[Cracked Sidewalks] MU Big East Schedule; despite lacking an all-conference player deepest team in conference could be favored in 15 of 18 BE games

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

MU Big East Schedule; despite lacking an all-conference player deepest team in conference could be favored in 15 of 18 BE games

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

In Big East play last year Marquette had the top player (Jae Crowder, 2nd in the country 11.12% Value Add at www.valueaddbasketball.com) and the best duo (combined with Darius Johnson-Odom a 16.38 Value Add).  Based on 2013 preseason Value Adds Marquette will only have the best player on the court 3 times in Big East play, vs. DePaul Feb. 3, at Villanova Feb. 23 and at Rutgers March 5.  The following is a comparison of where Marquette's top 3 players rank vs. the top 3 from each Big East opponent:  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;}  DateOpponentRnkBest PlayerFtInRnk2nd Best PlayerFtInRnk3rd Best PlayerFtIn[/tr]

	Marquette	158	Gardner, Davante	6	8	317	Wilson, Jamil	6	7	327	Blue, Vander	6	4
1-Jan	Connecticut	20	Napier, Shabazz	6	0	110	Boatright, Ryan	6	0	205	Daniels, DeAndre	6	8
5-Jan	Georgetown	4	Porter, Otto	6	8	297	Smith-Rivera, D'Vauntes	6	3	450	Trawick, Jabril	6	5
12-Jan	at Pittsburgh	37	Patterson, Lamar	6	5	61	Adams, Steven	6	10	271	Woodall, Tray	5	11
16-Jan	Seton Hall	57	Edwin, Fuquan	6	6	540	Cosby, Aaron	6	3	584	Auda, Patrik	6	9
19-Jan	at Cincinnati	55	Wright, Cashmere	6	0	392	Rubles, Titus	6	8	499	Parker, Jaquon	6	3
26-Jan	Providence	48	Henton, LaDontae	6	6	117	Cotton, Bryce	6	1	118	Ledo, Ricardo	6	5
28-Jan	South Florida	114	Collins, Anthony	6	1	194	Fitzpatrick, Toarlyn	6	8	356	Austin, Waverly	6	11
3-Feb	at Louisville	18	Dieng, Gorgui	6	10	59	Behanan, Chane	6	7	208	Smith, Russ	6	0
6-Feb	at South Florida	114	Collins, Anthony	6	1	194	Fitzpatrick, Toarlyn	6	8	356	Austin, Waverly	6	11
9-Feb	DePaul	246	Young, Brandon	6	3	345	Crockett, Jamee	6	4	815	Melvin, Cleveland	6	8
11-Feb	at Georgetown	4	Porter, Otto	6	8	297	Smith-Rivera, D'Vauntes	6	3	450	Trawick, Jabril	6	5
16-Feb	Pittsburgh	37	Patterson, Lamar	6	5	61	Adams, Steven	6	10	271	Woodall, Tray	5	11
19-Feb	at Seton Hall	57	Edwin, Fuquan	6	6	540	Cosby, Aaron	6	3	584	Auda, Patrik	6	9
23-Feb	at Villanova	250	Yarou, Mouphtaou	6	10	403	Ochefu, Daniel	6	10	478	Bell, James	6	6
25-Feb	Syracuse	69	Fair, CJ	6	8	173	Southerland, James	6	8	254	Triche, Brandon	6	4
2-Mar	Notre Dame	19	Cooley, Jack	6	9	50	Grant, Jerian	6	5	152	Connaughton, Pat	6	5
5-Mar	at Rutgers	207	Miller, Dane	6	6	217	Mack, Myles	5	9	259	Seagears, Jerome	6	1
9-Mar	at St. John's	33	Harrison, D'Angelo	6	3	333	Sanchez, Orlando	6	9	484	Pointer, Sir'Dominic	6	6

In short, MUs top 3 do not look like a good match-up against most other Big East trios.  However, this will be balanced by the fact that Marquette has the deepest team in the Conference.  No other team has 10 players who project in the top 1000 (or top 25% of all players), and it may be that no team has as many potential "surprise" top 100 players.  If Gardner or Otule stay healthy all year they could emerge; if Blue improves as much as his age projects or Mayo as much as the typical freshman to sophomore season; Trent Lockett could return to freshman form with better teammates etc.

The following is how Marquette's top player (Gardner) ranks among the Conferences top players, etc, then all the way down the list until Jamal Ferguson projects as the best No. 10 player and Lockett as the best No. 11 player and obviously potentially much higher.
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;}  RnkMU playerFtInCompared to other BE[/tr]

158	Gardner, Davante	6	8	11 BE teams have better No. 1
317	Wilson, Jamil	6	7	9 have better No. 2
327	Blue, Vander	6	4	7 have better No. 3
463	Mayo, Todd	6	3	7 have better No. 4
531	Cadougan, Junior	6	1	5 have better No. 5
613	Anderson, Juan	6	6	5 have better No. 6
688	Otule, Chris	6	11	4 have better No. 7
848	Taylor, Steve	6	7	4 have better No. 8
951	Thomas, Jake	6	3	2 have better No. 9
979	Ferguson, Jamal	6	3	0 have better No. 10
1062	Lockett, Trent	6	4	0 have better No. 11
1323	Wilson, Derrick	6	0	5 have better No. 12

MU could be 7th best team, but with projected 2nd best BE record  With UConn ineligible, there is a huge gap between the top 7 teams ending with MU at 25th and the 53rd best team in Rutgers.  Luckily for MU, the draw of home and away games could make them the favorite in 15 of 18 games - though at Rutgers would be a close call.

