East Bracket: Villanova over Duke (UVa and SMU also win 2)

This blog breaks down all four double header of games played in the East Region, which are the games that appear in the upper left corner of brackets. It shows the top 10 players on the floor for each of these double headers, and gives details on which factors give advantages to which teams.

Villanova wins this bracket based on 9 of 10 factors, usually beating Duke, however the system that analyzes the way teams match-up on steals and three-pointers projects Virginia as the Eastern Champion. This

Click here for the grid showing the results of the entire tournament using 10 different approaches. If you simply want to fill out a bracket quickly, you can go straight to that link and fill out your bracket in about two minutes choosing any of the 10 options. That post also explains the 10 different approaches. Many more stories appear here, and you can sort the rating for all 4000+ players and see who is injured by clicking on www.valueaddbasketball.com.

Buffalo 1st Two Rounds 

East: No. 1 Villanova vs. No. 6 Mt. St. Mary’s/New Orleans

East: No. 8 Wisconsin vs. No. 9 Virginia Tech

10 Most Valuable Players in this group

2, Josh Hart #3, Villanova

11, Ethan Happ #22, Wisconsin

25, Jalen Brunson #1, Villanova

31, Mikal Bridges #25, Villanova

45, Erik Thomas #14, New Orleans

65, Zach LeDay #32, Virginia Tech

115, Kris Jenkins #2, Villanova

122, Nigel Hayes #10, Wisconsin

173, Zak Showalter #3, Wisconsin

184, Bronson Koenig #24, Wisconsin

Health: Huge loss to Virginia Tech of 224nd ranked Chris Clarke

Hot: Nova coming off Big East title, Wisconsin dropped from 10^th to 23^rd since early February.

“Home” Advantage: Getting to Buffalo through the snow easiest for Villanova, hardest for New Orleans if they survive.

Possible “style/home” edge upset: Virginia Tech has best style chance at upset as the 9^th best 3-point shooting team against a Villanova team that is only 300^th in forcing teams to shoot a 2-pointer instead of a 3-pointer. Villanova only 81^st best at protecting the ball, which would give Wisconsin (41^st at steals) a much better shot at upset than Virginia Tech (347^th of 351).

Orlando 1st two rounds

East: No. 5 Virginia vs. No. 12 UNC Wilmington

East: No. 4 Florida vs. No. 13 East Tennessee State

Top 10 players

44, Devontae Cacok #15, UNC Wilmington

69, KeVaughn Allen #5, Florida

87, Devin Robinson #1, Florida

93, London Perrantes #32, Virginia

106, Isaiah Wilkins #21, Virginia

230, Denzel Ingram #10, UNC Wilmington

248, TJ Cromer #0, East Tennessee St.

253, Canyon Barry #24, Florida

281, Devon Hall #0, Virginia

288, Chris Chiozza #11, Florida

Possible “style/home” edge upset: Florida does not allow teams to get off three-pointers and has the big home advantage in their state, hurting East Tennessee State (44^th in 3-pointers).

Tulsa 1^st two rounds
East: No. 6 SMU vs. No. 11 Providence/USC
East: No. 3 Baylor vs. No. 14 New Mexico State

Top 10 players

15, Semi Ojeleye #33, SMU

18, Johnathan Motley #5, Baylor

32, Sterling Brown #3, SMU

52, Shake Milton #1, SMU

66, Ben Moore #0, SMU

105, Manu Lecomte #20, Baylor

178, Jarrey Foster #10, SMU

197, Jo Lual-Acuil #0, Baylor

203, Emmitt Holt #15, Providence

205, Ishmail Wainright #24, Baylor

Scott Drew continues to guide Baylor.

Baylor has slid a little from 7^th in the final weeks, while SMU is the hottest team in the league with only a 2-point loss at Cincinnati preventing them from finishing 26-0.

USC’s Andy Enfield proved himself with the Sweet 16 run at Florida Gulf Coast, has a former Maxim cover wife, beautiful children, millions of dollars, and an up and coming program – but with one of the youngest teams in the country some are questioning if they were quite ready for a bid. Then again, that’s what they said about Syracuse last year and VCU several years ago before both made the Final Four.

Healthy: New Mexico State is better with Sidy N'dir playing.

Possible “style/home” edge upset: Baylor and SMU both sites close to home in the openers to try to get to each other in the 2^nd round. 

Greenville, South Carolina 1^st two Rounds
East: No. 7 South Carolina vs. No. 10 Marquette
East: No. 2 Duke vs. No. 15 Troy

1, Sindarius Thornwell #0 (+1 if all season), South Carolina

6, Luke Kennard #5, Duke

101, Amile Jefferson #21, Duke

131, Jayson Tatum #0 (+1 if all season), Duke

211, Grayson Allen #3, Duke

218, Luke Fischer #40, Marquette

240, Chris Silva #30, South Carolina

259, Andrew Rowsey #30, Marquette

266, Wesley Person #3, Troy

315, Markus Howard #0, Marquette

Healthy: Duke and South Carolina rank even higher with Thornwell and Tatum out – and Marquette could drop if Fischer (shoulder) cannot play Thursday.

Not only is South Carolina’s Sindarius Thornwell the No. 1 ranked player in the country at www.valueaddbasketball.com, but he would have rated even higher if had not missed six games. Marquette’s team is No. 1 in the nation in 3-pointers, and Markus Howard would break the all-time record of 56% if he hit 7 of 9 this weekend – a tough task against two of the toughest defenses in the country to get 3-pointers off against.

Unfortunately for whoever wins between South Carolina and Marquette, Duke is next up with four players who would be in the top 100 if Grayson Allen had not lost his cool and Tatum had played the whole season.

