Top 2016 Teams/Players: Conference USA (Ranked 13)

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. 

UAB is the big story - pulling the upset in March Madness and set up to be great this season. However, with the Alabama Board of Trustees getting rid of their football program, the team is fighting to get it back or have trouble figuring out a conference. The Sun Belt even said they would not want a team without football. With Old Dominion having upset VCU last year, CUSA still could have a couple of teams make the tournament if they get hot, but UAB has three of the top five players.

Natl Rnk	Conference	Team	Record	Raw	Value Add
13	Conference USA	CUSA			14.78
59		UAB	20--16	30.68	24.92
81		Old Dominion	27--8	20.29	22.04
83		Louisiana Tech	27--9	20.57	22.01
117		Western Kentucky	20--12	17.35	17.55
127		Texas El Paso	22--11	13.01	16.81
130		Middle Tennessee	19--17	16.57	16.58
145		Rice	12--20	18.76	15.95
212		Marshall	11--21	14.61	11.82
219		North Texas	14--17	12.12	11.30
226		Charlotte	14--18	5.70	11.12
240		Southern Mississippi	9--20	14.46	10.29
258		Florida International	16--17	10.22	9.55
261		Texas San Antonio	14--16	5.63	9.40
290		Florida Atlantic	9--20	8.14	7.65
Natl Rnk	Top 40 Players	Team	Ht	Yr	Value Add
75	Freeman, Trey 20	Old Dominion	6'2	4 Sr	6.61
134	Norton, Nick 2	UAB	5'10	2 So	5.79
145	Lee, William 34	UAB	6'9	2 So	5.72
225	Edmond, Fredrick	Western Kentucky	6'4	3 Jr	5
228	Cokley, Chris 3	UAB	6'8	2 So	4.99
260	Hamilton, Alex 0	Louisiana Tech	6'4	4 Sr	4.77
361	Combs, Jeremy 11	North Texas	6'7	2 So	4.14
375	McCree, Erik 2	Louisiana Tech	6'8	3 Jr	4.07
380	Bowie, Ryan 14	Texas San Antonio	6'1	4 Sr	4.04
406	Diaz, Adrian 20	Florida International	6'11	4 Sr	3.96
438	Nikolic, Aleksa 21	Marshall	6'5	2 So	3.82
476	Massey, Justin 4	Florida Atlantic	6'3	2 So	3.64
493	Jackson, Marcus 22	Rice	6'3	3 Jr	3.56
507	Taylor, Ryan 25	Marshall	6'5	3 Jr	3.52
512	Boykins, Jacobi 13	Louisiana Tech	6'6	2 So	3.51
514	Bingaya, Matt 2	Southern Mississippi	6'5	2 So	3.51
519	Moore, Lee	Texas El Paso	6'4	3 Jr	3.5
521	Bacote, Aaron 1	Old Dominion	6'4	4 Sr	3.48
522	Stapleton, Xavian 11	Louisiana Tech	6'6	2 So	3.47
526	Loop, Austin 35	Marshall	6'4	3 Jr	3.46
562	Guercy, Max 1	Rice	5'9	4 Sr	3.32
581	Jones, Jeremy 20	Rice	6'5	2 So	3.25
598	Potts, Giddy 20	Middle Tennessee	6'2	2 So	3.21
601	Obi, Sean	Rice	6'9	2 So	3.2
604	Baker, Jordan 0	Old Dominion	6'2	2 So	3.19
669	Bonam, Lorenzo	Southern Mississippi	6'4	3 Jr	3
677	Upshaw, Reggie 30	Middle Tennessee	6'7	3 Jr	2.97
702	Armelin, Chip 13	Southern Mississippi	6'4	4 Sr	2.93
711	Johnson, Justin 23	Western Kentucky	6'7	2 So	2.91
726	Baxter, Hakeem 0	UAB	6'2	2 So	2.87
742	Brown, Robert 4	UAB	6'5	4 Sr	2.82
821	Morris, Earvin 20	Texas El Paso	6'4	4 Sr	2.63
827	Taylor, Denzell 21	Old Dominion	6'7	3 Jr	2.62
849	Jefferson, Damontrae	Southern Mississippi/Maybe	5'7	1 Fr	2.58
851	Ogbueze, Braxton 1	Charlotte	6'1	3 Jr	2.57
870	Draper, Daviyon 32	Florida International	6'7	4 Sr	2.51
965	Carey, Norville 21	Southern Mississippi	6'7	4 Sr	2.34
1034	Coleman, Justin 5	Middle Tennessee	5'10	2 So	2.2
1041	Madison, Tyler 22	UAB	6'4	3 Jr	2.2
1127	Buford, Perrin 2	Middle Tennessee	6'6	4 Sr	2.05

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.