 2020 team to a 1-point upset of the 4-seed Wake Forest 2005 with Chris Paul. In the VABG he had a team-high 15 points, the only Louisville 2020 player in double digits as UVa forced 17 turnovers while only giving it up 8 times.

UVa's unmovable defense will either get the Villanova 2018 unstoppable offense, or the 2015 Wisconsin team that shocked the Kentucky team that was being called the best of all time. The 8 teams in our tournament are the only 8 in our game with a player in the NBA Finals. Villanova is in due to the Suns' Mikal Bridges, and Wisconsin due to Frank Kaminsky.

Nova Post 1st Ever 100 pt VABG Game Behind Suns' Bridges and Bucks' DiVincenzo

Since we invented the Value Add Basketball Game in February 2019, we have played a couple of hundred games, and had never had a team score 100 points in regulation until today. The game took 44 minutes to play - with the first card flipped at 1 p.m. and final card at 1:44 p.m.

The team that accomplished it was the only team with two players in the NBA Finals, Phoenix Suns' starter Mikal Bridges and injured Milwaukee Buck Donte DiVincenzo, from our 2-seed and the National Champion 2018 Villanova team.

The victim was the 2020 Creighton team, which does have a very poor defense (Adj. Def 0, worse than the average team's -3) but is happy to simply outscore opponents. The Blue Jays team in the game today actually won our 68-team Value Add Basketball Game championship after Covid cancelled their real Big East tournament game at halftime and March Madness. Ironically, that week I had breakfast with their point guard Marcus Zagarowski's parents as few blocks from Madison Square Gardne in disbelief that the hottest team in basketball (they had improved from 23rd to 7th in one month in the AP poll) would not have a chance at a real run as Covid collapses the world around us.

While one group of former Creighton players participated in The Basketball Tournament (TBT) airing on ESPN, as the Omaha Blue Crew, the VABG Creighton 2020 player cards were in our 8-team NBA Finals college alumni tournament due to Phoenix Sun Ty-shon Alexander, one if the trio of great 3-point shooting guards along with Zegarowski and Mitch Ballock. Those three all have the highest possible endurance of 44, meaning they play all 44 possessions of a VABG game.

At 1 p.m. Central today we flipped the first card in 7-seed Creighton's game against fellow Big East team and 3-seed Villanova, the 2018 national champs.

Zegarowski and Alexander combined for 4 first half 3-pointers and then Alexander hit another one to open the second half to give the Blue Jays a 39-34 lead in the upset big against the 2-seed Nova.

And then Villanova started to look like the team that blitzed Michigan in the 2018 National Title game with a 44-17 first half before cruising to victory. DiVincenzo hit a 3-pointer, then immediately stole the ball and fed it to center Spellman on a dunk plus foul to give Villanova their first lead of the game 41-39 with 18:30 to play. At the 8:17 mark Bridges had a steal, and was fouled on a dunk, hitting the free throw to make it 74-51 Nova less than 12 minutes after they trailed.

As usual., Nova won the turnover battle big 17-7, and doubled Creighton in the second half 72-36 for the most scoring in a half ever in a VABG game for an offensive efficiency of 1.95 points per trip (33 possessions in the second half, and there were a total of four extra in this game for fouls and steal/fast breaks in the final 9 possessions.

It was the first time a team every scored 100 points in regulation in a VABG game, with the final score of 106-72.

Villanova 2018 represents the Big East in our semifinal against another Big Ten foe, the 2015 Wisconsin team of Frank Kaminsky that stunned the Kentucky team that many considered the greatest team in history in the Final Four that year.

The other semifinal is an all-ACC game, with the 2019 champion Virginia Cavaliers facing the only upset winner of our opening rounds and only 2020 team, the 5-seed Louisville 2020 team upset Chris Paul's 4-seed Wake Forest 2005 team 80-79.

Eee

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)

<br>

<table><tbody>

<tr><td>photoa

</td><td>photo b

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<br>

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