Top 2016 Teams/Players: Sun Belt (Ranked 18)

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. 

Georgia State and the Sun Belt will try to build on the huge opening round upset of Baylor on a long jumper by RJ Hunter, who lived up to our preseason All-American billing on that shot. With him gone they will take a step back, but are still every solid and could compete for the title.

Natl Rnk	Conference	Team	Record	Raw	Value Add
18	Sun Belt	SB			12.74
100		Louisiana Lafayette	22--14	20.28	19.76
105		Georgia St.	25--10	13.82	19.01
143		Georgia Southern	22--9	14.32	16.07
179		Louisiana Monroe	24--14	13.01	14.34
201		Arkansas Little Rock	13--18	13.27	12.62
206		Texas Arlington	16--15	10.42	12.20
237		Texas St.	14--17	10.43	10.81
262		Troy	10--19	10.25	9.38
267		Appalachian St.	12--17	8.93	9.14
268		South Alabama	12--21	10.57	8.97
287		Arkansas St.	11--18	8.02	7.87
Natl Rnk	Top 40 Players	Team	Ht	Yr	Value Add
124	Hughes, Mike 2	Georgia Southern	6'3	2 So	5.9
162	Long, Shawn 21	Louisiana Lafayette	6'9	4 Sr	5.48
198	Crider, Markus 33	Georgia St.	6'6	4 Sr	5.12
212	Hagins, Josh 3	Arkansas Little Rock	6'1	4 Sr	5
354	Shepherd, Kasey 5	Louisiana Lafayette	6'3	4 Sr	4.18
385	Deng, Majok 13	Louisiana Monroe	6'10	4 Sr	4.02
407	Washington, Bryce 32	Louisiana Lafayette	6'6	2 So	3.96
525	Matias, Angel 13	Georgia Southern	6'4	4 Sr	3.46
552	Gant, Emani 21	Texas St.	6'8	4 Sr	3.35
557	Ware, Kevin 0	Georgia St.	6'2	4 Sr	3.33
626	Person, Wesley 3	Troy	6'3	2 So	3.11
632	Eaves, Frank 21	Appalachian St.	6'2	4 Sr	3.08
657	Neal, Erick 1	Texas Arlington	5'11	2 So	3.01
685	Ferguson, Dionte 24	South Alabama	6'6	4 Sr	2.96
813	Thomas, Kevin 25	Troy	6'8	4 Sr	2.64
830	Allsmiller, Jake 10	Georgia Southern	6'5	2 So	2.61
831	Roberson, Justin 32	Louisiana Monroe	6'1	4 Sr	2.61
850	Ford, Kelton 4	Troy	6'0	3 Jr	2.58
893	Boyanov, Georgi 10	South Alabama	6'8	2 So	2.48
968	Livingston, Anthony 24	Arkansas St.	6'8	3 Jr	2.32
983	Calhoun, Shaqueille	South Alabama	6'3	3 Jr	2.3
995	Woods, Roger 0	Arkansas Little Rock	6'5	4 Sr	2.25
1093	Coppola, Nick 11	Louisiana Monroe	5'11	3 Jr	2.11
1108	Golden, Cameron 1	Arkansas St.	6'0	4 Sr	2.09
1161	Toney, Tymetrius	Appalachian St.	6' 2"	3 Jr	2
1183	Register, Hayward 13	Louisiana Lafayette	6'2	3 Jr	1.99
1194	Stove, Johnathan 22	Louisiana Lafayette	6'4	2 So	1.98
1232	Wilson, Kaelon 5	Texas Arlington	6'2	2 So	1.92
1265	Samuel, Jamaal 5	Louisiana Monroe	6'9	4 Sr	1.86
1329	Williams, Ken 1	South Alabama	6'2	3 Jr	1.78
1474	Bilbao, Jorge 45	Texas Arlington	6'8	3 Jr	1.59
1502	Walker, Devonta 0	Louisiana Lafayette	6'7	4 Sr	1.56
1523	Burgess, Chris 10	Appalachian St.	5'8	4 Sr	1.53
1525	Dennis, Isaiah 4	Georgia St.	6'0	3 Jr	1.53
1584	Hervey, Kevin 25	Texas Arlington	6'7	2 So	1.47
1588	Reid, James 22	Arkansas Little Rock	6'3	4 Sr	1.46
1589	Witherspoon, JaMarcus 23	Texas St.	6'4	4 Sr	1.46
1599	Gilder-Tilbury, Kavin 1	Texas St.	6'7	3 Jr	1.45
1601	Isom, Mareik 21	Arkansas Little Rock	6'7	3 Jr	1.44
1637	Shipes, T.J. 31	Georgia St.	6'7	4 Sr	1.39

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.