Possible “style/home” edge upset: Big South Carolina style edge as they are 21^st in steals, and Marquette is terrible (224^th) in protecting the ball, which could be a huge edge in light of the virtual home crowd for South Carolina. Marquette relies on being 1^st in the country in 3-point shooting, but South Carolina’s suffocating defense is 87^th best at forcing opponents to shoot 2-pointers, meaning Marquette must hope Luke Fischer can play through an injured shoulder to get an inside game. Duke absolutely denies the 3-pointers (7^th best in forcing 2-pointers), should Marquette get through.

Bracket Winners: Gonzaga (overall), Villanova (Top 3 Players, Experience, Hot), UNC (Vegas), Kentucky (NBA)

Bracket Winners: Gonzaga (surprise overall), Villanova (Top 3 Players, Experience, Hot), UNC (Vegas), Kentucky (NBA)

The following table lists the teams in the order in which they appear on 2017 March Madness brackets. Brackets must be in by Thursday morning on March 16 before the games start, but some leagues may have an earlier deadline. If you simply want to fill out your bracket and be done with it, you can just count the lines below and turn in your bracket to get it off your step.

If you would like to see pictures of each of the four brackets filled out with explanations of which factors favor which teams and the top 10 players in each double header, you can click to see why UNC has a slight edge in the South Region, Kansas nudging Louisville and Iowa State in the Midwest Region, Gonzaga's chance to overcome skeptics to win the West Region, and Villanova's path to win the East Region and try to repeat. Just remember, the initial odds posted by Las Vegas gave no team more than a 9% chance of winning the title (UNC edged Villanova 9% to 8.3% in USA Today after Duke and Kansas initially led).

You can click here for my many college basketball stories, on www.valueaddbasketball.com for the rankings of all 4000+basketball players, or click on www.pudnersports.com to see the 8 breakdowns - one for each half of the bracket.

The following columns are:

% title - Las Vegas gives no team more than a 9 percent chance of winning the title (UNC is 9.0% exactly). To figure this out, you must look at the odds listed by USA Today, and convert them to percentages, at which case you see that Vegas has built more than a 70% margin into any bets. When we take those percentages out, the % titles below add up to 100%. Another reason not to be, the house always wins!

1. Overall is a combination of the 9 bracket proposals that follow, so if you want to follow the overall bracket you would click on Villanova 4 times, or write them out on 4 lines, then fill in Wisconsin on one line, etc. In this case, Villanova would make the Final Four and Gonzaga would win the title.
2. Vegas is based on the team given the best percentage chance of winning the title in Vegas beating each new opponent - in this case click on Villanova 5 times to have them lose to UNC in the title game.
3. KenPom.com goes by the team ranked better at that site, which gives Villanova in the Final Four before losing to eventual champion Gonzaga.
4. Top 3 Players is based on a theory by Al McGuire that it takes 3 1/2 stars to win a championship. The top players can be more important than deep benches in the tournament, so this ranks teams based on the best three players each team has according to www.valueaddbasketball.com, and if it comes to the top three players Villanova would be on six lines as the champion.
5. NBA indicates the team with the most NBA talent - based on how many players they have and how high they are likely to go in the next two drafts - and once again that would make Kentucky the champion.
6. Healthy adjusts the KenPom rating in No. 3 above with adjustments for any players who is now injured or has actually made the team better by returning during the season. That value is determined by the players ranking at www.valueaddbasketball.com.
7. Experience adjust the KenPom rating by how experienced the team is - also determined by KenPom.com.
8. Coach adjusts the KenPom rating for coaches with history of success in the tournament.
9. Hot adjusts KenPom for how much they have improved or declined in their KenPom rating over the past month.
10. Venue adjusts the KenPom rating based on if a particular team was given a tournament site close to home where they will have an advantage.

