Big East Preview Extended to all 32 D1 Conferences - 32 links

For anyone who liked the preview of the Big East yesterday, and was curious about any other conference, here is my link to the rest:

As millions of college students settle on campus, they join alums in watching fellow students compete from the football stadiums to cross country courses such as those my twin Division 1 athletes run. Now www.valueaddbasketball.com rates more than 3,500 basketball players who can start practice in 12 days at Midnight Madness. Pick your conference from the 32 links below for a quick rundown of the top basketball players and teams with a comparison on how each football team ranks.

1. ACC: Duke Joins Louisville as National Contender with Bagley Signing
2. American Athletic: Ex-Football Big East Schools Add Basketball-only Wichita State
3. American East: Albany Chasing Vermont Again
4. Atlantic 10: St. Bonaventure Duo Could Challenge Dayton, Rhode Island and VCU
5. Atlantic Sun: Florida Gulf Coast Shoots for More Upsets If they can Hold Off Lipscomb
6. Big 12: TCU's Bursts into Football Title Hunt, Then Could Challenge in Toughest Hoops Conference
7. Big East - St. John's Most Likely to Replace MU to Give Big East 7 Bids Again, Unless MU Defense Improves
8. Big Sky: Top 100 Player Hall Leads Balanced Hoops Season after E. Washington Football Dominates
9. Big South: Asheville's Top 100 Duo One of Best, But Liberty a Balanced Threat
10. Big Ten: Purdue and Michigan State Ready to Seek Hoops Title After Other Big Ten Teams Shoot for Football Title
11. Big West Teams All Get to Visit Hawaii While Settling Balanced Hoops Season
12. Colonial Athletic Association: After JMU Football, Charleston and Elon Should Battle for March Madness Bid
13. Conference USA: UAB Returns to Football Field While Future NBA Star Leads Middle Tennessee
14. Horizon League: Hayes Leads 4 Oakland Stars to Potential Title
15. Ivy League: Princeton Builds on 23-7 Season to try to hold off Harvard and Yale for Title
16. MAAC: Iona Once Again Team to Beat with Edogi Transferring to Join McGill
17. Mid-American: Western Michigan Battles for Top Football and Basketball Teams and Top Hoops Player
18. Mid-Eastern Athletic's Morgan State Favorite to Dethrone NC Central Behind POY Kendley
19. Missouri Valley Teams Battle for Title with Wichita State's Departure, Valpo's Arrival
20. Mountain West: UNLV Edges Nevada in Tough Hoops Conference, While San Diego State Football Power
21. Northeast: 5-foot-5 Star Shoots for Player of Year, Repeat Title for Mt. St. Mary's
22. Ohio Valley:Jacksonville St. Football Dominance Builds on Hoops Upset of Belmont
23. Pac-12: USC Hoops Could Surpass Arizona Hoops and Even USC Football
24. Patriot - Bucknell Dominance of Patriot League Hoops Should Follow Army-Navy Classic
25. SEC: Auburn, Florida, Texas A&M and Mizzou Join Kentucky As 'Basketball' Schools This Year
26. Southern - Darryl Strawberry's Son Gives Mercer All-Southern Conference Duo, After Football Team Almost Shocks Auburn
27. Southland - Jalan West Given 7th Year for Quest for All-American Status and 1st Southland Title Over Stephen F. Austin
28. Summit League: Analytics See Denver Hoops Challenge to Dakota Schools That Dominate Football
29. Sun Belt: Lafayette or Georgia Southern Could Deny Troy and Arlington Repeat Hoops Titles
30. SWAC: Jerry Rice and Grambling NFL Greats Yield to March Madness Hopes
31. WAC - 33 Years After Football National Title, WAC Hosts 1st For-Profit Basketball School
32. West Coast: After Football BYU Will Challenge Basketball-only St. Mary's & Gonzaga

Corrections are welcome. Simply email pudnerjohn@takeback.org or call or text 404.606.3163. You are welcome to use links or site top players on any list as “Value Add All-Conference Players.” The first five players on each list are 1st team All-Conference players, the sixth through 10th are 2nd team, and the 11th through 15th are third team based on the actual additional points they add to their team. In most cases, this ranking is similar to what sports writers or sports information directors would perceive, but players can come off the bench with incredibly efficient three-point shooting or dominance around the basket that makes them more valuable than starters who are not as efficient. You can always run your own search of projections for current players or ratings for all players since the 2001-02 season by going to www.valueaddbasketball.com.

St. John's Most Likely to Replace MU to Give Big East 7 Bids Again, Unless MU Defense Improves

This is one of 32 conference previews based on projections of Value Add for each player in www.valueaddbasketball.com. The other 31 projections appear at www.pudnersports.com so that readers only interested in the Big East need not review.

