Projecting 2012-13 (Part 2 of 4): Kentucky losing most talent, while Indiana, Creighton, Ohio St. and Duke returning the most – MU 44th

The table of the 50 teams returning the most talent this year (not counting returning redshirts covered in Part 1 or freshman covered in Part 3) is at the bottom of this post. But first, for the hardest hit by departures.

"We will go from having the 2nd best duo in the country, to more of a committee of five excellent players – any of whom could explode. As for the projections, Gardner projects at #151 (even though Value Add doesn’t adjust for his time missed with injury, so could easily be top 100), J. Wilson is #307, Blue #369, Mayo #441 and Cadougan #489 (all in the top 12% of all D1 players)."

After their national championship tonight, Kentucky will be hit the hardest by player departures, losing 36.87% Value Add while keeping only the 3.59% from Kyle Wiltjer (ranked as the 1060th most valuable player this year). Their opponent Kansas will be the 4th hardest hit (20.72% Value Add lost), and Marquette isn’t far behind at 9th worst hit, amazing since we only lost two (incredible) players:

Team	Returning	Departing	Value Add ranks of departing players for 10 hardest hit teams
Kentucky	3.59	36.87	#1 Davis, #39 Gilchrist, #60 Jones, #67 Lamb, 3 others
UNC	10.19	21.36	#13 Zeller, #117 Marshall, #123 Henson, #310 Barnes
Missouri	14.87	20.75	#20 Denmon, #45 Ratliffe, #137 English, 2 others
Kansas	12.92	20.72	#10 Robinson, #37 Withey, #109 Taylor, #1141 Teahan
Wichita St.	8.03	20.56	#50 Ragland, #168 Stutz, #273 Murry, #355 Smith, #462 Kyles
Florida St.	6.52	18.77	#118 James, #124 Snear, #427 Loucks, #598 Dulkys, 3 others
Vanderbilt	9.48	18.16	#46 Taylor, #125 Tinsley, #190 Goulbourne, #774 Ezeli, 1 other
Purdue	8.28	17.04	#34 Hummel, #128 Jackson, #265 Smith, #869 Barlow
Marquette	19.00	16.39	#2 Crowder, #93 Darius Johnson-Odom
Michigan St.	3.84	15.43	#3 Green, #350 Wood, #465 Thornton

Except for John Calipari, who simply reloads every year with star freshman, returning players are the biggest part of most teams success in the coming year.

This is because 27% of players leave their teams, but they take 37% of the Value with them, as shown by this table. Returning players who played substantial minutes this year will likely provide about 82% of the roughly 4400% Value Add in the 2013 season, with returning red shirts, freshman and little used players stepping up combining for the other 18%.

	Players	Off	Def	Val Add
Departing	932	1052.35	-290.92	1612.77
Returning, 2012 Value Add	2523	1692.82	-491.07	2771.39
Returning, Projected 2013	2523	2441.51	-569.64	3598.65

Edit: I learned after first posting this that apparently Sean Miller agreed with my surprise calculation last month that TJ McConnell of Duquesne was one of the 20 most valuable players in the country. Last week McConnell announced he will transfer from Duquesne to either UVA or Arizona, who could truly be loaded again if he joins their top incoming class in 2014.

That means that it is possible the top 18 Value Add players could all move on for 2013, meaning #19 Doug McDermott is the top player who has declared he will return to a loaded Creighton team. On the Final Value Add Calculations tonight, I flagged each player as a “Grad,” “Transfer Out,” “DraftA” (declared for draft), “DraftB” (expected to go in draft), “?DraftC” (50/50 on going to draft), “?DraftD” (probably staying), or left the flag blank if they are coming back. For purposes of the math in this piece, I have assumed that C. Zeller, Jenkins, Canaan and all the other DraftC and DraftD players stay with their team, but even that would leave only four of the top 20 players returning for 2013. I’ll publish the top 2500 with Part 4, but for now here is the final top 20 (though Davis and Robinson could still move slightly tonight in their game, and Total Value Add can be more than "Off minus Def" if player gets credit for bringing the ball up the court):

