5-star Vander Blue leaves MU just a couple of recruits from title contender in 2012Written by: jpudner@concentricgrasstops.com (bamamarquettefan1)In the first eight years of the Rivals.com database, Marquette signed five 4-star recruits (Dameon Mason, Lazar Hayward and the Three Amigos). However, it wasn’t until this week’s decision by Vander Blue to come to MU that we landed our first 5-star recruit.
Only a couple of dozen players a season achieve 5-star status, so I immediately wondered how much of an impact Blue’s arrival might have on MUs success when he arrives for the 2011 season.
I’ve referenced the “Win Credits†system developed in
The Ultimate Hoops Guide , which is a system of measuring a player’s contribution to his team’s win-loss record to determine how many wins he was worth to the team in a given year. Dwyane Wade was worth 9.6 wins to Marquette in 2003, the highest total in MU history.
To try to get a handle on Blue’s potential impact, I went back to look at the number of wins a 5-star player typically creates when he arrives in the Big East for his freshman season, and then how that number grows when he is a sophomore and junior.
This basically boiled down to calculating all player seasons for Louisville, Villanova, UConn and Syracuse since the league expanded, since they had almost all of the five-star players the first few years.
What are the chances of Blue being a Big East superstar immediately as a freshman in 2011? It's a tough conference, and only two 5-star freshman have been immediate Big East stars worth five or six wins their first season - Donte Greene (worth 5.5 wins to Syracuse in 2008) and Samardo Samuels (5.3 Louisville 2009).
What are the chances Blue has a strong freshman season, then takes over as a Superstar his sophomore season in 2012? Three other 5-star players had solid freshman seasons then exploded to be worth six or seven wins as sophomores - Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn (4.4 wins as a freshman, 6.9 as a sophomore), UConn’s Rudy Gay (3.9, 7.1) and Louisville’s Earl Clark (1.4, 6.0). The only bad thing about getting that good is that four of those five left after their breakout season, with only Earl Clark sticking around to post a ridiculous 9.1 wins last year as a junior for Louisville.
How often does a 5-star player not even put up big numbers? The good news is that while the majority of 5-star players don't dominate immediately, only one of 16 five-star players I researched, Curtis Kelly, was a dud. In addition to the five superstars mentioned above, big numbers were put up by Derrick Caracter, Corey Fisher, Paul Harris, Terrence Jennings, Kyle Lowry, Juan Palacios, Stanley Robinson, Corey Stokes, Kemba Walker and Darryl Watkins.
I averaged the Win Credits for these 5-star players during their freshman, sophomore and junior seasons (but not the senior year since most 5-stars are in the NBA by then) and then did the same thing for 4-star, 3-star and other recruits entering Big East play to see how many wins we might expect from each member of the team for the next few years:
How many wins to expect based on a player's year and stars
|
Stars
Fr.
So.
Jr.
Sr.
[/tr]| 0-2 Stars | 0.1 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 1.1 |
| 3-star | 0.3 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 3.2 |
| 4-star | 1.7 | 3.1 | 4.3 | 4.4 |
| 5-star | 2.4 | 4.7 | 6.3 | NA |
THE BOTTOM LINE
The first thing you can notice from this graph is that 4- and 5-star players are able to have an immediate impact in the Big East as freshman, typically worth around two additional wins to their teams during their freshman season. However, a freshman with three or fewer stars typical will have almost no impact their freshman year, which makes it quite possible that MU will get a lot more out of the JUCO players than the 3-star freshmen in the coming season.
If we look at the wins generated by each player in 2009, then how many wins we expect from each MU player during the coming three seasons we get the table below. For the players who already played for MU last year, we look at how far above or below these averages they have been so far in their career, and assume they will improve as much as expected from that point for the coming seasons.