MU would be an underdog against national contender Louisville even at home, so having them as one of the 9 road games is better than a team where home court might make the difference.  There are 6 conference foes who would be close enough to MU in the rankings that the home court would determine the rankings, and MU gets all 6 of them at home (Providence, Pitt, ND, Syracuse, Georgetown and UConn), though they do also play at Georgetown and Pitt for possibly the only games besides Louisville in which MU would be the projected underdog.  You always expect a couple of upsets at least, but based just on who is favored MU would have a 15-3 edge though admittedly at Rutgers would be a close call.
Please don't accuse me of predicting a 15-3 finish.  Even if MU was given an 80% chance of winning each of those 15 games, that means they would probably be upset 3 times so a 12-6 mark might be a more reasonable goal even assuming the team can gel and have a lot of people step up to make up for DJO and Jae being gone, but flipping the schedule might have made MU an underdog in 6 or 7 games, so the schedule creates a very high ceiling of what is possible.
While a prohibitive favorite in the conference this year, Louisville did not get a good draw and could be underdogs at Georgetown, Notre Dame, Syracuse and perhaps even UConn - who will treat that visit as their national championship.

So while it is certainly possible to see Marquette finish as low as 7th, their balance and a very favorable schedule makes it quite possible they could finish as high as 2nd and not impossible that they could contend for the title though a likely double digit loss at Louisville would give the Cardinals the tie-breaker.

Here is where each Big East team ranks nationally right now on Value Add.


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;}  TeamRnk[/tr]

Louisville	3
Providence	11
Pittsburgh	13
Notre Dame	17
Syracuse	22
Georgetown	24
Marquette	25
Connecticut	38
Rutgers	53
St. John's	59
South Florida	66
Villanova	69
Seton Hall	86
Cincinnati	90
DePaul	119

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2012/09/mu-big-east-schedule-despite-lacking.html

[bamamarquettefan]

oops, just realized we had a post on Ledo having to sit out a year for Providence.  That would push Kris Dunn up to their 3rd best player - still giving them three players ranked ahead of all our guys but knocking them down a bit.

Assuming their 4th best player Kris Dunn (147th best and ahead of all our players) only misses the early season with his injury, they are still LOADED for this year though.  There were rumors in April that Bryce Cotton would transfer, but my understanding is he stayed.

Certainly feel free to point out any mistakes on the top 3 players listed for each team.

[bilsu]

Going into last season Crowder was not even first team. MU's palyers are under ranked, because Crowder and DJO were so dominate. Put Gardner, Wilson and Blue on DePaul's team last year and they would be much higher ranked statistically going into this season.

[bamamarquettefan]

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/05/top-2500-returning-college-basketball.html

It is true that people who don't read Cracked Sidewalks and MUScoop didn't know Crowder was a 1st team Big East player going into last season, but remember that based on Value Add, Jae clearly was a 1st team All-Big East player.  In fact if you look at the link from May 2011 you will recall that Value Add ranked Jae Crowder as the 24th best player in the country 6 months before the 2011-12 season even started.

I agree that Gardner, Wilson and Blue would have had much better TRADITIONAL stats if they played for DePaul last year, but not that their VALUE ADD would be higher, since it shows each players actual impact on his team regardless of how good his teammates or the competition are.

I believe we agree on the potential of those three this year, but I would word it more like, "Buzz Williams has shown that his players often progress faster than a player in another system, so it is quite possible all three will IMPROVE more than this projection would show, but I don't believe they would have ranked higher last season.

[Dr. Blackheart]

I like to track Pomeroy's "Experience" statistic...as having upperclassmen seasoned in the rigors and grind of the BE, especially on the road, helps to capture closely contested games. By my guesstimate, MU will be in the Top 25 if not Top 10 this year from the middle of the pack last year in "Experience". Since Buzz is such an efficiency based coach and the returning players have had multiple years with his systems, I think MU will surprise.  

Look at defense, where MU finished 14th in Pomeroy last year vs. in the 50-60th range in Buzz's first three years. The main reason: eFG% dropped to 45% from in the 49-50+% range previously. Jae was a big part of it, but Buzz has called Jamil the best defensive player in the BE with all his athleticism. Otule will be back and Junior is much improved, to go with Blue and Mayo. More so, Lockett is a rock solid defender--and is definitely in our Top 3 overall.

In the end, MU will be very, very good...and we will see it out of the box...while there may not be an outstanding player who sticks out, there are no team weaknesses deep into the bench...with all the situationals covered.