Rnk	Player	Team	Ht	Yr	Off	Def	Val Add	Gone?
1	Anthony Davis	Kentucky	6' 10"	Fr	7.29	-5.06	12.35	DraftB
2	Jae Crowder	Marquette	6' 6"	Sr	6.24	-4.89	11.12	Grad
3	Draymond Green	Michigan St.	6' 7"	Sr	4.11	-4.00	9.11	Grad
4	Kevin Jones	West Virginia	6' 8"	Sr	7.67	-0.97	8.65	Grad
5	Cody Zeller	Indiana	6' 11"	Fr	6.69	-1.80	8.50	?DraftC
6	Jared Sullinger	Ohio St.	6' 9"	So	5.66	-2.71	8.37	DraftB
7	Will Barton	Memphis	6' 6"	So	5.62	-2.48	8.10	DraftA
8	Damian Lillard	Weber St.	6' 2"	Jr	7.06	0.00	8.06	DraftA
9	Jordan Taylor	Wisconsin	6' 1"	Sr	5.69	-0.75	7.94	Grad
10	Thomas Robinson	Kansas	6' 9"	Jr	4.11	-3.70	7.81	DraftB
11	Reggie Hamilton	Oakland	5' 11"	Sr	6.79	0.00	7.79	Grad
12	C.J. McCollum	Lehigh	6' 3"	Jr	4.30	-2.44	7.74	DraftA
13	Tyler Zeller	North Carolina	7' 0	Sr	5.35	-1.89	7.74	Grad
14	John Shurna	Northwestern	6' 9"	Sr	6.73	-0.96	7.69	Grad
15	John Jenkins	Vanderbilt	6' 4"	Jr	7.18	0.00	7.68	?DraftC
16	T.J. McConnell	Duquesne	6' 1"	So	3.32	-2.66	7.48
17	Scott Machado	Iona	6' 1"	Sr	5.33	0.00	7.33	Grad
18	Isaiah Canaan	Murray St.	6' 0	Jr	5.54	-0.71	7.25	?DraftC
19	Doug McDermott	Creighton	6' 7"	So	7.23	0.00	7.23
20	Marcus Denmon	Missouri	6' 3"	Sr	6.88	-0.20	7.08	Grad

When we add up the Value Adds of just the returning players – not the returning red shirts we covered in Part 1 or the freshman we will cover in Part 3 – Cody Zeller projects to improve as a sophomore to be the top player in the country at 11.50% and give Indiana the most returning talent at 34.09%, while Doug McDermitt projects to be the second most valuable player at 10.23% and give Creighton the 2nd most returning talent at 28.86%. We never assume a player gains more than 3% in Value Add, which limits these two and a dozen others, but in other cases the projected offensive and defensive Value Adds projected to multiply by the following percentages depending on what year the player is (sophomores improve the most over their freshman year on average).

Projected Value Add improvement	Offense	Def	Ave. Total
becoming sophomore	2.46	1.16	2.85
becoming junior	1.46	1.16	1.69
becoming senior	1.13	1.16	1.30

The good news is that despite losing so much talent, Marquette still projects to be in the Top 50 in returning talent alone because Marquette is one of only ten teams with five returning players (not looking at 2012 redshirts Otule, Thomas or the freshmen yet) to project to be in the top 500. We will go from having the 2nd best duo in the country, to more of a committee of five excellent players – any of whom could explode. As for the projections, Gardner projects at #151 (even though Value Add doesn’t adjust for his time missed with injury, so could easily be top 100), J. Wilson is #307, Blue #369, Mayo #441 and Cadougan #489.

The only other nine teams with five returning players in the top 500 are; Creighton, Duke, Indiana, K-State, LaSalle, St. Louis, Syracuse, VCU and Wisconsin.

The following are the 50 teams with the most returning Value Add from players who played substantial minutes this year, followed by a few other potential future opponents. The nice thing about Value Add is that as rosters change through recruits or additional players changing their mind on the NBA Draft, you simply add or subtract their Value Add number. So if Cody Zeller announced for the draft, you subtract his projected 11.50% and Indiana drops from 1st on this list at 34.09% Value Add to 23rd on the list at 22.59% Value Add. Here is the list, and we will cover the freshman projections in the next piece, and please post a comment or email jpudner@concentricgrasstops.com any time you note a correction or update.

