MUScoop

Lockett could be 1 of only 3 transfers to be strong BCS starters without sitting out a year

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

In sorting Jeff Goodman's incredible work to track the 445 and counting transfers for CBS Sports (http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/18443369/2012-end-of-year-updated-transfer-list-300-plus-and-growing), I focused on those that should be eligible to play in 2013.  Our updates to www.valueaddbasketball.com (http://www.valueaddbasketball.com/) are still being made, but Trent Lockett is one of only 16 transfers who should be eligible to play this coming season AND are projected to make an impact.

The only two players who project to have a Value Add of higher than 3%, the point at which a player would typically be a good starter for a BCS team, are Julius Mays and Mark Lyons, so the rich get richer.  Their additions, respectively, pushed Kentucky from 32nd to 18th (of course they will go higher) and Arizona from 21st to 12th.

Trent Lockett has the 6th best projection of any immediate transfer for the year, and his 1.29% projected impact on Marquette's final scores improves the team projection from 25th to 19th in the Value Add rankings for next year.  The news could be even better.  The hope has been that Lockett was held down by playing for one of the worst BCS teams around last year - Arizona State - and that if we instead based his projection on his sophomore year of 2.59%, then he would actually push Marquette all the way up to the 16th best team in the country - so a potentially great addition and quite possible he could be one of only three players to transfer without sitting out and be a legit starter with his new team immediately.  Here are the 16 transfers who should be impact players without sitting out a year:  table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}  Rnk2012 TRANSFER LISTNew SchoolValue Add[/tr]

1	Julius Mays, 6-3, G, Jr., Wright State (will graduate)	KENTUCKY	3.78
2	Mark Lyons, 6-0, G, Jr., Xavier (will likely graduate)	ARIZONA	3.54
3&	Trent Lockett (if duplicates his sophomore season)	MARQUETTE	2.59
3	R.J. Evans, 6-3, G, Sr., Holy Cross (will graduate)	CONNECTICUT	1.76
4	Sam McLaurin, 6-8, F, Jr., Coastal Carolina (will graduate)	ILLINOIS	1.6
5	Devon White, 6-8, F, Jr., La Salle (will graduate)	NIAGARA	1.44
6	Trent Lockett, 6-4, SG, Jr., Arizona State (will likely play ASAP)	MARQUETTE	1.29
7	Kyle Smythe, 6-4, G Jr., Iona (will graduate)	SETON HALL	1.21
8	Kauri Black, 6-7, F, Jr., Northeastern (will graduate)	TULSA	1.03
9	Brendan Lane, 6-9, PF, Jr., UCLA (one year left and can play ASAP)	PEPPERDINE	1.01
10	John Hart, 6-2, G, Jr., Purdue (will graduate)	IUPUI	0.55
11	Alwayne Bigby, 6-5, G, Soph., Northeastern (will graduate)	Available	0.5
12	Matt Humphrey, 6-5, G, Jr., Boston College (will graduate)	WEST VIRGINIA	0.5
13	Renaldo Woolridge, 6-9, F, Sr., Tennessee (will graduate)	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA	0.45
14	Kore White, 6-8, F, Jr., Florida Atlantic (will graduate)	SOUTH FLORIDA	0.3
15	Logan Aronhalt, 6-3, G, Jr., Albany (will graduate)	MARYLAND	0.25
16	Josh Lepley, 6-9, F, Jr., Northern Arizona (will graduate)	Available	0.13

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2012/08/lockett-could-be-1-of-only-3-transfers.html

First, I think you forgot Oriakhi.  Because UConn is on probation this year he's going to be immedeately eligible at Missouri. If he duplicates his sophmore value add, he'll be the #1 player on this list.

Second, you raise an interesting question on how you normalize value add across different teams.

On one hand, value add is used to credibly rank players from Wright State, Coastal Carolina and Florida Atlantic on the same scale as players from Xavier, UCLA and Purdue.

However, in this post you raise the possbility that Trent Lockett's value add is also a function of quality of his teammates--poor at ASU last year holding back his value add;  better at MU this year, improving his value add. 

So is there a measurable "teammate quality" factor that will be part of some future "value add" calculation?   

Both excellent catches:

1. Oriakhi was not flagged - my miss and I had him flagged as one of the top few projected players in all of basketball coming into last year, so you are correct.

2. I did not word the Arizona state comment well. In theory, a player's value add should be roughly the same whether he played on a poor club where he could put up bigger numbers but with a lower efficiency since opponents could focus on him, or on a great team where he didn't have as many opportunities as a 4th or 5th option but with higher efficiency due to less defensive attention.

What I was trying to convey was really if a player like Lockett (or oriakhi) reach a high level one year and then a team falls apart to some degree and their value add drops (since the big majority of players increase their value add each year, then you hope it was just a year or discouragement or discord.

But that would be an exception. The basic rule is a player's value add should be transferrable from one school to another as a complete summary of the value he will bring to any team.

Interesting.  I looked at the two unavailable players on this list - Alwayne Bigby and Josh Lepley - out of curiosity to see if they would bring any value to MU given we have an opening right now.

And they look like complete stiffs who wouldn't see the floor at MU.  But Bigby has the same value add as Matt Humphrey, who supposedly Buzz looked at before he decided on WVU. 

According to these calculations, is it worth taking a flyer?  Or is it better to keep a vacancy in case of a mid-season transfer?

The other thing to add on Lockett is that last season at ASU, because of injuries and mid-year vacancies, he was forced to play PG. A creator is not his natural position...he is a 2/3.  Can go inside-outside and bang or even post-up. This is one major reason why his value add was depressed his junior year. With Caddy as the creator, I expected to see sophomore year numbers or higher as he will be playing his natural position.