Anderson surges into top 100 Value Add Defenders: 9 Defensive Rebounds & Helped Make 2nd Best Offense Play like 333rd Best

Juan Anderson should rank as one of the top 100 defenders in the country after his performance Saturday. Coming into the game, Anderson's defensive Value Add ranked him as the 124th best defender of the 4000 Division 1 players (-1.82 means he takes away an average of 1.82 points per game from Marquette's opponents). That number will drop substantially after he grabbed an incredible nine defensive rebounds against the much taller Badgers, and was a key to holding Wisconsin to a pace of 90.7 points per 100 trips. Wisconsin ranks as the 2nd best offense in the country with 113.4 points per 100 trips adjusted for defense - but their Saturday total of 90.7 would make them the 333rd best offense.

Anderson should join fewer than 100 players in the country who take more than two points a game away from their opponents beyond what a replacement player would be expected to do with his defense. Below are each players season projections and actual Value Add at www.valueaddbasketball.com coming into Saturday's game.data base.

You get this by clicking on www.valueaddbasketball.com, putting "Marquette" in the search box, and then hitting the arrow by the "Player" heading so each player's projection and actual Value Add are next to each other.

When you do the math, Juan, Matt, Steve and Duane have all been more than two points per game better than projected. It looked like they would add about 6.27 points per game to Marquette's margin above how Marquette would do if each was replaced by the 500th best Power Forward, Point Guard, Center and Small Forward/Swing Player. In fact, the four combine for a Value Add of 16.00 exactly, meaning without the four of them we would likely have lost to Wisconsin by 27 instead of by 11 points today.

Derrick's improvement was actually probably two points as well. Value Add is "politically correct" in that we never give a player a rating below ZERO and Derrick therefore had a 0.00 Projected Value add instead of a negative number. Remember that about 1500 of the D1 players have a 0.00. Derrick's actual Value Add has been 0.99 so he adds a point.

Today's performance will hurt everyone's offensive ratings. Despite Matt's great points, his five turnovers kept him down to a Rating of 89 points per 100 trips down the court against a top 10 Wisconsin defense that that was giving up the same on 88.9 points per 100 trips. Every other offensive player has a very low rating, except for the short appearances by Deonte and Sandy.

However, defensive ratings will get better after holding the 2nd-ranked offense in the country down so well. The team's best defensive player (Juan Anderson, -1.89 for taking two points a game away from MU opponent's) will have a phenomenal defensive improvement for his part in holding the Badgers' scoring down and grabbing nine defensive rebounds.