"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Big East Preview Extended to all 32 D1 Conferences - 32 links

For anyone who liked the preview of the Big East yesterday, and was curious about any other conference, here is my link to the rest:

As millions of college students settle on campus, they join alums in watching fellow students compete from the football stadiums to cross country courses such as those my twin Division 1 athletes run. Now www.valueaddbasketball.com rates more than 3,500 basketball players who can start practice in 12 days at Midnight Madness. Pick your conference from the 32 links below for a quick rundown of the top basketball players and teams with a comparison on how each football team ranks.

  1. ACC: Duke Joins Louisville as National Contender with Bagley Signing
  2. American Athletic: Ex-Football Big East Schools Add Basketball-only Wichita State
  3. American East: Albany Chasing Vermont Again
  4. Atlantic 10: St. Bonaventure Duo Could Challenge Dayton, Rhode Island and VCU
  5. Atlantic Sun: Florida Gulf Coast Shoots for More Upsets If they can Hold Off Lipscomb
  6. Big 12: TCU's Bursts into Football Title Hunt, Then Could Challenge in Toughest Hoops Conference
  7. Big East - St. John's Most Likely to Replace MU to Give Big East 7 Bids Again, Unless MU Defense Improves
  8. Big Sky: Top 100 Player Hall Leads Balanced Hoops Season after E. Washington Football Dominates
  9. Big South: Asheville's Top 100 Duo One of Best, But Liberty a Balanced Threat
  10. Big Ten: Purdue and Michigan State Ready to Seek Hoops Title After Other Big Ten Teams Shoot for Football Title
  11. Big West Teams All Get to Visit Hawaii While Settling Balanced Hoops Season
  12. Colonial Athletic Association: After JMU Football, Charleston and Elon Should Battle for March Madness Bid
  13. Conference USA: UAB Returns to Football Field While Future NBA Star Leads Middle Tennessee
  14. Horizon League: Hayes Leads 4 Oakland Stars to Potential Title
  15. Ivy League: Princeton Builds on 23-7 Season to try to hold off Harvard and Yale for Title
  16. MAAC: Iona Once Again Team to Beat with Edogi Transferring to Join McGill
  17. Mid-American: Western Michigan Battles for Top Football and Basketball Teams and Top Hoops Player
  18. Mid-Eastern Athletic's Morgan State Favorite to Dethrone NC Central Behind POY Kendley
  19. Missouri Valley Teams Battle for Title with Wichita State's Departure, Valpo's Arrival
  20. Mountain West: UNLV Edges Nevada in Tough Hoops Conference, While San Diego State Football Power
  21. Northeast: 5-foot-5 Star Shoots for Player of Year, Repeat Title for Mt. St. Mary's
  22. Ohio Valley:Jacksonville St. Football Dominance Builds on Hoops Upset of Belmont
  23. Pac-12: USC Hoops Could Surpass Arizona Hoops and Even USC Football
  24. Patriot - Bucknell Dominance of Patriot League Hoops Should Follow Army-Navy Classic
  25. SEC: Auburn, Florida, Texas A&M and Mizzou Join Kentucky As 'Basketball' Schools This Year
  26. Southern - Darryl Strawberry's Son Gives Mercer All-Southern Conference Duo, After Football Team Almost Shocks Auburn
  27. Southland - Jalan West Given 7th Year for Quest for All-American Status and 1st Southland Title Over Stephen F. Austin
  28. Summit League: Analytics See Denver Hoops Challenge to Dakota Schools That Dominate Football
  29. Sun Belt: Lafayette or Georgia Southern Could Deny Troy and Arlington Repeat Hoops Titles
  30. SWAC: Jerry Rice and Grambling NFL Greats Yield to March Madness Hopes
  31. WAC - 33 Years After Football National Title, WAC Hosts 1st For-Profit Basketball School
  32. West Coast: After Football BYU Will Challenge Basketball-only St. Mary's & Gonzaga

Corrections are welcome. Simply email pudnerjohn@takeback.org or call or text 404.606.3163. You are welcome to use links or site top players on any list as “Value Add All-Conference Players.” The first five players on each list are 1st team All-Conference players, the sixth through 10th are 2nd team, and the 11th through 15th are third team based on the actual additional points they add to their team. In most cases, this ranking is similar to what sports writers or sports information directors would perceive, but players can come off the bench with incredibly efficient three-point shooting or dominance around the basket that makes them more valuable than starters who are not as efficient. You can always run your own search of projections for current players or ratings for all players since the 2001-02 season by going to www.valueaddbasketball.com.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

St. John's Most Likely to Replace MU to Give Big East 7 Bids Again, Unless MU Defense Improves

This is one of 32 conference previews based on projections of Value Add for each player in www.valueaddbasketball.com. The other 31 projections appear at www.pudnersports.com so that readers only interested in the Big East need not review.

