[Cracked Sidewalks]Gardner now ranked 58th best offensive player; Cotton 7th

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

Gardner now ranked 58th best offensive player; Cotton 7th

Davante Gardner's recent dominant play has moved him up to No. 58 of roughly 4000 college players in the new Offensive Value Add ratings. Gardner's 4.38 indicates he adds about that many points to Marquette's score over what a good replacement would do, though his defense gives the opponent an extra 0.39 points to give him an overall Value Add rating of 3.99 to make Gardner the 123rd best player overall.

Of the 350 other teams in the country, only 39 have an offensive player better than Gardner, and only 83 have a better overall player according to Value Add. However, one of those teams is Thursday's opponent Providence which features Bryce Cotton (7th best offensive player, 61st overall) and LaDontae Henton (80th overall).

This will be the fourth time this season Marquette has faced a team with more than one top 100 player (Wisconsin, Creighton and New Mexico). Doug McDermott is the greatest offensive player in the history of Value Add, as he is the third best offensive player for the third consecutive season. No other player has ever been in the top 5 even two seasons. However, the best overall opponent this season has been Wisconsin center Frank Kaminsky, who Marquette got into foul trouble to hold to 11 points and 4 rebounds while Chris Otule and Gardner combined for 27 points and 12 rebounds to almost pull a huge road upset.

The following are the rankings for all Marquette players and their opponents. Note that Marquette's redshirt freshman Luke Fischer, the 6'11' transfer from Indiana, is ranked based just on the 16% of Indiana's minutes he has played in this year due to leaving for Milwaukee. If he had started the whole season and played 64% of Indiana's minutes, he would rank as the 581st best offensive player and 685th overall. In his limited action, he hit 56% of his shots and blocked 8.5% of opponents' shots while he was on the floor - and even higher rate than Otule who ranks 99th in the country.

<style type="text/css"> 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; } </style>
<table class="tableizer-table"><tbody><tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>OffRnk</th><th>OverRnk</th><th>Player</th><th>Team</th><th>Ht</th><th>Yr</th><th>OffValue</th><th>ValueAdd</th></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>11</td><td>Frank Kaminsky</td><td>Wisconsin</td><td>7' 0</td><td>Jr</td><td>5.64</td><td>6.82</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>16</td><td>Doug McDermott</td><td>Creighton</td><td>6' 8"</td><td>Sr</td><td>7.01</td><td>6.64</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>25</td><td>Kendall Williams</td><td>New Mexico</td><td>6' 4"</td><td>Sr</td><td>6.20</td><td>6.01</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>42</td><td>D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera</td><td>Georgetown</td><td>6' 3"</td><td>So</td><td>5.40</td><td>5.54</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>48</td><td>Cameron Bairstow</td><td>New Mexico</td><td>6' 9"</td><td>Sr</td><td>5.62</td><td>5.28</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>49</td><td>Ben Brust</td><td>Wisconsin</td><td>6' 1"</td><td>Sr</td><td>5.05</td><td>5.27</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>53</td><td>Jordan Bachynski</td><td>Arizona St.</td><td>8' 2"</td><td>Sr</td><td>2.80</td><td>5.20</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>61</td><td>Bryce Cotton</td><td>Providence</td><td>6' 1"</td><td>Sr</td><td>6.13</td><td>5.04</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>70</td><td>Sam Dekker</td><td>Wisconsin</td><td>6' 7"</td><td>So</td><td>4.33</td><td>4.87</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>73</td><td>Aaron Craft</td><td>Ohio St.</td><td>6' 2"</td><td>Sr</td><td>1.40</td><td>4.77</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>80</td><td>LaDontae Henton</td><td>Providence</td><td>6' 6"</td><td>Jr</td><td>3.61</td><td>4.65</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>89</td><td>Jahenns Manigat</td><td>Creighton</td><td>6' 1"</td><td>Sr</td><td>4.40</td><td>4.54</td></tr><tr><td>58</td><td>123</td><td>Davante Gardner</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 8"</td><td>Sr</td><td>4.38</td><td>3.99</td></tr><tr><td>747</td><td>588</td><td>Todd Mayo</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 3"</td><td>Jr</td><td>1.34</td><td>1.56</td></tr><tr><td>1671</td><td>665</td><td>Juan Anderson</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 6"</td><td>Jr</td><td>0.12</td><td>1.37</td></tr><tr><td>1649</td><td>689</td><td>Deonte Burton</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 4"</td><td>Fr</td><td>0.14</td><td>1.31</td></tr><tr><td>1101</td><td>848</td><td>Jamil Wilson</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 7"</td><td>Sr</td><td>0.72</td><td>1.01</td></tr><tr><td>1290</td><td>1122</td><td>Chris Otule</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 11"</td><td>Sr</td><td>0.49</td><td>0.63</td></tr><tr><td>828</td><td>1166</td><td>Jake Thomas</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 3"</td><td>Sr</td><td>1.18</td><td>0.59</td></tr><tr><td>1050</td><td>1179</td><td>JaJuan Johnson</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 5"</td><td>Fr</td><td>0.79</td><td>0.58</td></tr><tr><td>1345</td><td>1483</td><td>Luke Fischer</td><td>Indiana</td><td>6' 11"</td><td>Fr</td><td>0.42</td><td>0.33</td></tr><tr><td>2018</td><td>1714</td><td>Steve Taylor</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 7"</td><td>So</td><td>0.00</td><td>0.18</td></tr><tr><td>2082</td><td>1965</td><td>Derrick Wilson</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 1"</td><td>Jr</td><td>0.00</td><td>0.07</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>NR</td><td>Duane Wilson</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 2"</td><td>Fr</td><td>0.00</td><td>0.00</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>NR</td><td>Dylan Flood</td><td>Marquette</td><td>6' 4"</td><td>Jr</td><td>0.00</td><td>0.00</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Gardner now ranked 58th best offensive player; Cotton 7th

[UticaBusBarn]

Interesting information, and as we have learned, your analysis tends to be spot on.

It also tends to support the proverbial eye-ball test. Gardner is a terrific offensive player, whose defense has gone from marginal, two years ago, to adequate this year.

At the other end of the Warrior ranking is Derrick Wilson who has a 0.00 offensive rating and a value added of 0.07. I wonder if Wilson's value added would go up if he where to play less minutes and thus be able to go all out on denfense and still have the energy to attach on offense?

[bamamarquettefan]

good point, and yes I really believe Derrick just has to be a key defensive player. The trap he ran with Jamil against Georgetown that led to the phantom foul called was perfect, and that's what we need from him.