Region	Team	%title	Overall	Vegas	Kenpom	Top3 Players	NBA	Healthy	Exp.	Coach	Hot	Venue	Matchup
East	Villanova	8.3%	4	5	4	6	4	4	6	4	6	4	1
East	Mount St. Mary's	0.0%
East	New Orleans	0.0%
East	Wisconsin	1.0%	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2
East	Virginia Tech	0.3%
East	Virginia	1.5%	2	2	2	1	1	2	1	2	2	1	4
East	UNC Wilmington	0.2%
East	Florida	1.5%	1	1	1	2	2	1	2	1	1	2	1
East	East Tennessee St.	0.2%
East	SMU	1.5%	2	2	3	3	1	2	3	1	3	3	1
East	Providence	0.2%
East	USC	0.2%
East	Baylor	1.5%	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	2	1	1	2
East	New Mexico St.	0.1%
East	South Carolina	0.4%	1	1		1	1	1				2
East	Marquette	0.3%			1				1	1	1		1
East	Duke	7.8%	3	3	2	2	3	3	2	3	2	1	3
East	Troy	0.1%
West	Gonzaga	7.8%	6	4	6	4	5	6	4	6	4	6	6
West	South Dakota St.	0.0%
West	Northwestern	0.3%		1				1
West	Vanderbilt	0.3%	1		1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1
West	Notre Dame	1.2%	1	1	1	2	2	1	2	1	1	1	1
West	Princeton	0.2%
West	West Virginia	1.9%	2	2	2	1	1	2	1	2	2	2	2
West	Bucknell	0.1%
West	Maryland	0.6%		1				1
West	Xavier	0.2%	1		1	2	1		1	1	1	1	1
West	Florida St.	1.5%	2	2	2	1	3	2	2	2	2	2	2
West	Florida Gulf Coast	0.1%
West	Saint Mary's	0.4%	1	1	3	3	1	1	3	1	3	1	1
West	VCU	0.2%
West	Arizona	7.8%	3	3	1	1	2	3	1	3	1	3	3
West	North Dakota	0.1%
MW	Kansas	7.8%	4	4	3	4	4	3	4	3	2	2	3
MW	North Carolina Central	0.0%
MW	UC Davis	0.0%
MW	Miami FL	0.4%	1	1	1	1		1	1		1	1
MW	Michigan St.	0.4%					1			1			1
MW	Iowa St.	1.2%	2	1	1	5		1	1	2	4	4	1
MW	Nevada	0.3%					1
MW	Purdue	1.5%	1	2	2	1	2	2	2	1	1	1	2
MW	Vermont	0.1%
MW	Creighton	0.8%	1	1	1	1	1		1	2		1
MW	Rhode Island	0.2%						1			1		1
MW	Oregon	3.9%	2	2	2	2	3	2	2	1	2	2	2
MW	Iona	0.1%
MW	Michigan	1.0%	1	1	1			1	3	1	3	1	1
MW	Oklahoma St.	0.4%				3	1
MW	Louisville	5.8%	3	3	4	1	2	4	1	4	1	3	4
MW	Jacksonville St.	0.1%
Sth	North Carolina	9.0%	5	6	5	3	4	5	5	3	5	5	3
Sth	Texas Southern	0.0%
Sth	Arkansas	0.3%	1	1	1		1		1	1	1	1	1
Sth	Seton Hall	0.3%				1		1
Sth	Minnesota	1.2%	1	2	1					1	2	1	1
Sth	Middle Tennessee	0.3%				2	1	1	1
Sth	Butler	1.2%	2	1	2	1	2	2	2	2	1	2	2
Sth	Winthrop	0.1%
Sth	Cincinnati	1.2%	1	1	1			2	2	1	1	1	2
Sth	Wake Forest	0.2%				1	1
Sth	Kansas St.	0.2%
Sth	UCLA	5.8%	2	2	2	4	2	1	1	2	2	2	1
Sth	Kent St.	0.1%
Sth	Dayton	0.4%
Sth	Wichita St.	0.8%	1	1	1	1	1	1	3	1	3	1	5
Sth	Kentucky	7.8%	3	3	3	2	6	3	1	5	1	3	1
Sth	Northern Kentucky	0.1%
Region	Team	%title	Overall	Vegas	Kenpom	Top3 Players	NBA	Healthy	Exp.	Coach	Hot	Venue	Matchup

Final 2017 Value Add Calculations based on Positions, Replacement Players.

A few key end of season calculations going into March Madness. We run the numbers "by position" near the end of the year to adjust each player by their position.

The first note is that in the modern world of freedom of moving college basketball, our classification of position is not always what you will see listed elsewhere. Rather, players are classified based on who on the team appears to play closest to the basket on offense and defense (defined as the center) verses those who play the furthest away from the basket as indicated by a lot more assists than defensive rebounds.

Based on these categories, the center's had the easiest time this year, boosting their stats with more chances for rebounds, but the other five positions had almost as good a chance to get key stats leading to the following adjustments to each players initial AdjM rating.

PG = multiply initial calculation by 1.02
SG = 1.02
SF = 1.04
PF = 1.00
C = 0.93

To get the actual value of the player to the particular team on which he plays, you must adjust for how strong the team's bench is. To do this you subtract the Value Add of the 6th best Value Add, in this case Justin McKie's 1.65, to determine Thornwell was actually worth 10.08 points per game to South Carolina (11.73 minus 1.65). This is similar to baseball's WAR (wins above replacement) but is actually the result of the "domino" effect of each of the next several players needing to take on more responsibility, as explained in great detail in this piece for Big Apple Buckets.

To find injured players that no longer factor into the team's value, you can simply type the front slash into the "Team" search field, which prior to 2017 March Madness showed these as most damaging injuries. In fact, most were stunned when Milwaukee beat 1-seed Valparaiso in the Horizon League, but the fact is Valpo had the biggest loss in the season in Alec Peters and so was eight points worse than their Sagarin rating would have indicated based on their play with Peters on the court.

Chance of all 351 teams to win conference and get an at-large bid

If you are rooting for a team on the bubble for an at-large bid, who should you root for in the 32 conference tournaments? The answer, teams that will make the tournament whether or not they win.

You want Dayton to win the Atlantic 10 because TeamRanks gives them a 100% chance of getting an at-large bid if they do not win the tournament. My analysis of BracketMatrix picks of 124 experts indicates they believe Dayton is 20th best team from an election perspective, and the top 45 to 50 will make the tournament.

Click on CBS Sports list of all 32 conference tournament schedules (yes, the Ivy League finally has a tournament too!) and use the table below as a guide. As you can see, if Davidson or someone below them won the Atlantic 10 they would "steal" a bid to the NCAA tournament, and with VCU and likely Rhode Island also likely getting bids, meaning the Atlantic 10 would get four bids, leaving only 64 (instead of 65) for the other teams. TeamRanks actually gives VCU a slightly better chance to win the tournament, and the average mock bracket places VCU as a 9-seed (8.84) and Dayton as an 8-seed (7.69) - meaning Dayton has slightly better credentials for a higher seed, while the experts see VCU as the hotter team that is slightly more likely to win the conference tournament.

