Top 2016 Teams/Players: American East & NJIT (Ranked 29)

We hope Marquette can pick up one of the top available players from our rankings here. Tonight we run through the competition - ranking all the conferences competing with the Big East for bids, and ranking both their teams and top 40 players. 

It doesn't look like the American East will invite the nations only independent to join, but we are putting the New Jersey Institute of Technology there after their big upset of Michigan several days after almost upsetting Marquette. The would be right in the mix for the title with Vermont, Albany and Stony Point if in fact Jameel Warney is back for another near All-American level season.

Natl Rnk	Conference	Team	Record	Raw	Value Add
29	American East & NJIT	AE			8.79
169		NJ Inst of Technology	21--12	14.43	15.13
184		Vermont	20--14	8.11	14.05
196		Stony Brook	23--12	7.46	13.05
198		Albany	24--9	7.20	12.91
242		New Hampshire	19--13	5.31	10.07
310		Massachusetts Lowell	12--17	6.69	6.52
320		Hartford	14--16	3.68	5.73
328		Binghamton	6--26	5.57	5.11
344		Maryland Baltimore Co	4--26	3.91	3.34
349		Maine	3--27	1.23	1.93
Natl Rnk	Top 40 Players	Team	Ht	Yr	Value Add
25	Warney, Jameel 20	Stony Brook	6'8	4 Sr	8.12
96	Wills, Dre 24	Vermont	6'1	3 Jr	6.27
366	O'Day, Ethan 32	Vermont	6'9	4 Sr	4.11
386	Walker, Ahmad	Albany/maybe	6'4	3 Jr	4
402	Willis, Winfield 11	NJ Inst of Technology	6'0	4 Sr	3.98
440	Ward, Cam 14	Vermont	6'2	2 So	3.82
448	McRoberts, Zach 1	Vermont	6'6	2 So	3.8
461	Coleman, Tim 2	NJ Inst of Technology	6'5	3 Jr	3.73
605	Nyama, Roland 24	Stony Brook	6'6	2 So	3.19
720	Sanders, Ray 1	Albany	6'4	4 Sr	2.88
732	Singletary, Evan 0	Albany	6'1	4 Sr	2.84
757	Bell-Haynes, Trae 2	Vermont	6'2	2 So	2.79
779	Thomas, Jahad 10	Massachusetts Lowell	6'2	2 So	2.71
885	Rodriguez, Willie 42	Binghamton	6'6	2 So	2.48
890	Leissner, Tanner 21	New Hampshire	6'6	2 So	2.48
910	Steidel, Kurt 34	Vermont	6'6	3 Jr	2.44
913	Grant, Jourdan 5	Maryland Baltimore Co	6'2	2 So	2.42
941	Smith, Jaleen 0	New Hampshire	6'4	3 Jr	2.37
990	Lynn, Damon 5	NJ Inst of Technology	5'11	3 Jr	2.27
1106	Ukawuba, Rob 25	NJ Inst of Technology	6'3	3 Jr	2.1
1128	Puriefoy, Carson 10	Stony Brook	6'0	4 Sr	2.05
1149	Crawford, Lance 0	Massachusetts Lowell	5'10	2 So	2.02
1236	Hatton, Brandon 0	Vermont	6'3	2 So	1.92
1249	McGrew, Rayshaun 21	Stony Brook	6'7	4 Sr	1.89
1277	Hooley, Peter 12	Albany	6'4	4 Sr	1.84
1286	Harris, Matt 22	Massachusetts Lowell	6'1	2 So	1.84
1287	Howard, Ky 0	NJ Inst of Technology	6'4	4 Sr	1.84
1508	Sturdivant, Tyrell 12	Stony Brook	6'7	2 So	1.56
1732	Graham, Justin 2	Hartford	6'1	3 Jr	1.27
1781	Grace, Ben 3	Maryland Baltimore Co	5'10	3 Jr	1.21
1871	Stire, Greig 43	Albany	6'7	2 So	1.11
1878	Lawton, Shaun 10	Maine	6'5	4 Sr	1.11
1902	Rinaldi, John 12	Binghamton	6'1	3 Jr	1.09
1964	Green, Tre 2	Albany	6'3	3 Jr	1.01
2253	Speidel, Josh	Vermont	6'7	1 Fr	1
2327	Waller, Karon 0	Binghamton	6'4	4 Sr	0.93
2343	Dyson, Taylor 11	Hartford	6'4	4 Sr	0.92
2401	Arciero, Noah 20	Hartford	6'6	2 So	0.87
2609	Hobbs, Jack 21	Hartford	6'7	3 Jr	0.62
2696	Walker, Romello 11	Binghamton	6'6	2 So	0.51

These are the top 40 players in the conference based on the rankings at www.valueaddbasketball.com. The team rankings are 50% based on the sum of each team’s Value Add ratings and 50% based on last year (since better teams typically replenish after losing stars). With over 4000 players projected in the database, we WELCOME all corrections in the comments field.

Value Add was first introduced on www.crackedsidewalks.com, and calculates how many points better each player is worth to his team over how good they would be if he was replaced. The projections measure the standard improvement in a player between his freshman, sophomore, junior and senior seasons, and the evaluation of incoming freshman and JUCO players.