Rnk	Team	Returning 2013	Lost 2012	Notes on returnee projections
1	Indiana	34.09	4.61	#1 Zeller, #172 Watford need to stay
2	Creighton	28.86	4.31	#2 McDermott plus 4 in top 500
3	Ohio St.	27.19	12.00	#5 Craft needs #10 Thomas to stay
4	Duke	26.35	7.18	Ma. Plumlee, Kelly, Curry, Cook top 200
5	Gonzaga	25.28	3.98	#13 Pangos, #96 Bell
6	Saint Joseph's	24.97	0.00	#8 Galloway, #66 Aiken
7	Notre Dame	24.89	2.30	#16 Cooley, #44 Grant PLUS Abromaitis
8	Oregon St.	24.79	0.00	#63 Collier +2 top 400
9	Wisconsin	24.55	9.26	#84 Gasser, #121 Berggren, #157 Evans
10	Minnesota	24.12	1.54	doesn't count Mbakwe, medical redshirt
11	Kansas St.	24.06	4.16	#27 McGruder plus 4 top 500
12	Pittsburgh	24.02	6.44	#33 Patterson +2 top 300
13	Florida	23.93	12.50	#25 Boyton, #88 Young prob. Staying
14	Memphis	23.85	11.28	#60 Black, #73 Crawford, #140 Jackson
15	La Salle	23.84	4.46	#85 Duren, #92 Wright plus 3 top 500
16	Louisville	23.54	9.55	#15 Dieng, #54 Behanan plus healthy Siva
17	Illinois St.	23.47	0.00	Carmichael, Ekey, Moore top 200
18	Syracuse	23.41	20.92	#64 Fair plus 4 top 500
19	Davidson	23.40	0.15	Cochran, Cohen, Brooks top 200
20	Texas	23.39	11.97	#30 McClellan, #91 Holmes, #153 Kabongo
21	Richmond	23.20	3.19	#74 Anthony +3 top 300
22	Providence	22.86	0.00	#43 Henton, #56 Cotton, lost noone
23	New Mexico	22.60	7.20	#89 Williams, #100 Greenwood +2 top 500
24	VCU	22.57	3.79	like Marquette, 5 between #150 and #500
25	St. Louis	22.47	5.79	#78 Mitchell plus 4 top 500
26	South Dakota St.	22.37	3.46	#21 Wolters should stay
27	Michigan St.	22.20	15.43	#69 Dawson, #80 Appling + 2 top 400
28	California	21.97	5.91	#40 Cobbs plus two top 100s
29	Ohio	21.40	0.35	#98 Cooper +2 top 250
30	North Carolina St.	21.00	4.42	#45 Brown, needs Leslie to stay
31	Alabama	20.78	6.87	Releford #22, plus 8 others
32	Tennessee	20.74	2.24	#79 Golden and … #199 Maymon
33	Rutgers	20.52	1.24	4 top 500, lost only Biruta
34	St. Mary's	20.20	8.45	#34 Dellavedova, #111 Holt, #114 Waldow
35	Georgetown	20.11	15.31	#4 Porter, Lubick and Trawick top 500
36	South Carolina Upstate	19.90	0.97	#75 Green, #102 Craig
37	Northern Iowa	19.60	1.12	#20 Tuttle +3 top 500
38	Miami FL	19.42	4.29	#119 Scott plus three top 500
39	Colorado St.	19.33	2.42	#48 Hornung, plus three top 500s
40	Drexel	19.27	3.62	#18 Massenat, #81 Lee
41	Iowa	19.22	6.45	#77 White, #126 Marble
42	Akron	19.04	2.03	all 7 back, Abreu #158,plus two top 250
43	Bucknell	19.04	0.50	#59 Muscala, plus 8 others
44	Marquette	19.00	16.39	5 in top 500 plus returning Otule, J. Thomas
45	Baylor	18.90	14.92	#31 Walton, #46 Jackson
46	Houston	18.63	1.45	ready with #61 Thomas, #148 Young, #360 Harris
47	Temple	18.60	7.90	#28 Wyatt plus 3 top 500
48	Stanford	18.58	5.96	#53 Randall, #142 Bright
49	North Dakota St.	18.56	1.34	#115 Bjorklund +7 back
50	Virginia Tech	18.46	3.30	#58 Green apparently staying
				OTHERS WE MAY FACE
	Cincinnati	13.21	12.96	#50 Wright, plus two top 500s
	Connecticut	17.39	11.16	if #17 Napier, #104 Boatwright go, then no top 500
	Seton Hall	15.20	9.78	#52 Edwin, #497 Cosby
	Southern Methodist	6.36	2.88	lost only top 1000 player, #476 Nyakundi
	Villanova	15.91	5.27	#235 Yarou, #290 Cheek
	Wisconsin Green Bay	15.37	1.59	#167 Brown plus 3 in top 500