Each piece follows the same format, listing the Massey football ratings alongside the Value Add basketball projections. In the case of the Big East, Villanova's strong FCS team ranks ahead of a number of the 129 FBS teams as the 111th best overall football program. Butler and Georgetown also play football, and are ranked 363rd and 312th of all college teams.

Of the seven Big East teams that made the tournament last year, Value Add projects all but Marquette to return to the tournament, while St. John's is likely to replace Marquette as the seventh team (currently misses by only a couple of spots as the projected 52nd best team). Only nine of Villanova's players have projected values now, so their projections should rise to a Top 10 level, but right now they are edged out by Providence.

Here is where Value Add ranks each Big East team for the season, and the Massey Rankings rank the football teams against all other schools. Updates will be provided here as well as the previews of the other 31 conferences.

Big East/2017 SeedValueAddFootball
Providence 1119
Villanova 120111
Seton Hall 922
Xavier 1127
Butler 436363
Creighton 647
Saint John's52
Marquette 1072
Georgetown141312
DePaul158

Marquette's trio of Markus Howard (171st), Andrew Rowsey (207th) and Sam Hauser (256th) all rank in the top 7 percent of all players. Value Add assigns some of the blame for the horrid defense last year to all players, so any improvement in team defense will lift all players, but if the team continues to try to trade good three-point shooting with uncontested dunks on the other end the defensive ratings will continue to hold down player ratings.

More important of course, is that the high powered only needs an adequate defense to push Marquette back into the tournament.

Here are the top 15 projected players in the conference in order, and the other Marquette players in the top 20 percent of all players. As always, corrections are welcome to pudnerjohn@gmail.com or 404.606.3163.

Nat'l RnkTop 15 Big East PlayersValue AddSchoolHt
15Jalen Brunson 19.16Villanova`6-02
23Mikal Bridges 258.78Villanova`6-07
36Khyri Thomas 28.21Creighton`6-03
39Trevon Bluiett 58.17Xavier`6-06
41Shamorie Ponds 28.13St. John's`6-01
49Angel Delgado7.80Seton Hall`6-10
64JP Macura 557.38Xavier`6-05
67Marcus Foster 07.30Creighton`6-03
95Khadeen Carrington 06.90Seton Hall`6-04
129Kelan Martin 306.51Butler`6-07
134Jalen Lindsey 216.49Providence`6-07
143Emmitt Holt 156.35Providence`6-07
171Markus Howard 06.10Marquette`5-11
197Desi Rodriguez 205.85Seton Hall`6-06
203Jessie Govan 155.82Georgetown`6-10
Nat'l RnkOther MU in top 20%Value AddSchoolHt
207Andrew Rowsey 305.80Marquette`5-10
256Sam Hauser 105.43Marquette`6-06
705Haanif Cheatham 253.32Marquette`6-05


Ken Pomeroy ranked the Big East 3rd of 32 Division 1 basketball conferences, which will all be previewed at www.pudnersports.com with notes on which schools are now "basketball" or "football" schools based on which program is stronger this season. Football revenue is much higher, but programs are much more expensive between equipment and the requirement of matching enough women's scholarships in other sports. Therefore some programs forgo FBS football programs to focus on low cost basketball programs as their biggest revenue sport.

Sports IllustratedFox Sports and ESPN have lauded Value Add Basketball for estimating the number of points each college basketball players is worth to his team above a replacement player - similar to baseball WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Massey Ratings is used for the football rankings above.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

We break into your regularly scheduled football weekend to talk #MUBB schedule and recruits

It's fall so we're starting to shake off our summer vacation and more importantly, there is #MUBB news to report and comment on. First we lightly touch on the momentary freakout around Haanif's sling thanks to Instagram. Moving on from that silliness we get to the heart of the podcast, Marquette's newly released schedule. While we don't go game by game we do review the schedule overall and what it might mean for the team this season. We discuss what the non-conference schedule does for a young front court, how we owe apologizes to Mike Broeker after having seen Georgetown's non-con, and what the conference schedule looks like in terms of potential post season. We also send a lot of time talking about the intensifying recruitment of Quentin Grimes by #MUBB, mostly around what his recruitment means for Marquette's roster in 2018, coaching staff as recruiters and level setting expectations for actually landing Mr. Grimes. Enjoy the pod, we're only 4 weeks away from Marquette Madness. Download this episode (right click and save)