Team	Conf	KenPom	At-Large if no auto	Win Conf	Experts bracket rank	Ave Seed
Dayton	A10	32	100%	29%	20	7.69
VCU	A10	45	97%	31%	29	8.84
Rhode Island	A10	49	70%	23%	37	14.64
Davidson	A10	88	0%	3%
Richmond	A10	89	0%	7%
St. Bonaventure	A10	93	0%	3%
George Mason	A10	118	0%	1%
George Washington	A10	125	0%	2%
La Salle	A10	139	0%	1%
Massachusetts	A10	157	0%	0%
St. Josephs	A10	178	0%	0%
Fordham	A10	190	0%	0%
Duquesne	A10	217	0%	0%
St. Louis	A10	275	0%	0%
North Carolina	ACC	3	100%	31%	5	1.10
Florida St	ACC	18	100%	10%	11	3.42
Louisville	ACC	8	100%	19%	15	2.03
Duke	ACC	15	100%	16%	16	3.68
Virginia	ACC	6	100%	13%	19	4.88
Notre Dame	ACC	26	100%	5%	24	5.14
Miami FL	ACC	29	88%	2%	34	7.65
Virginia Tech	ACC	41	86%	1%	36	8.25
Wake Forest	ACC	31	35%	1%	55	16.51
Syracuse	ACC	52	16%	1%	57	12.17
Georgia Tech	ACC	76	1%	0%	79	17.45
Clemson	ACC	37	0%	1%		17.75
Pittsburgh	ACC	73	0%	0%
North Carolina St	ACC	101	0%	0%
Boston College	ACC	162	0%	0%
Vermont	AE	68	48%	73%	50	12.96
Albany	AE	131	0%	12%
New Hampshire	AE	160	0%	5%
UMBC	AE	189	0%	0%
Stony Brook	AE	209	0%	9%
Massacusetts Lowell	AE	290	0%	0%		20.00
Binghamton	AE	313	0%	0%
Hartford	AE	332	0%	0%
Maine	AE	334	0%	0%
Cincinnati	Amer	24	100%	38%	18	5.22
Houston	Amer	39	55%	11%	45	17.23
UCF	Amer	74	3%	4%	69
SMU	Amer	16
Memphis	Amer	85	0%	2%
Connecticut	Amer	91	0%	3%
Temple	Amer	115	0%	1%
Tulsa	Amer	127	0%	1%
East Carolina	Amer	198	0%	0%
Tulane	Amer	246	0%	0%
South Florida	Amer	291	0%	0%
Florida Gulf Coast	ASun	116	0%	71%		14.87
Lipscomb	ASun	150	0%	25%		17.84
USC UpSt	ASun	234	0%	0%
Kennesaw St	ASun	250	0%	2%
North Florida	ASun	260	0%	3%
Jacksonville	ASun	272	0%	0%
NJIT	ASun	277	0%	0%
Stetson	ASun	322	0%	0%
Purdue	B10	13	100%	37%	17	4.26
Minnesota	B10	33	100%	7%	21	5.45
Wisconsin	B10	21	99%	25%	27	6.18
Maryland	B10	38	98%	6%	28	7.03
Michigan St	B10	51	89%	5%	33	9.11
Northwestern	B10	36	70%	4%	38	9.65
Michigan	B10	27	63%	7%	43	8.82
Illinois	B10	66	12%	1%	59	16.85
Ohio St	B10	67	3%	1%	70	17.80
Indiana	B10	50	2%	4%	72
Iowa	B10	71	2%	1%	73
Nebraska	B10	94	1%	0%	77
Penn St	B10	82	0%	0%
Rutgers	B10	138	0%	0%
Kansas	B12	9	100%	30%	1	1.01
Baylor	B12	11	100%	13%	10	2.31
West Virginia	B12	4	100%	35%	13	4.18
Iowa St	B12	23	100%	10%	23	6.67
Oklahoma St	B12	19	87%	6%	35	7.05
Kansas St	B12	35	6%	2%	61	16.88
Texas Tech	B12	34	0%	2%
TCU	B12	43	0%	1%		17.11
Oklahoma	B12	64	0%	0%
Texas	B12	75	0%	0%
Villanova	BE	2	100%	49%	3	1.00
Butler	BE	20	100%	18%	4	3.12
Creighton	BE	25	99%	12%	26	6.08
Xavier	BE	48	64%	6%	42	9.01
Marquette	BE	30	50%	8%	46	11.43
Providence	BE	55	49%	2%	49	11.21
Seton Hall	BE	57	45%	3%	53	10.85
Georgetown	BE	61	0%	2%
St. Johns	BE	87	0%	0%
DePaul	BE	176	0%	0%
North Dakota	BSky	172	0%	25%		16.40
Eastern Washington	BSky	180	0%	16%		17.51
Weber St	BSky	182	0%	27%		17.72
Montana	BSky	206	0%	12%
Idaho	BSky	230	0%	9%
Portland St	BSky	236	0%	4%
Montana St	BSky	241	0%	6%
Northern Colorado	BSky	280	0%	0%		20.00
Sacramento St	BSky	302	0%	1%
Idaho St	BSky	328	0%	0%
Northern Arizona	BSky	329	0%	0%
Southern Utah	BSky	333
North Carolina Asheville	BSth	98	0%	38%		16.21
Winthrop	BSth	112	0%	48%		16.11
Gardner Webb	BSth	192	0%	5%
Liberty	BSth	207	0%	5%
High Point	BSth	253	0%	2%
Radford	BSth	289	0%	1%
Campbell	BSth	305	0%	0%
Charleston Southern	BSth	312	0%	0%
Longwood	BSth	348	0%	0%
Presbyterian	BSth	350	0%	0%
UC Irvine	BW	153	0%	48%		16.54