Projected Wins from each player from 2009 to 2012 seasons
Player
2009
2010
2011
2012
[/tr]| Maurice Acker, Sr. G, 0 Stars | 0.0 | 0.8 | G | G |
| Vander Blue, HS G, 5 Stars | HS | HS | 2.4 | 4.7 |
| Dwight Burke, Grad F-C, 0 Stars | 0.1 | G | G | G |
| Jimmy Butler, Jr. G-F, 0 Stars | 1.3 | 2.0 | 3.6 | G |
| Dwight Buycks, Jr. G, 3 Stars | JC | 2.1 | 3.2 | G |
| Junior Cadougan, Inj. G, 4 Stars | HS | RS | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| David Cubillan, Sr. G, 0 Stars | 0.0 | 1.3 | G | G |
| Robert Frozena, Jr. G, 0 Stars | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | G |
| Joseph Fulce, Jr. F, 3 Stars | 0.0 | 0.9 | 2.0 | G |
| Lazar Hayward, Sr. F, 4 Stars | 6.3 | 6.4 | G | G |
| Patrick Hazel, Trans. F-C, 3 Stars | 0.0 | T | T | T |
| Dominic James, Grad G, 4 Stars | 3.4 | G | G | G |
| Darius Johnson-Odom, So. G, 3 Stars | JC | 1.2 | 2.1 | 3.2 |
| Jamail Jones, HS F, 4 Stars | HS | HS | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| Wesley Matthews, Grad G, 4 Stars | 6.6 | G | G | G |
| Jeronne Maymon, Fr. G-F, 4 Stars | HS | 1.7 | 3.1 | 4.3 |
| Youssaupha Mbao, Fr. C, 3 Stars | HS | 0.3 | 1.2 | 2.1 |
| Jerel McNeal, Grad G, 4 Stars | 7.4 | G | G | G |
| Chris Otule, So. C, 2 Stars | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 1.0 |
| Erik Williams, Fr. F, 4 Stars | HS | 1.7 | 3.1 | 4.3 |
| Projected Wins on known roster | 25.1 | 19.0 | 24.9 | 25.8+ |
THE BOTTOM LINE
Key = a number indicates how many wins the player is projected to give MU that season, HS is a player in high school that year, G indicates graduated by that year, T indicates transferred out of MU, RS indicates red shirt season, JC indicates in Junior College that season.
2010 Outlook â€" 19.0 wins on roster. We already know there were 25 wins in 2009, and how top heavy MU was with great seasons from the Three Amigos and Lazar, but a lot of ZEROS on the roster. Buzz has obviously brought a lot more balance to the roster, but the roster only shows 19 wins this season. The Three Amigos were WAY ahead of the average pace for 4-star freshmen, so if 4-star freshmen Jeronne Maymon and/or Erik Williams are anywhere near Dominic James’ ridiculous 5.4 wins his freshman year, instead of the 1.7 we would normally expect from a 4-star freshman, then MU could certainly be better despite the painful season-ending injury to Junior Cadougan, the highest rated of this year’s 4-star freshman. On average though, we would expect juniors Dwight Buycks and Jimmy Butler to be on par or slightly ahead of the 4-star freshmen at about 2 wins each, meaning Hayward does need to post another 6+ win season and Cube and Acker need to get back to their levels from two years ago to add a little from the backcourt.
2011 Outlook â€" 24.9 wins on roster - equal to 2009. The great news is that with the arrival of Cadougan and Blue in 2011, and the anticipated improvement of everyone else, MU would be expected to return right to where we were in 2009 with about 25 wins. In addition, the production would be much more spreadout, meaning one injury wouldn’t end the season like it did after DJ went down last year. In addition, the production would be coming from all five positions as long as Mbao and/or Otule develop.
2012 Outlook â€" 25.8 wins PLUS three more players. What is really mindboggling though is the 2012 season. At first glance it appears the 2012 roster only looks about one game better than the 2011 roster. However, the 2011 roster anticipates 24.9 wins from 11 players. The 2012 roster shows 25.8 wins from only eight players. MU will have three new players by then, and if it were, for example, a 3-star JUCO (2.1), a 4-star freshman (1.7) and another 5-star freshman (2.4), we would anticipate 32 wins!
That’s a potential national title contender.
