Top 100 College Basketball Players: Ivy Leaguer Moves to No. 1 While Studying

Willie Cauley-Stein (Kentucky), Delon Wright (Utah), Gary Payton (Oregon State), and Luke Fischer (Marquette) had phenomenal weeks only to have Wesley Saunders move atop the www.valueaddbasketball.com ratings while studying at Harvard instead of playing basketball the past ten days.

In 2006 the Ivy League produced their only top 50 Value Add player (click here for all players back to 2003), when Penn’s Ibrahim Jaaber finished 18th.

Saunders will return to the court to an extremely tough test at the University of Virginia Sunday. Virginia has the fourth-ranked defense in the country at www.kenpom.com.

Willie Cauley-Stein led Kentucky to another double digit win – this time over UNC – to move into second place in the standings, which measure how many points each player is worth to their team. The 7-foot center hit 6 of 9 shots and had 4 steals vs. UNC just 8 days after having 5 against Texas.

Payton finished as the 10th best player in the country after joining his dad of the same name as the only two players at Oregon State to even finish with a triple-double when he put up 10 assists, 12 rebounds and 10 points despite only taking 5 shots – and added an incredible 6 steals. At www.kenpom.com he is in the top 1% of all players in overall offense as well as steals, and he is also among the national leaders in shooting, offensive and defensive rebounding, blocked shots, assists and low turnover rate.

Delon Wright surged to fourth, following up his game-winner to end Wichita State’s 35-game winning streak by beating rival BYU and then nearly stunning Kansas with 9 of 11 shooting on two-pointers, dishing out 4 assists and coming up with 4 steals. Last year Wright finished a close second to Shabazz Napier.

Mid-Season Transfers to the Rescue

Technically Marquette’s Luke Fischer has improved Marquette by 2.23 points per game over their 6-4 start - the same as a good back-up. The trick is Fischer has been the best of the "mid-season" transfers - players who played the first semester last year at another school (in Luke's case Indiana) and then transferred so had to wait until the school semester ended to start playing. 

Fischer sat out the first eight games, so he has compiled a 2.23 Value Add by 11.15 in the two games since he became eligible while hitting 17 of 19 shots against Arizona State and Alabama A&M. So while he has been eligible, Fischer has actually been slightly better than even Saunders' 10.97 mark for the season. Several schools are counting on mid-season transfers like Fischer to improve them the rest of the season.

Below are the top 100 players through Wednesday's games. 