UC Davis	BW	221	0%	16%		17.33
Long Beach St	BW	239	0%	14%		17.84
Hawaii	BW	262	0%	0%		20.00
Cal St. Northridge	BW	268	0%	7%		20.00
Cal St. Fullerton	BW	278	0%	7%
Cal Poly	BW	295	0%	4%
UC Riverside	BW	319	0%	3%
UC Santa Barbara	BW	337	0%	1%
North Carolina Wilmington	CAA	59	63%	40%	44	11.94
College of Charleston	CAA	86	3%	22%	71
Towson	CAA	122	0%	10%
Elon	CAA	130	0%	7%
William & Mary	CAA	132	0%	10%
Northeastern	CAA	137	0%	7%
Hofstra	CAA	174	0%	3%
James Madison	CAA	229	0%	1%
Drexel	CAA	242	0%	0%
Delaware	CAA	301	0%	0%
Middle Tennessee	CUSA	47	49%	43%	48	10.85
Louisiana Tech	CUSA	90	0%	18%
Old Dominion	CUSA	113	0%	11%
Rice	CUSA	133	0%	5%
Marshall	CUSA	161	0%	5%
UAB	CUSA	184	0%	14%
UTEP	CUSA	208	0%	2%
Western Kentucky	CUSA	238	0%	1%
Charlotte	CUSA	240	0%	0%
Florida Atlantic	CUSA	259	0%	0%
UTSA	CUSA	267	0%	0%
Florida Intl	CUSA	298	0%	0%
North Texas	CUSA	323	0%	0%
Southern Miss	CUSA	325
Valparaiso	Horz	95	3%	38%	68	14.98
Oakland	Horz	108	0%	30%		16.63
Northern Kentucky	Horz	149	0%	7%
Wright St	Horz	165	0%	9%
Green Bay	Horz	177	0%	12%
Cleveland St	Horz	228	0%	1%
Illinois Chicago	Horz	247	0%	1%
Milwaukee	Horz	282	0%	0%
Detroit	Horz	285	0%	0%
Youngstown St	Horz	297	0%	0%
Princeton	Ivy	62	65%	49%	41	13.33
Harvard	Ivy	111	0%	22%
Penn	Ivy	152	0%	15%
Yale	Ivy	156	0%	13%
Columbia	Ivy	224	0%	1%
Cornell	Ivy	265	0%	0%
Brown	Ivy	274	0%	0%
Dartmouth	Ivy	306	0%	0%
Monmouth	MAAC	78	49%	39%	47	12.84
St. Peters	MAAC	109	0%	16%
Iona	MAAC	126	0%	16%
Siena	MAAC	181	0%	19%
Canisius	MAAC	185	0%	4%
Rider	MAAC	203	0%	2%
Fairfield	MAAC	204	0%	3%
Niagara	MAAC	261	0%	0%
Quinnipiac	MAAC	283	0%	0%
Manhattan	MAAC	284	0%	0%
Marist	MAAC	318	0%	0%
Akron	MAC	114	4%	21%	65	13.83
Ohio	MAC	102	0%	24%		17.68
Buffalo	MAC	123	0%	13%
Eastern Michigan	MAC	129	0%	9%
Toledo	MAC	135	0%	7%
Kent St	MAC	146	0%	8%
Western Michigan	MAC	154	0%	8%
Ball St	MAC	175	0%	7%
Northern Illinois	MAC	212	0%	2%
Central Michigan	MAC	233	0%	1%
Bowling Green	MAC	245	0%	0%
Miami OH	MAC	281	0%	0%
North Carolina Central	MEAC	159	0%	57%		16.00
Norfolk St	MEAC	293	0%	16%
Hampton	MEAC	310	0%	8%
Maryland Eastern Shore	MEAC	314	0%	5%
Savannah St	MEAC	315	0%	0%		20.00
Morgan St	MEAC	324	0%	7%
Howard	MEAC	335	0%	2%
South Carolina St	MEAC	336
Delaware St	MEAC	338	0%	1%
Bethune Cookman	MEAC	340	0%	1%
Coppin St	MEAC	342	0%	1%
Florida A&M	MEAC	344	0%	0%
North Carolina A&T	MEAC	349	0%	0%
Wichita St	MVC	10	95%	78%	30	9.42
Illinois St	MVC	44	94%	13%	31	12.56
Loyola Chicago	MVC	97	0%	4%
Missouri St	MVC	136	0%	1%
Southern Illinois	MVC	151
Evansville	MVC	163	0%	1%
Northern Iowa	MVC	167	0%	1%
Indiana St	MVC	194	0%	0%
Bradley	MVC	218	0%	0%
Drake	MVC	256	0%	0%
Nevada	MWC	60	67%	36%	40	12.27
Colorado St	MWC	92	3%	11%	67	17.74
San Diego St	MWC	83	0%	17%		17.81
Boise St	MWC	100	0%	12%
Fresno St	MWC	104	0%	9%
New Mexico	MWC	124	0%	7%
Wyoming	MWC	141	0%	3%
Utah St	MWC	145	0%	3%
San Jose St	MWC	205	0%	0%
Air Force	MWC	219	0%	0%
UNLV	MWC	251	0%	2%
Mount St. Marys	NEC	216	0%	50%		16.04
Wagner	NEC	243	0%	31%
LIU Brooklyn	NEC	252	0%	0%		17.83
St. Francis PA	NEC	254	0%	11%
Robert Morris	NEC	263	0%	8%
Fairleigh Dickinson	NEC	266	0%	0%
Bryant	NEC	276	0%	0%
Sacred Heart	NEC	299	0%	0%
Central Connecticut	NEC	341	0%	0%
St. Francis NY	NEC	346	0%	0%
Belmont	OVC	84	16%	62%	58	13.75
Tennessee St	OVC	164	0%	0%
Jacksonville St	OVC	187	0%	6%
Murray St	OVC	197	0%	10%