Obviously injuries, transfers and under performances could lower any of these individual player Win Credits. However, the numbers are just as likely to be higher for players that perform above the average like the Three Amigos and Lazar have been doing their whole careers, or for upgrade recruits that transfer in or take the spot of any of these players that cannot play for any reason. The overall pool of talent that Buzz has put together is so much deeper and more balanced than the past teams, that right now we are on course for a regroup/winning season this year even with no bust outs, being back to last year’s level by the 2011 season, and then the sky is absolutely the limit for 2012.
Patience is tough when we’ve been spoiled by being so good every year in the Big East so far, but one step backward this year could easily be followed by giant steps forward.
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2009/10/5-star-vander-blue-leaves-mu-just.html
I read the first 5 words of the title and almost had a heart attack
No Kidding! Change the title..." 5-star Vander Blue leaves MU" is NOT a good way to start!
I'll bet you'll get a lot of interest from Badger fans though :)
My heart jumped a beat - scared the hell out of me.
I am glad I hadn't bitten into my sandwich yet before I read the title because I would be wiping down my monitor right now. I agree, reword the title.
This is an awesome post. This is exactly my theory of recruiting. Get as many four and five star players on the roster as possible. Not every one of them will play at the level of the three amigos right out of the gate, but the chances they will do so increase exponentially as their rating increases. Bringing four star talent off the bench is a luxury that teams like UConn, Pitt, Villanova, Kansas, UNC, UCLA, Memphis, and Duke have. What do those teams have in common? They've all been recent title contenders. Look at the last time MU had five 4-star players on the roster. We went to the final four. When we had at least four on the roster at the same time (Amigos & Novak, then Amigos & Hayward) we made the tournament every year.
Stockpiling four and five star talent is exactly what it takes to be elite. Buzz has exceeded all of my expectations in this regard.
Quote from: AlumKCof93 on October 23, 2009, 12:15:14 PM
My heart jumped a beat - scared the hell out of me.
Mine jumped more than one beat. Change the title asap.
Jaws really broke it down, nice work
Even before Blue, I was expecting a five game improvement next year.
I like the post and think it is pretty well stated and obviously the number back it all up.
Which leads me to a point i have made over the years when it comes to recruiting rankings and methodology. Scout and Rivals use the 1-5 star methodology. which is obviously easy to understand and is the widley excepted moethod.
Clark francis uses his 10 point system which is widely lambasted and ridiculed. I for one have always liked it and felt it was really more accuarte. Your post does an excellent job or spelling out what i have always felt. That is a top 10 player which is 10 points with Francis is more valubale thatn a 9 star player 11-25, 8 star is more valubale 26-40 than a 6 sttar 41-100. Franciss sytem puts a wider value on those 1-25 players than he does on those 41-100 players, and like is posted those 1-25 kids make ahuge huge impact on their teams. the difference between a 4 and 5 star with rivlas or scout is 20% the difference between a 10 point and a 6 point is 40%, rivlas also gives and maybe scout oo gives 4 star thru the top 125 or 150, #101 with francis fall to 4 points. Think the difference to a team of a top 10 recruit vrsus a recruit rated 110 is more like 60% ala Francis than it is 20 percent ala rivasl/scout. I think Kevin Durant is more than 20% more valubale to his team than a recruit like a cordell henry
Quote from: KipsBayEagle on October 23, 2009, 12:04:57 PM
I read the first 5 words of the title and almost had a heart attack
I'm glad I wasn't the only one.
Quote from: MR.HAYWARD on October 23, 2009, 01:40:40 PM
I like the post and think it is pretty well stated and obviously the number back it all up.
Which leads me to a point i have made over the years when it comes to recruiting rankings and methodology. Scout and Rivals use the 1-5 star methodology. which is obviously easy to understand and is the widley excepted moethod.
