Your bracket must be in by Thursday’s 12:15 ET tipoff between Notre Dame and Northeastern. The table included in the article outlines nine different paths to the title by evaluating the 64 remaining teams using nine separate measures.
Monday we filled in the brackets for the East, West, Midwest and South complete with ratings for each player and each team. That leaves the Final Four, where we have Villanova beating Gonzaga and Kentucky beating Wisconsin. Could Villanova then repeat the 1985 magical win over dominant Georgetown by beating uber-favorite Kentucky?
Gonzaga has their best shot to make the Final Four, and they are virtually even with Duke as the top two teams in the region.
When the No. 1 seed in a bracket already beat the No. 2 seed (Kansas) 72-40 this season, one sees why the top seed plays as such a huge favorite. Two bigger threats to Kentucky than Kansas appear to be Wichita State and Notre Dame, teams who look evenly matched with each other.
Arizona’s guards are more experienced, and they will likely produce twice as many NBA prospects as Wisconsin. But we pick Wisconsin to come out of a virtual toss-up due to putting an even better on the court with Sam Dekker back at full strength.
The East looks the most wide open, with five teams within 10 points of each other when comparing seven categories.
Al McGuire used to say you needed three-and-a-half stars to win a championship – Villanova showed Saturday that having eight really, really good players maybe the best way to win a conference championship grind with no off days between games.
At 270 pounds, Xavier’s Matt Stainbrook won the battle with the 350-pound Joshua Smith for most of the game, scoring 20 points and grabbing 9 rebounds to give Xavier a 53-33 lead. However, he did not get another point or rebound from that point on as the Hoyas turned up the pressure for a ferocious run to fall just short 65-63.
Kris Dunn left no doubt who was the best player in the Big East, despite Jay Wright imploring the Wildcats to surround him. He outdueled the Big East’s co-MVP Ryan Arcidiacono, scoring 22 points while Arcidiacono had only one basket but hit two free throws with 3 seconds left for the 63-61 win.
March is the month of the basketball doubleheader. Thursday afternoon the best team (Villanova in top photo) shut down Marquette. Then Providence fans cheered the best duo in the conference (Kris Dunn and LaDontae Henton) past St. John’s on their home court of Madison Square Garden to set up a meeting between the two teams in Friday’s Big East semifinal.
NEW YORK—If you watched North Dakota State win the Summit League in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Tuesday and then drove straight to New York (1,354 miles) with no traffic, you could have arrived at Madison Square Garden just in time
Three years after we predicted he would lead Providence into the top 10, and just minutes after being announced as the Big East’s co-Player of the Year, Kris Dunn (far left in Breitbart Sports photo) told Breitbart Sports, “I tell people that if you trust in God you can believe in anything.”
Jay Wright seemed laser focused. He took his Coach of the Year trophy and immediately congratulated Seton Hall’s Angel Delgado on Rookie of the Year. Then he told Breitbart Sports, “It is such an honor for Ryan Arcidiacono to win player of the Year with all the great players in the league like … Matt Carlino.”
Even with the universal kudos for the Big East’s fantastic year, St. John’s Sir’Dominic Pointer (left in photo) and Georgetown’s D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera (right) are not getting All-American talk despite analytics showing they are among the top 10 players in the country at www.valueaddbasketball.com through this weekend’s games.
Four of the last six years the No. 1 Value Add player has led his team to the title. The two exceptions were when Kemba Walker finished No. 2 in 2011 and led UConn to the title, and when No. 1 Trey Burke’s Michigan team lost to the 2013 Louisville team, one of only three schools to ever have three of the top 30 Value Add players (Duke 2010 and this year’s Kentucky are the other two).
Despite 29 points from Jared Brownridge, Santa Clara became the 22nd team eliminated this weekend. It happened on a jumper by BYU’s Tyler Haws after midnight on Saturday.
Nearly 300 teams remain alive for 68 NCAA tournament spots.
BOSTON—”You can’t be too stupid to play baseball,” according to Moneyball author Michael Lewis, “I was struck by how articulate (NFL and NBA) players were, compared to baseball.” Certainly the most controversial statement of the weekend of talking Value Add Basketball (see
For the third straight year Breitbart Sports releases the first basketball All-American team.
Breitbart Sports today lists the first All-Conference teams for all 32 conferences three weeks before Selection Sunday starts March Madness.
Here are the ten reasons Delon Wright and not Jahlil Okafor that should be Frank Kaminsky’s main competition for Player of the Year.
Seth Tuttle (Northern Iowa) and Fred VanVleet (Wichita State) of the Missouri Valley moved into the top 10 at www.valueaddbasketball.com, while D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera (Georgetown) moved within 0.01 of giving the tough Big East a top-10 player.
“I’ve always believed analytics was crap,” Charles Barkley told a TNT audience Tuesday night.
The votes are in from Rob Dauster (NBC Sports), Ken Pomeroy, Eamonn Brennan (ESPN), CJ Moore (Bleacher Report), Daniel Dickey (The Sporting News), Tim Letcher (Rant Sports), the Wooden Selection Committee, the NBA Draft Projectors, and me (Value Add Basketball)—and here are the top 100 players in the country.
Louisville’s Terry Rozier, Eastern Kentucky’s Corey Walden, and three Kentucky Wildcats give the Commonwealth of Kentucky the majority of the top nine players in the country in the new ratings released by www.valueaddbasketball.com.