Morehead St	OVC	199	0%	10%
Tennessee Martin	OVC	210	0%	10%
Southeast Missouri St	OVC	222	0%	3%
Eastern Illinois	OVC	223	0%	0%
Tennessee Tech	OVC	258	0%	0%
Eastern Kentucky	OVC	270	0%	0%
Austin Peay	OVC	288	0%	0%
SIU Edwardsville	OVC	317
Oregon	P12	17	100%	34%	7	1.94
UCLA	P12	12	100%	36%	8	2.69
Arizona	P12	22	100%	18%	14	2.99
USC	P12	65	70%	1%	39	10.53
California	P12	46	46%	6%	52	12.54
Utah	P12	54	4%	3%	63
Stanford	P12	96	1%	0%	78
Colorado	P12	77	0%	1%
Arizona St	P12	128	0%	0%
Washington	P12	171	0%	0%
Washington St	P12	201	0%	0%
Oregon St	P12	271	0%	0%
Bucknell	Pat	80	0%	62%		14.43
Lehigh	Pat	119	0%	21%
Boston University	Pat	186	0%	12%
Navy	Pat	214	0%	3%
Holy Cross	Pat	215	0%	2%
Army	Pat	235	0%	1%
Loyola MD	Pat	248	0%	0%
Colgate	Pat	269	0%	0%
American	Pat	308	0%	0%
Lafayette	Pat	330	0%	0%
UT Arlington	SB	72	46%	41%	51	12.34
Arkansas St	SB	117	0%	14%
Georgia St	SB	120	0%	15%
Louisiana Lafayette	SB	142	0%	7%
Georgia Southern	SB	158	0%	11%
Troy	SB	169	0%	4%
Texas St	SB	193	0%	3%
Coastal Carolina	SB	196	0%	2%
South Alabama	SB	231	0%	1%
Little Rock	SB	249	0%	1%
Louisiana Monroe	SB	255	0%	1%
Appalachian St	SB	264	0%	0%
East Tennessee St	SC	69	6%	31%	62	14.47
Furman	SC	106	1%	17%	74	17.80
Chattanooga	SC	110	0%	19%
North Carolina Greensboro	SC	121	0%	15%		17.52
Mercer	SC	143	0%	6%
Wofford	SC	148	0%	7%
Samford	SC	166	0%	3%
The Citadel	SC	286	0%	0%
Western Carolina	SC	320	0%	0%
VMI	SC	327	0%	0%
Kentucky	SEC	7	100%	45%	6	2.35
Florida	SEC	5	100%	38%	9	3.27
South Carolina	SEC	28	99%	6%	25	7.54
Arkansas	SEC	42	92%	4%	32	8.99
Vanderbilt	SEC	40	42%	2%	54	14.40
Georgia	SEC	53	18%	1%	56	17.64
Alabama	SEC	63	4%	1%	64
Mississippi	SEC	81	1%	0%	75
Tennessee	SEC	58	1%	0%	76
Texas A&M	SEC	56	0%	1%
Auburn	SEC	79	0%	0%
Mississippi St	SEC	99	0%	0%
LSU	SEC	155	0%	0%
Missouri	SEC	168	0%	0%
New Orleans	Slnd	173	0%	27%		16.09
Houston Baptist	Slnd	211	0%	10%
Texas A&M Corpus Chris	Slnd	213	0%	14%		17.74
Stephen F Austin	Slnd	225	0%	27%
Lamar	Slnd	226	0%	6%
Sam Houston St	Slnd	227	0%	11%		17.84
Southeastern Louisiana	Slnd	232	0%	5%
Abilene Christian	Slnd	292	0%	0%		20.00
Incarnate Word	Slnd	300	0%	0%		20.00
Northwestern St	Slnd	303	0%	0%
Central Arkansas	Slnd	304	0%	0%
Nicholls St	Slnd	309	0%	0%
McNeese St	Slnd	316	0%	0%
South Dakota	Sum	134	0%	19%		15.81
Fort Wayne	Sum	144	0%	23%		17.78
North Dakota St	Sum	147	0%	19%		17.20
Denver	Sum	183	0%	11%
Nebraska Omaha	Sum	188	0%	9%
South Dakota St	Sum	191	0%	12%
IUPUI	Sum	200	0%	7%
Oral Roberts	Sum	237	0%	0%
Western Illinois	Sum	296	0%	1%
Texas Southern	SWAC	202	0%	60%		15.96
Alcorn St	SWAC	287	0%	0%		20.00
Prairie View A&M	SWAC	311	0%	6%
Southern	SWAC	321	0%	16%
Jackson St	SWAC	326	0%	8%
Grambling St	SWAC	331	0%	5%
Alabama St	SWAC	343	0%	2%
Mississippi Valley St	SWAC	345	0%	1%
Arkansas Pine Bluff	SWAC	347	0%	1%
Alabama A&M	SWAC	351	0%	0%
Cal St. Bakersfield	WAC	105	3%	42%	66	15.42
New Mexico St	WAC	103	0%	45%		17.16
Grand Canyon	WAC	179	0%	0%		20.00
Utah Valley	WAC	195	0%	6%
UMKC	WAC	220	0%	5%
Seattle	WAC	273	0%	1%
UT Rio Grande Valley	WAC	307
Chicago St	WAC	339	0%	0%
Gonzaga	WCC	1	100%	75%	2	1.25
St. Marys	WCC	14	100%	21%	22	6.23
BYU	WCC	70	6%	3%	60
San Francisco	WCC	107	0%	0%
Santa Clara	WCC	140	0%	0%
Loyola Marymount	WCC	170	0%	0%
Pacific	WCC	244	0%	0%
San Diego	WCC	257	0%	0%
Portland	WCC	279	0%	0%
Pepperdine	WCC	294	0%	0%