Clark francis uses his 10 point system which is widely lambasted and ridiculed. I for one have always liked it and felt it was really more accuarte. Your post does an excellent job or spelling out what i have always felt. That is a top 10 player which is 10 points with Francis is more valubale thatn a 9 star player 11-25, 8 star is more valubale 26-40 than a 6 sttar 41-100. Franciss sytem puts a wider value on those 1-25 players than he does on those 41-100 players, and like is posted those 1-25 kids make ahuge huge impact on their teams. the difference between a 4 and 5 star with rivlas or scout is 20% the difference between a 10 point and a 6 point is 40%, rivlas also gives and maybe scout oo gives 4 star thru the top 125 or 150, #101 with francis fall to 4 points. Think the difference to a team of a top 10 recruit vrsus a recruit rated 110 is more like 60% ala Francis than it is 20 percent ala rivasl/scout. I think Kevin Durant is more than 20% more valubale to his team than a recruit like a cordell henry
That's not Francis's normal system. He only uses that when doing the combined ranking of JUCO, Prep and HS players for his overall recruiting class rankings. Otherwise, he does his rankings like everyone else and has even used stars in the past.
Also the problem with Francis isn't the system, it's that he can't even stick to it. He gives a set amount of points to guys who fall between 11-40 but then includes twice as many people in that grouping as there are spots. Last year, for example, not a single one of his groupings actually had the right number of players in it, so there is then no way to judge the players in the subsequent groups. How can he justifiably argue that someone is between the 41st-70th best prospect in the class, when he's already given points to 90+ people that he thinks are better? It just doesn't work.
Maybe the rivals stars didn't apply back then, but I can't believe Carmelo Anthony wasn't worth at least 5 wins his freshman year.
Great stuff though, but Carmelo was the first person I thought of when you said only two players in the BEast.
I would like to see this formula run for previous 3-4 seasons instead of just the last one. Did it hold up against the known number of wins like it did for the 2008-09 season?
Sorry for scaring everyone with the title guys, but maybe the silver lining is that some Badger fans got real excited again just for a second before being crushed once again.
Originally I researched just 5-star players still playing when the Big East expanded, but I just went back and checked and Mr. Hayward is right - Carmelo Anthony was worth 9.8 wins to Syracuse in 2003 - so the ceiling for Vander Blue could certainly be much higher than the 5 or 6 wins of the guys I mentioned.
The system takes a while to run on every team it is applied to, so I don't have a comprehensive, but the highest total I've found for any season was Larry Byrd being worth 14.3 wins to the 1979 Indiana State team - albeit against much weaker competition than the Big East.
Quote from: bma725 on October 23, 2009, 01:55:39 PM
That's not Francis's normal system. He only uses that when doing the combined ranking of JUCO, Prep and HS players for his overall recruiting class rankings. Otherwise, he does his rankings like everyone else and has even used stars in the past.
Also the problem with Francis isn't the system, it's that he can't even stick to it. He gives a set amount of points to guys who fall between 11-40 but then includes twice as many people in that grouping as there are spots. Last year, for example, not a single one of his groupings actually had the right number of players in it, so there is then no way to judge the players in the subsequent groups. How can he justifiably argue that someone is between the 41st-70th best prospect in the class, when he's already given points to 90+ people that he thinks are better? It just doesn't work.
i hear what you are saying but i guess is ddi not realize there was that situation with Francis. Here though is my problem with Rivals scout.
team #1 4 recruits - 1 5 star , 2 4 star and a 3star. = 16 points
Team #2 5 recruits - 2 4s and 3 3's = 17 points
what class would you rather have? In my opinion and bama clearly spells it out ...heck i would rather have team #1 any day of the week becuase that 5 star is sooner or later going to be a program changer and you can have 15 3*'s in one class and it is going to make you a NIT team
Now same teams under francis's method
Team #1 =30 points
Team #2 = 28 points
on top of it all i think the recruit avergae is far more importnat than the point total. anyone can signed 8 2 and 3 star players and supposedly have a great class Iowa State did that a few years ago and has anyone heard from them? Lastly the point dispartyi to the greta players really boost a recruit avergae up significnaclty using Frnaciss sytem rightfully so in my book. as long as your surrounding classes dont suck give me one or two very good players a year
that was crean problem his first class was great and the 3 amigos were great the other 7 classes were mid major at best.
I must agree that the title was a heartthumper - someone has to think about this stuff when they write an article lol - we can't take it!
