MU Big East Schedule; despite lacking an all-conference player deepest team in conference could be favored in 15 of 18 BE games

In Big East play last year Marquette had the top player (Jae Crowder, 2nd in the country 11.12% Value Add at www.valueaddbasketball.com) and the best duo (combined with Darius Johnson-Odom a 16.38 Value Add).  Based on 2013 preseason Value Adds Marquette will only have the best player on the court 3 times in Big East play, vs. DePaul Feb. 3, at Villanova Feb. 23 and at Rutgers March 5.  The following is a comparison of where Marquette's top 3 players rank vs. the top 3 from each Big East opponent:

Date	Opponent	Rnk	Best Player	Ft	In	Rnk	2nd Best Player	Ft	In	Rnk	3rd Best Player	Ft	In
	Marquette	158	Gardner, Davante	6	8	317	Wilson, Jamil	6	7	327	Blue, Vander	6	4
1-Jan	Connecticut	20	Napier, Shabazz	6	0	110	Boatright, Ryan	6	0	205	Daniels, DeAndre	6	8
5-Jan	Georgetown	4	Porter, Otto	6	8	297	Smith-Rivera, D'Vauntes	6	3	450	Trawick, Jabril	6	5
12-Jan	at Pittsburgh	37	Patterson, Lamar	6	5	61	Adams, Steven	6	10	271	Woodall, Tray	5	11
16-Jan	Seton Hall	57	Edwin, Fuquan	6	6	540	Cosby, Aaron	6	3	584	Auda, Patrik	6	9
19-Jan	at Cincinnati	55	Wright, Cashmere	6	0	392	Rubles, Titus	6	8	499	Parker, Jaquon	6	3
26-Jan	Providence	48	Henton, LaDontae	6	6	117	Cotton, Bryce	6	1	118	Ledo, Ricardo	6	5
28-Jan	South Florida	114	Collins, Anthony	6	1	194	Fitzpatrick, Toarlyn	6	8	356	Austin, Waverly	6	11
3-Feb	at Louisville	18	Dieng, Gorgui	6	10	59	Behanan, Chane	6	7	208	Smith, Russ	6	0
6-Feb	at South Florida	114	Collins, Anthony	6	1	194	Fitzpatrick, Toarlyn	6	8	356	Austin, Waverly	6	11
9-Feb	DePaul	246	Young, Brandon	6	3	345	Crockett, Jamee	6	4	815	Melvin, Cleveland	6	8
11-Feb	at Georgetown	4	Porter, Otto	6	8	297	Smith-Rivera, D'Vauntes	6	3	450	Trawick, Jabril	6	5
16-Feb	Pittsburgh	37	Patterson, Lamar	6	5	61	Adams, Steven	6	10	271	Woodall, Tray	5	11
19-Feb	at Seton Hall	57	Edwin, Fuquan	6	6	540	Cosby, Aaron	6	3	584	Auda, Patrik	6	9
23-Feb	at Villanova	250	Yarou, Mouphtaou	6	10	403	Ochefu, Daniel	6	10	478	Bell, James	6	6
25-Feb	Syracuse	69	Fair, CJ	6	8	173	Southerland, James	6	8	254	Triche, Brandon	6	4
2-Mar	Notre Dame	19	Cooley, Jack	6	9	50	Grant, Jerian	6	5	152	Connaughton, Pat	6	5
5-Mar	at Rutgers	207	Miller, Dane	6	6	217	Mack, Myles	5	9	259	Seagears, Jerome	6	1
9-Mar	at St. John's	33	Harrison, D'Angelo	6	3	333	Sanchez, Orlando	6	9	484	Pointer, Sir'Dominic	6	6

In short, MUs top 3 do not look like a good match-up against most other Big East trios.  However, this will be balanced by the fact that Marquette has the deepest team in the Conference.  No other team has 10 players who project in the top 1000 (or top 25% of all players), and it may be that no team has as many potential "surprise" top 100 players.  If Gardner or Otule stay healthy all year they could emerge; if Blue improves as much as his age projects or Mayo as much as the typical freshman to sophomore season; Trent Lockett could return to freshman form with better teammates etc.

The following is how Marquette's top player (Gardner) ranks among the Conferences top players, etc, then all the way down the list until Jamal Ferguson projects as the best No. 10 player and Lockett as the best No. 11 player and obviously potentially much higher.

Rnk	MU player	Ft	In	Compared to other BE
158	Gardner, Davante	6	8	11 BE teams have better No. 1
317	Wilson, Jamil	6	7	9 have better No. 2
327	Blue, Vander	6	4	7 have better No. 3
463	Mayo, Todd	6	3	7 have better No. 4
531	Cadougan, Junior	6	1	5 have better No. 5
613	Anderson, Juan	6	6	5 have better No. 6
688	Otule, Chris	6	11	4 have better No. 7
848	Taylor, Steve	6	7	4 have better No. 8
951	Thomas, Jake	6	3	2 have better No. 9
979	Ferguson, Jamal	6	3	0 have better No. 10
1062	Lockett, Trent	6	4	0 have better No. 11
1323	Wilson, Derrick	6	0	5 have better No. 12

MU could be 7th best team, but with projected 2nd best BE record With UConn ineligible, there is a huge gap between the top 7 teams ending with MU at 25th and the 53rd best team in Rutgers.  Luckily for MU, the draw of home and away games could make them the favorite in 15 of 18 games - though at Rutgers would be a close call.

MU would be an underdog against national contender Louisville even at home, so having them as one of the 9 road games is better than a team where home court might make the difference.  There are 6 conference foes who would be close enough to MU in the rankings that the home court would determine the rankings, and MU gets all 6 of them at home (Providence, Pitt, ND, Syracuse, Georgetown and UConn), though they do also play at Georgetown and Pitt for possibly the only games besides Louisville in which MU would be the projected underdog.  You always expect a couple of upsets at least, but based just on who is favored MU would have a 15-3 edge though admittedly at Rutgers would be a close call.
Please don't accuse me of predicting a 15-3 finish. Even if MU was given an 80% chance of winning each of those 15 games, that means they would probably be upset 3 times so a 12-6 mark might be a more reasonable goal even assuming the team can gel and have a lot of people step up to make up for DJO and Jae being gone, but flipping the schedule might have made MU an underdog in 6 or 7 games, so the schedule creates a very high ceiling of what is possible.
While a prohibitive favorite in the conference this year, Louisville did not get a good draw and could be underdogs at Georgetown, Notre Dame, Syracuse and perhaps even UConn - who will treat that visit as their national championship.

So while it is certainly possible to see Marquette finish as low as 7th, their balance and a very favorable schedule makes it quite possible they could finish as high as 2nd and not impossible that they could contend for the title though a likely double digit loss at Louisville would give the Cardinals the tie-breaker.

Here is where each Big East team ranks nationally right now on Value Add.

Team	Rnk
Louisville	3
Providence	11
Pittsburgh	13
Notre Dame	17
Syracuse	22
Georgetown	24
Marquette	25
Connecticut	38
Rutgers	53
St. John's	59
South Florida	66
Villanova	69
Seton Hall	86
Cincinnati	90
DePaul	119