Brigham Young withstood bids from power conferences to maintain an independent football program. Value Add projects the BYU basketball team to be better than their football squad this season. TJ Haws (worth 6.00 extra points per game) gives the team a chance in West Coast play to catch national runner-up Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s and National Player of the Year candidate Jock Landale (worth 10.38 extra points per game).
Here is where Value Add ranks each West Coast team for the season, and the Massey Rankings of the BYU and San Diego football teams so far this season. Updates will be provided here:
| Team – 2017 Seed | Hoops Rank | Football Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Saint Mary’s 7 | 23 | |
| Gonzaga 1 | 30 | |
| BYU | 51 | 68 |
| Santa Clara | 110 | |
| San Francisco | 112 | |
| San Diego | 199 | 222 |
| Pacific | 220 | |
| Portland | 307 | |
| Loyola Marymount | 325 | |
| Pepperdine | 347 |
Opening day for Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s students occurs in November on the basketball court, and the programs continue to rank as two of the best. Gonzaga battled for the national title before finally falling to UNC in last year’s championship game. They should be ranked again, behind three projected 1st team all-conference players worth more than 6.00 points per game, but Value Add gives Saint Mary’s the chance to improve behind Value Add preseason All-American Landale and Calvin Hermanson, the fifth projected 1st team All-West Coast player along with the three Gonzaga stars.
Here are the top 15 projected players in the conference in order.
| Player, jersey | Value Add | Team | Ht |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jock Landale 34 | 10.38 | St. Mary’s | `6-11 |
| Killian Tillie 33 | 6.99 | Gonzaga | `6-10 |
| Johnathan Williams 3 | 6.80 | Gonzaga | `6-09 |
| Calvin Hermanson 24 | 6.78 | St. Mary’s | `6-06 |
| Rui Hachimura 21 | 6.43 | Gonzaga | `6-08 |
| Henry Caruso 21 | 6.19 | Santa Clara | `6-04 |
| TJ Haws 30 | 6.00 | Brigham Young | `6-04 |
| Josh Perkins 13 | 5.70 | Gonzaga | `6-03 |
| Emmett Naar 3 | 5.24 | St. Mary’s | `6-01 |
| KJ Feagin 2 | 5.10 | Santa Clara | `6-01 |
| Emmett Haar | 5.00 | St. Mary’s | |
| Yoeli Childs 23 | 4.90 | Brigham Young | `6-08 |
| Silas Melson 0 | 4.81 | Gonzaga | `6-04 |
| Nick Emery 4 | 4.70 | Brigham Young | `6-02 |
| Chase Foster 22 | 4.47 | San Francisco | `6-05 |
While BYU seems to be the only team to consistently challenge the two WCC perennial powers, San Francisco brings incredible balance after a group of 13 freshmen and sophomores shocked everyone with a 20-win season. However, in the end it appears BYU is the team with the best chance to give the WCC three bids to the NCAA tournament.
Ken Pomeroy ranked the WCC as the 11th best of 32 Division 1 basketball conferences, which will all be previewed here 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.
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