Anyway, nice analysis and I hope we can really fill 2010 recruiting on a very high note. So excited about Vander Blue :)
Mr. Hayward is correct on which class has more impact. Anyone who has studied sports statists knows that we are looking at the end of a bell curve. You have 300 three-stars that can have a positive impact on your team at some point in your career, 100 four-stars that can have immediate impact, and 25 five-stars that can take you to a national title (Carmelo Anthony) or at least be an almost sure shot to be a program changer.
In football with 22 starters you need a lot of really good players. In basketball with 5 starters getting the one five-star is much more important than anything else, and adding a 4-star or makes you much better than any bigger class.
Quote from: MR.HAYWARD on October 23, 2009, 04:15:33 PM
i hear what you are saying but i guess is ddi not realize there was that situation with Francis. Here though is my problem with Rivals scout.
team #1 4 recruits - 1 5 star , 2 4 star and a 3star. = 16 points
Team #2 5 recruits - 2 4s and 3 3's = 17 points
what class would you rather have? In my opinion and bama clearly spells it out ...heck i would rather have team #1 any day of the week becuase that 5 star is sooner or later going to be a program changer and you can have 15 3*'s in one class and it is going to make you a NIT team
Now same teams under francis's method
Team #1 =30 points
Team #2 = 28 points
on top of it all i think the recruit avergae is far more importnat than the point total. anyone can signed 8 2 and 3 star players and supposedly have a great class Iowa State did that a few years ago and has anyone heard from them? Lastly the point dispartyi to the greta players really boost a recruit avergae up significnaclty using Frnaciss sytem rightfully so in my book. as long as your surrounding classes dont suck give me one or two very good players a year
that was crean problem his first class was great and the 3 amigos were great the other 7 classes were mid major at best.
You'd be correct if stars actually equated to points in each of the systems, but they don't, not even close. The stars are simply measurements of individual player's talents. The class ranking they do is still subjective, not simply a total or average of the amount of stars that each school got.
Further, the exact thing you're arguing against is exactly what HoopScoop does in their final recruiting class ranking. It is purely points based, so if you end up getting rewarded for volume instead of just quality. For example, lets say the MU 2009 class included 7 players between 101-300 according to HoopScoop. That would give them 21 points, and they would be ranked higher than school that only had 2 spots and managed to get two top 10 players.
Part of what gave MU the #1 spot in HoopScoop's ranking was the volume of the class. Yes the players were good, but they had 7 kids, so they had more opportunity to move up in Francis's ranking. Look at his top 5 and their total points and total number of recruits:
1. MU - 46 PTS - 7 Recruits
2. UK - 41 PTS - 6 recruits
3. UNC - 37 PTS - 5 recruits
4. Oklahoma State - 34 PTS - 7 Recruits
5. Villanova - 30 PTS - 4 Recruits
Now if you do it based off average talent, you get a very different list:
1. Florida - 9.0 PT Average
2a. Texas - 8.0 PT average
2b. Duke - 8.0 PT Average
4. Kansas - 7.7 PT Average
5. Villanova - 7.5 PT average
Of his original Top 5, only Villanova manages to stay in, and MU which was #1 before drops completely out of the Top 10.
Quote from: Daniel on October 23, 2009, 05:08:28 PM
I must agree that the title was a heartthumper - someone has to think about this stuff when they write an article lol - we can't take it!
Anyway, nice analysis and I hope we can really fill 2010 recruiting on a very high note. So excited about Vander Blue :)
I know everyone is joking, but if the entire sentence takes 2 seconds to read, the first five words takes, say, one second. So everyone's heart skipped a beat before the next second? Does one's heart even beat more than once in the time it would take you to read the entire sentence?
Quote from: romey on October 25, 2009, 09:52:14 AM
I know everyone is joking, but if the entire sentence takes 2 seconds to read, the first five words takes, say, one second. So everyone's heart skipped a beat before the next second? Does one's heart even beat more than once in the time it would take you to read the entire sentence?
considering the average individuals resting heart rate is around 70 bpm, the answer is yes, a heart could skip a beat before the next second. ;D
yeah! and women and children beat even faster. And kids read slower. Won't someone think about the children?!?!