Could Marquette have most balanced team in 2012-13; and another 3-seed?

Since I ran the initial projections for next year's rankings hours after the national championship, a good number of things have settled out with high school players choosing colleges and college players deciding to go pro or stay. After Brew's excellent piece on the good job MU is doing to schedule to get a better shot at a high seed, I was thrilled to rerun the numbers and see Marquette shoot up to a 3-seed.

In addition, several fans pointed out in the projections that the big problem was that a top recruit that was saddled on the bench for a year someplace like Kentucky should still project out to be a strong player was given his chance – rather than to repeat his ZERO. So I ran a simply “Kentucky conversion,” making every player who was in the Rivals 150 either of the last two years project out to at least the Value Add we would have expected from them as a freshman.

While Kentucky predictably jumped way up to No. 10 in the country pending four big recruits they are still pursing, the fund surprise when I ran the numbers as that Marquette jumped from the mid-30s to No. 11 as one of only two teams (besides Baylor) with 12 top 1000 players. In fact, if Trent Lockett is truly signing with MU, it would actually nudge us slightly ahead of Kentucky for No. 10:

Rank	Player	Ht	Yr	Off	Def	PG/Per	Tot
153	Davante Gardner	6'8"	Jr	3.74	-1.13	0.00	4.87
319	Jamil Wilson	6'7"	Jr	1.92	-1.64	0.00	3.56
326	Vander Blue	6'4"	Jr	2.43	-1.09		3.52
457	Todd Mayo	6'3"	So	2.25	-0.61	0.00	2.86
524	Junior Cadougan	6'1"	Sr	0.16	-0.95	1.50	2.61
528	Jamail Jones	6'6"	Jr	1.77	-0.80		2.57
607	Juan Anderson	6'6"	So	1.61	-0.72		2.33
676	Chris Otule	6'11"	Jr	0.01	-2.08		2.09
831	T.J. Taylor	6'3"	So	1.17	-0.52		1.69
844	Steve Taylor	6'7"	Fr	1.16	-0.52		1.68
938	Jake Thomas	6'3"	Sr	1.49	0.00		1.49
967	Jamal Ferguson	6'3"	Fr	0.99	-0.44		1.43
1043	Trent Lockett	6'4"	Sr	1.29	0.00	0.00	1.29
1314	Derrick Wilson	6'0	So	0.26	-0.71	0.00	0.97
1501	Aaron Durley	6'9"	Fr	0.43	-0.19		0.63
	Total with Lockett						32.97
	Total with Durley						32.31

Not only is Baylor the only team to team to match Marquette’s 12 in the top 1000 (Baylor also has 4 top 100 players), but Michigan State is the only other team with 11 and Indiana is the only other team with 10. So while Marquette will not be the best team in the country next year, we could go from having the second best duo in the country to potentially having the most balanced team in the country. In fact, before being stuck with one of the worst BCS teams in the country the last couple of years, Lockett was a top 1000 player as a freshman at Arizona State in a season that Pomeroy says most closely mirrors Wesley Matthews freshman campaign.

Of course, the one problem with this much balance is that it will likely filter down to an 8-man rotation. So what we are really saying is not that Marquette will end the season with 12 or 13 players in the top 1000, but that with 13 players capable of doing it we have a lot of chances for a few players to step up and be top 200 players, and a few more to step up and be top 500 players, etc. A team with only five top 500 players and no others in the top 1000 can fall apart much quicker if two of their players have off years.

We are close to setting up a separate database so you can pull up all these players, but for now I’ll give you the rest of the run of which teams would be seeded where in the NCAA tournament, or make the NIT based on the total projected Value Add they have right now. Since Kentucky is the one team still in the mix for four of the top freshmen, I split the difference with them and assumed they would get two of their final targets.