2017 All-Americans

You can click on the newly released 2017 All-American team as well as the 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 squads. Some are critical that we always release the list before the conference tournaments start, but after 30 games the www.valueaddbasketball.com numbers do not change that much, and we like to put out the early list before the big conference tournaments overwhelm the attention. Plus it lets people find their All-Conference teams prior to the conference tournaments starting.

Click here to see the rest of the list and explanations, or on www.valueaddbasketball.com to get the most valuable players in each conference or team or go to www.pudnersports.com for explanations of the system.

John Pudner, 404.606.3163

NCAA March Madness "Locks"

Here are the 49 "Locks" for the Tournament as of February 23, 2017. Obviously one or more could collapse, but when we show the other teams that could make it this is a reference of who we are already putting in the bracket.

Conference	Teams	"Locks" as of February 23, 2017
America East Conference	1	Champ only
American Athletic Conference	2	Cincinnati and SMU
Atlantic 10 Conference	1	Champ (if not VCU, Dayton)
Atlantic Coast Conference	8	Louisville, UNC, Duke, Florida State, Uva, Notre Dame, Va Tech, Miami
Atlantic Sun Conference	1	Champ only
Big 12 Conference	3	Kansas, Baylor, West Virginia, Iowa State
Big East Conference	3	Villanova, Butler, Creighton
Big Sky Conference	1	Champ only
Big South Conference	1	Champ only
Big Ten Conference	2	Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern
Big West Conference	1	Champ only
Colonial Athletic Association	1	Champ only
Conference USA	1	Champ (if not Middle Tennessee)
Horizon League	1	Champ only
Ivy League	1	Champ only
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference	1	Champ only
Mid American Conference	1	Champ only
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference	1	Champ only
Missouri Valley Conference	1	(Champ unless Wichita State or Illinois State)
Mountain West Conference	1	Champ (if not Nevada)
Northeast Conference	1	Champ only
Ohio Valley Conference	1	Champ only
Pac-12 Conference	4	Oregon, Arizona, UCLA, USC
Patriot League	1	Champ only
Southeastern Conference	2	Kentucky, Florida
Southern Conference	1	Champ only
Southland Conference	1	Champ only
Southwestern Athletic Conference	1	Champ only
Sun Belt Conference	1	Champ only
West Coast Conference	2	Gonzaga, St. Mary's
Western Athletic Conference	1	Champ only
Total Teams	49	Leaving at least 19 spots

Executive Summary of What Value Add Ratings Mean, Followed by History of Versions

The executive summary for understanding the player ratings at www.valueaddbasketball.com is as follows. If a player must miss a game, you subtract AdjO, AdjD and AdjEM from the team's ratings at Pomeroy, and you subtract his Value Add Version 5.0 Pts/Game from his Sagarin total to estimate the team's ratings if he were not there. 

History of Versions

Since the inception of Value Add was announced on www.crackedsidewalks.com in 2011 and then to a national audience through Sports Illustrated, several updates have been issued. This blog intends to give a basic overview of the system. At the highest level, there are three factors that go into determining a player's value; 

1) How many fewer points would a team likely average if the player in question missed a game (we do not give any player a negative rating even if his offense is worse than a typical replacement player, he just gets a 0.00). This number is the individual equivalent of the AdjO team rating at www.kenpom.com. 

2) How many more points would an opponent likely score if the same player was missing from a game (on defense, the player wants a negative rating but can get a positive rating if poor defense allows more points). This number is the individual equivalent of the AdjD team rating at www.kenpom.com, and if you subtract this number from the AdjO in #1 above, you get the individual equivalent of the AdjEM team rating on www.kenpom.com.

3) What adjustments do you need to make to that figure to account for the comparison to what a replacement player would give you playing the same position (PG, SG, SF, PF or C), for the fewer possessions a player will get playing on a great team that often rests players in blowout wins, and to adjust this figure to a points per game total that is more easily understandable by fans and corresponds to the point total of each team as calculated by Sagarin's Basketball Rankings.

As outlined in the first paragraph, a player must miss a game, you subtract AdjO, AdjD and AdjEM from the team's ratings at Pomeroy, and you subtract his Value Add Version 5.0 Pts/Game from his Sagarin total to estimate the team's ratings if he were not there. 

To be even more precise, the actual impact on the team's margin of victory or defeat is equal to the player's Value Add Pts/Gm MINUS that same total for the seventh best player on the team, meaning the impact of losing a 7th, 8th or 9th player on a team is usually not work any adjustment.

Here is an outline of the version of Value Add Basketball since it's public introduction in 2011.

Value Add Basketball 1.0

Value Add 1.0 was released in My of 2011, constructive critics like Basketball Prospectus took a good look at some tweaks they would make to the system. Some tweaks were made over the course of three years, but we did not formally note a Version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc.

Value Add Basketball 2.0

In 2014, we updated the calculations in a Value Add 2.0 update. This not only took into account calibrations for peer criticisms but also for the scoring exploding from 1.004 to 1.043 points per trip due to freedom of movement rules. Among other things, these changes temporarily removed the need for a big position adjustment for point guards - since they could easily get to the basket rather than having to throw the ball into big players for the easy buckets.

Value Add Basketball 3.0

Value Add 3.0 was introduced in 2015 to pinpoint even more accurately each players offensive and defensive value, as it reflected specifically how much a given player impacted his team's Pomeroy AdjO (adjusted offense) and AdjD (adjusted defense) of his team. This breakthrough meant that if a player had an offensive rating of 5.0 and a defensive rating of -2.0, and his team had a kenpom.com AdjO of 100 then if they did not have the player's 5.0 for the season then his team's AdjO would project to drop by those five points to 95 - in other words the team would start scoring 95 points per 100 trips down the court rather than the 100 points per 100 trips they were averaging. Likewise if the team had an AdjD of 100 after benefiting from the player's defense holding it down two points with the -2.0, then if he left the team the AdjD would be expected to increase to 102.

Value Add Basketball 4.0 - Introduced then Disregarded

We experimented with the likely impact of adding projected possessions to players in big programs that would likely have played more for a small program. To sum up, this turned out to be a bad experiment and we completely disregarded the v4.0 and temporarily went back to v3.0, and began working on v5.0.