Player	Rank	Team	Ht	Value Add
23 Wesley Saunders	1	Harvard	6′ 5″	10.97
15 Willie Cauley-Stein	2	Kentucky	7′ 0	10.58
23 Zikiteran Woodley	3	Northwestern St.	6′ 2″	10.53
55 Delon Wright	4	Utah	6′ 5″	10.46
3 Corey Hawkins	5	UC Davis	6′ 3″	10.02
20 Levi Randolph	6	Alabama	6′ 5″	9.52
40 Josh Scott	7	Colorado	6′ 10″	9.50
22 Jerian Grant	8	Notre Dame	6′ 5″	9.30
24 Rayvonte Rice	9	Illinois	6′ 4″	9.17
1 Gary Payton	10	Oregon St.	6′ 3″	9.14
32 Desharick Guidry	11	McNeese St.	6′ 5″	8.94
31 Ron Baker	12	Wichita St.	6′ 4″	8.80
15 Jahlil Okafor	13	Duke	6′ 11″	8.73
55 Egidijus Mockevicius	14	Evansville	6′ 10″	8.65
52 Myles Turner	15	Texas	6′ 11″	8.56
3 Kennedy Meeks	16	North Carolina	6′ 9″	8.47
13 Anthony Gill	17	Virginia	6′ 8″	8.39
44 Frank Kaminsky	18	Wisconsin	7′ 0	8.38
13 Dominique Lee	19	Northern Colorado	6′ 5″	8.25
11 Marcus Marshall	20	Missouri St.	6′ 3″	8.11
1 Justin Anderson	21	Virginia	6′ 6″	8.10
15 Alan Williams	22	UC Santa Barbara	6′ 8″	8.08
1 Isaiah Williams	23	Iona	6′ 7″	8.00
10 Mikh McKinney	24	Sacramento St.	6′ 1″	7.93
10 Sheldon McClellan	25	Miami FL	6′ 5″	7.92
15 Sir’Dominic Pointer	26	St. John’s	6′ 6″	7.91
30 Aaron White	27	Iowa	6′ 9″	7.85
12 Karl-Anthony Towns	28	Kentucky	6′ 11″	7.80
33 Kyle Wiltjer	29	Gonzaga	6′ 10″	7.78
0 Brad Waldow	30	Saint Mary’s	6′ 9″	7.75
35 Amida Brimah	31	Connecticut	7′ 0	7.73
2 Quinn Cook	32	Duke	6′ 2″	7.63
5 A.J. English	33	Iona	6′ 4″	7.59
5 Jelani Hewitt	34	Georgia Southern	6′ 2″	7.50
1 Johnny Dee	35	San Diego	6′ 0	7.39
3 Tyler Haws	36	BYU	6′ 5″	7.35
4 Sterling Gibbs	37	Seton Hall	6′ 2″	7.31
34 Perry Ellis	38	Kansas	6′ 8″	7.28
4 Kevin Pangos	39	Gonzaga	6′ 2″	7.22
22 R.J. Hunter	40	Georgia St.	6′ 6″	7.21
14 Damion Lee	41	Drexel	6′ 6″	7.19
4 Jarvis Williams	42	Murray St.	6′ 8″	7.15
11 Ryan Boatright	43	Connecticut	6′ 0	7.13
13 Phil Forte	44	Oklahoma St.	5′ 11″	7.13
2 Melo Trimble	45	Maryland	6′ 3″	7.13
25 Rakeem Christmas	46	Syracuse	6′ 9″	7.10
24 Montrezl Harrell	47	Louisville	6′ 8″	7.08
3 Josh Hart	48	Villanova	6′ 5″	7.07
1 Cameron Payne	49	Murray St.	6′ 2″	7.05
40 Matt Stainbrook	50	Xavier	6′ 10″	7.05
5 Michael Caffey	51	Long Beach St.	6′ 0	7.03
23 Fred Van Vleet	52	Wichita St.	6′ 0	6.99
25 Alec Peters	53	Valparaiso	6′ 9″	6.93
13 Bryce Dejean-Jones	54	Iowa St.	6′ 6″	6.90
0 D’Angelo Russell	55	Ohio St.	6′ 5″	6.88
10 Nigel Hayes	56	Wisconsin	6′ 8″	6.84
5 Joey Ptasinski	57	Lafayette	6′ 3″	6.84
12 Maodo Lo	58	Columbia	6′ 3″	6.80
22 Larry Nance	59	Wyoming	6′ 8″	6.79
1 Jonathan Holton	60	West Virginia	6′ 7″	6.71
5 Tyus Jones	61	Duke	6′ 1″	6.64
4 Wade Baldwin	62	Vanderbilt	6′ 3″	6.62
44 Dakari Johnson	63	Kentucky	7′ 0	6.62
1 Juan’ya Green	64	Hofstra	6′ 2″	6.59
14 Jalen Moore	65	Utah St.	6′ 8″	6.59
23 Jared Brownridge	66	Santa Clara	6′ 2″	6.58
11 D’Angelo Harrison	67	St. John’s	6′ 4″	6.56
20 Michael Frazier	68	Florida	6′ 4″	6.55
1 Trevor Lacey	69	North Carolina St.	6′ 3″	6.53
13 Patricio Garino	70	George Washington	6′ 6″	6.48
1 Tyler Harvey	71	Eastern Washington	6′ 4″	6.42
1 Josh Richardson	72	Tennessee	6′ 6″	6.42
2 Corey Walden	73	Eastern Kentucky	6′ 2″	6.38
55 Venky Jois	74	Eastern Washington	6′ 8″	6.34
25 Wayne Blackshear	75	Louisville	6′ 5″	6.33
0 Ryan Spangler	76	Oklahoma	6′ 8″	6.29
21 Jon Horford	77	Florida	6′ 10″	6.27
4 Tyler Kalinoski	78	Davidson	6′ 4″	6.26
3 Shannon Scott	79	Ohio St.	6′ 1″	6.24
2 Derrick Marks	80	Boise St.	6′ 3″	6.23
11 Wes Washpun	81	Northern Iowa	6′ 1″	6.14
11 Rodney Pryor	82	Robert Morris	6′ 5″	6.06
10 Jonathan Holmes	83	Texas	6′ 8″	6.02
2 D.J. Newbill	84	Penn St.	6′ 4″	6.01
3 Trey Lewis	85	Cleveland St.	6′ 2″	5.98
23 Derek Jackson	86	Kent St.	6′ 1″	5.96
21 Cedric Hankerson	87	Boston University	6′ 5″	5.96
12 Jack Gibbs	88	Davidson	5′ 11″	5.93
2 Brandon Mobley	89	Seton Hall	6′ 9″	5.90
24 Keifer Sykes	90	Green Bay	6′ 0	5.90
4 D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera	91	Georgetown	6′ 3″	5.89
0 Terry Rozier	92	Louisville	6′ 1″	5.88
1 James Blackmon	93	Indiana	6′ 4″	5.85
34 Jacob Parker	94	Stephen F. Austin	6′ 6″	5.84
21 Janari Joesaar	95	Texas Pan American	6′ 6″	5.83
23 Caris LeVert	96	Michigan	6′ 7″	5.78
2 Marc Loving	97	Ohio St.	6′ 7″	5.75
21 Amile Jefferson	98	Duke	6′ 9″	5.72
11 Gary Clark	99	Cincinnati	6′ 7″	5.72
21 Emani Gant	100	Texas St.	6′ 8″	5.72