All caps indicates the automatic NCAA bid for being the top team in their conference:

Rank	Team	Conf	Proj Tot	Seed
1	INDIANA	B10	47.30	1
2	BAYLOR	B12	41.69	1
3	NOTRE DAME	BE	37.51	1
4	UCLA	P12	35.93	1
5	Louisville	BE	35.58	2
6	NORTH CAROLINA ST.	ACC	34.80	2
7	Michigan St.	B10	34.01	2
8	Ohio St.	B10	33.81	2
9	Texas	B12	33.70	3
10	KENTUCKY	SEC	32.67	3
11	Marquette	BE	32.31	3
12	Florida	SEC	32.15	3
13	MEMPHIS	CUSA	31.78	4
14	Providence	BE	31.74	4
15	Pittsburgh	BE	31.40	4
16	Missouri	SEC	31.29	4
17	Minnesota	B10	30.22	5
18	CREIGHTON	MVC	29.74	5
19	Syracuse	BE	29.51	5
20	Duke	ACC	29.39	5
21	Georgetown	BE	29.05	6
22	Wisconsin	B10	28.86	6
23	California	P12	28.70	6
24	NEVADA LAS VEGAS	MWC	28.68	6
25	Iowa St.	B12	28.37	7
26	North Carolina	ACC	28.12	7
27	Michigan	B10	28.01	7
28	Oklahoma St.	B12	27.95	7
29	GONZAGA	WCC	27.48	8
30	Tennessee	SEC	27.41	8
31	Maryland	ACC	27.27	8
32	Arizona	P12	27.22	8
33	Kansas	B12	26.93	9
34	Arkansas	SEC	26.69	9
35	Kansas St.	B12	26.62	9
36	Connecticut	BE	26.42	9
37	Iowa	B10	26.24	10
38	SAINT JOSEPH'S	A10	26.10	10
39	Stanford	P12	25.97	10
40	Temple	A10	25.49	10
41	New Mexico	MWC	25.32	11
42	Illinois St.	MVC	24.54	11
43	Villanova	BE	24.29	11
44	Mississippi	SEC	24.20	11
48	VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH	CAA	23.72	12
51	DAVIDSON	SC	23.40	12
45	Colorado	P12	24.11	12-PI
46	Virginia Tech	ACC	24.07	12-PI
47	La Salle	A10	23.84	12-PI
49	Richmond	A10	23.70	12-PI
59	HARVARD	Ivy	22.71	13
60	SOUTH DAKOTA ST.	Sum	22.37	13
61	OHIO	MAC	21.40	13
68	SOUTH CAROLINA UPSTATE	ASun	19.90	13
72	BUCKNELL	Pat	19.04	14
74	BELMONT	OVC	18.90	14
80	BUTLER	Horz	18.25	14
83	UTAH ST.	WAC	17.76	14
87	VERMONT	AE	17.33	15
88	DENVER	SB	17.28	15
95	LOYOLA MD	MAAC	16.65	15
96	ROBERT MORRIS	NEC	16.29	15
136	MONTANA	BSky	12.18	16
149	SAVANNAH ST.	MEAC	10.44	16
150	LONG BEACH ST.	BW	10.43	16-PI
183	STEPHEN F. AUSTIN	Slnd	6.91	16-PI
187	NC ASHEVILLE	BSth	6.69	16-PI
194	TEXAS SOUTHERN	SWAC	6.31	16-PI
50	Oregon St.	P12	23.54	NIT
52	Alabama	SEC	23.27	NIT
53	San Diego St.	MWC	23.26	NIT
54	Northwestern	B10	23.10	NIT
55	Rutgers	BE	23.08	NIT
56	Oklahoma	B12	22.93	NIT
57	West Virginia	B12	22.80	NIT
58	St. Louis	A10	22.80	NIT
62	Colorado St.	MWC	21.35	NIT
63	Miami FL	ACC	21.28	NIT
64	Houston	CUSA	21.23	NIT
65	Virginia	ACC	20.85	NIT
66	St. Mary's	WCC	20.83	NIT
67	Texas Tech	B12	20.10	NIT
69	Northern Iowa	MVC	19.60	NIT
70	Drexel	CAA	19.27	NIT
71	Akron	MAC	19.04	NIT
73	Xavier	A10	18.97	NIT
75	South Carolina	SEC	18.77	NIT
76	St. John's	BE	18.73	NIT
77	Massachusetts	A10	18.72	NIT
78	Lehigh	Pat	18.66	NIT
79	Georgia Tech	ACC	18.33	NIT
81	Seton Hall	BE	18.03	NIT
82	Washington St.	P12	17.98	NIT
84	Murray St.	OVC	17.65	NIT
85	South Florida	BE	17.55	NIT
86	Valparaiso	Horz	17.40	NIT
89	Central Florida	CUSA	17.24	NIT
90	North Texas	SB	17.12	NIT
91	Purdue	B10	17.04	NIT
92	Middle Tennessee	SB	16.89	NIT