Value Add Basketball 5.0

The adjustment to a per game point value rather than per 100 trips made the main rating much easier to understand. We also go into greater detail in posts below on the adjustments made for players stuck on the bench for extra time due to playing for great teams and the position adjustment.

See this link for a deeper explanation of Version 5.0.

Overview

Value Add 1.0 Overview: Anthony Davis added 7.29% to Kentucky’s scoring with his offense, and took away -5.06% from opponent’s scoring in the first season after the introduction of the system, so his total impact on the score was 12.35%, the highest Value Add in the country. Value Add 1.0 therefore calculated that if Kentucky would have lost a game 69-70 with a typical fourth or fifth man off the bench playing instead of Davis, then with Davis they win 74-66.

Version 2.0 Overview: As we tested the system we found we were under valuing players and it appeared the actual figure was close to the POINTS rather than the PERCENT OF POINTS added by a player.

Version 3.0 Overview: For various reasons, it became important to set the level of the "replacement player" lower - thus meaning we assumed a player further down the bench. Therefore a solid mid-major/high-major starter (pegged as the 100th best player at either SG, SF, PF or C) is now likely worth about 4.0 rather than 3.0 points per game and a player would need to be higher than 10.0 Value Add to be a candidate for an All-American team. The fact that the best teams in the country now calculate as close to 50 points better than the worst teams is consistent with other team calculations.

See this link for a deeper explanation of Version 5.0.

1st of 3 Components - Offense

Value Add 1.0 Offense. The Offensive component was first explained in this post, as we can measure with great precision how many points a player ad to his team’s score. Perhaps the most important breakthrough of this system was that the level of every defense faced is measured, so a player must put up much better stats against a mediocre team than a top-level team to get the same stats. 

Value Add 2.0 Offense. This was the other benefit of this system is that it led to a pretty reliable projection tool as players' main improvement came between their freshman and sophomore seasons.

Value Add 3.0 Offense. The main offensive adjustment increases the value rating, but as we continue to look for small tweaks in measuring the value of each stat in an era of increased freedom of movement and a 30-second shot clock Value Add 3.0 also added a control factor so that if the sum of a team's players is dramatically above or below the team value at www.kenpom.com, then each players offensive value add is scaled to correct the discrepancy. 

See this link for a deeper explanation of Version 5.0.

2nd of 3 Components - Defense

Value Add 1.0 Defense. The Defensive component is not quite as precise, but even some in the analytics arena admit to me that noone else matches the measurement of the impact of a college player's defense better than Value Add. This system measures a player’s ability to block shots, steal the ball, grab defensive rebounds - all of which goes into other systems. HOWEVER, the key component is it measures every trip down the court and what percent of the trips result in a basket or miss when there is no blocked shot or steal.

Value Add 2.0 Defense. Two adjustments were necessary to the defensive rating. First, I had assumed a player who had a lot of steals also tended to force more turnovers in addition to those steals, and in studying the last few years this does NOT appear to be the case. Secondly, the system was built assuming scoring would always be very close to 1.00 points per trip, and when scoring exploded to 1.04 in 2014 as suddenly the vast majority of players with a lot of minutes looked like bad defenders. We "patched" this system in 2.0 on the fly in 2014.

Value Add 3.0 Defense. Now the defensive adjustment has been adjusted so that a decent defensive player in any season will be 1.5 points a game better on defense than a replacement player no matter how many points are being score per trip or in the average game.

See this link for a deeper explanation of Version 5.0.

3rd of 3 Components - Position Adjustment

Value Add 1.0 Position. The original Point Guard/Perimeter Defensive Rating (PG/Per) redistributed a small percent of the credit from post players who do not turn the ball over as much because they do not have to dribble as often and who grab more defensive rebounds because they do not have to play defense on the perimeter.  I wrote that after extensive study, this figure was determined the most accurate way to fairly adjust ratings based on position, as explained in this post.

Value Add 2.0 Position. And the bottom line is that the peer review on this system was terrible. Others in the analytical arena hated this approach as a way to throw subjective evaluations into what was otherwise an objective system worthy of serious consideration. While I would still like to reward a player like UVa's Malcolm Brogdon extra credit for the subjective evaluations of him running the team on offense and defense, it was just a non-starter. Therefore we changed the system to simply adjust the final rating so that the 100th best player at each position would be worth 3.0 points per game and the average point guard 3.5.

Value Add 3.0 Position. We did modify further - still based on the top 100 players at each of the five positions - so that the 100th best at each position will usually be around a 4.0 Value Add and the average point guard at 4.5 Value Add. Point guards usually are more valuable - and it is because they must run the show. However, as rules were changed to allow more and more freedom of movement, the overall stat productivity moved from the front line (you needed to lob it inside once physically manhandled at the perimeter a few years ago but now you can drive by them). But this is all relative - if your opponents are now getting a lot more from their guards and you are only getting a little more, then your guards are far less valuable.

See this link for a deeper explanation of Version 5.0.

In summary:

I want to thank those NBA officials who met with me to talk about the NBA Indicators developed in conjunction with Rob Lowe, particularly those who asked me to explain why the numbers showed Jimmy Butler and Jae Crowder would be so good at the NBA-level prior to those drafts. 

I must thank Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBC Sports and especially Fox Sports for their praise of the system as well as all of the other outlets who have covered Value Add.  

In addition, thanks to school sites (e.g. Kentucky,Arizona, NC State, Baylor) and League sites for the Big Ten, Summit, Horizon and Patriot Leagues for their coverage, and the many Sports Athletic Departments who email and offer corrections on rosters. It is hard to track 4,000+ players a year!