Each piece follows the same format, listing the Massey football ratings alongside the Value Add basketball projections. In the case of the Big East, Villanova's strong FCS team ranks ahead of a number of the 129 FBS teams as the 111th best overall football program. Butler and Georgetown also play football, and are ranked 363rd and 312th of all college teams.

Of the seven Big East teams that made the tournament last year, Value Add projects all but Marquette to return to the tournament, while St. John's is likely to replace Marquette as the seventh team (currently misses by only a couple of spots as the projected 52nd best team). Only nine of Villanova's players have projected values now, so their projections should rise to a Top 10 level, but right now they are edged out by Providence.

Here is where Value Add ranks each Big East team for the season, and the Massey Rankings rank the football teams against all other schools. Updates will be provided here as well as the previews of the other 31 conferences.

Big East/2017 Seed	ValueAdd	Football
Providence 11	19
Villanova 1	20	111
Seton Hall 9	22
Xavier 11	27
Butler 4	36	363
Creighton 6	47
Saint John's	52
Marquette 10	72
Georgetown	141	312
DePaul	158

Marquette's trio of Markus Howard (171st), Andrew Rowsey (207th) and Sam Hauser (256th) all rank in the top 7 percent of all players. Value Add assigns some of the blame for the horrid defense last year to all players, so any improvement in team defense will lift all players, but if the team continues to try to trade good three-point shooting with uncontested dunks on the other end the defensive ratings will continue to hold down player ratings.

More important of course, is that the high powered only needs an adequate defense to push Marquette back into the tournament.

Here are the top 15 projected players in the conference in order, and the other Marquette players in the top 20 percent of all players. As always, corrections are welcome to pudnerjohn@gmail.com or 404.606.3163.

Nat'l Rnk	Top 15 Big East Players	Value Add	School	Ht
15	Jalen Brunson 1	9.16	Villanova	`6-02
23	Mikal Bridges 25	8.78	Villanova	`6-07
36	Khyri Thomas 2	8.21	Creighton	`6-03
39	Trevon Bluiett 5	8.17	Xavier	`6-06
41	Shamorie Ponds 2	8.13	St. John's	`6-01
49	Angel Delgado	7.80	Seton Hall	`6-10
64	JP Macura 55	7.38	Xavier	`6-05
67	Marcus Foster 0	7.30	Creighton	`6-03
95	Khadeen Carrington 0	6.90	Seton Hall	`6-04
129	Kelan Martin 30	6.51	Butler	`6-07
134	Jalen Lindsey 21	6.49	Providence	`6-07
143	Emmitt Holt 15	6.35	Providence	`6-07
171	Markus Howard 0	6.10	Marquette	`5-11
197	Desi Rodriguez 20	5.85	Seton Hall	`6-06
203	Jessie Govan 15	5.82	Georgetown	`6-10
Nat'l Rnk	Other MU in top 20%	Value Add	School	Ht
207	Andrew Rowsey 30	5.80	Marquette	`5-10
256	Sam Hauser 10	5.43	Marquette	`6-06
705	Haanif Cheatham 25	3.32	Marquette	`6-05

Ken Pomeroy ranked the Big East 3rd of 32 Division 1 basketball conferences, which will all be previewed at www.pudnersports.com with notes on which schools are now "basketball" or "football" schools based on which program is stronger this season. Football revenue is much higher, but programs are much more expensive between equipment and the requirement of matching enough women's scholarships in other sports. Therefore some programs forgo FBS football programs to focus on low cost basketball programs as their biggest revenue sport.

Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports and ESPN have lauded Value Add Basketball for estimating the number of points each college basketball players is worth to his team above a replacement player - similar to baseball WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Massey Ratings is used for the football rankings above.

We break into your regularly scheduled football weekend to talk #MUBB schedule and recruits

It's fall so we're starting to shake off our summer vacation and more importantly, there is #MUBB news to report and comment on. First we lightly touch on the momentary freakout around Haanif's sling thanks to Instagram. Moving on from that silliness we get to the heart of the podcast, Marquette's newly released schedule. While we don't go game by game we do review the schedule overall and what it might mean for the team this season. We discuss what the non-conference schedule does for a young front court, how we owe apologizes to Mike Broeker after having seen Georgetown's non-con, and what the conference schedule looks like in terms of potential post season. We also send a lot of time talking about the intensifying recruitment of Quentin Grimes by #MUBB, mostly around what his recruitment means for Marquette's roster in 2018, coaching staff as recruiters and level setting expectations for actually landing Mr. Grimes. Enjoy the pod, we're only 4 weeks away from Marquette Madness. Download this episode (right click and save)