[Cracked Sidewalks] 1st Value Add Top 100 of 2012 points to Jae Crowder as All-American

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

1st Value Add Top 100 of 2012 points to Jae Crowder as All-American

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

With Marquette beating it's last mid-major opponent of the season last night, with a 64-50 win over UW-Milwaukee (see story here), I thought it would be a good time to run the first calculations of the best players in the country to prepare for Vanderbilt and the entire Big East.

I know most of you don’t follow us as much in the offseason, but NBC Sports, ESPN and Sports Illustrated picked up on pieces I wrote outlining the 8 different things a player does to help his team win and then the Value Add system to measure exactly how valuable all 3500 players were to their teams.  You can click any of the links above for those referencs.  The explanation of how you can precisely measure a player’s offensive Value Add appeared here.

Jae Crowder has already been named the top player in the country one week by NBC Sports, and running the 1st Value Add calculations of the year shows him as the 14th best offensive player in the country so far this year, and as an overall clear 1st or 2nd team All-American choice.


Value Add shows that Crowder has added 6.5% to Marquette’s overall scoring this year.  That means if someone else had to fill his shoes this year, Marquette would be averaging 76.7 points a game instead of 81.7 points a game.  Even though that is the 14th best total in the country, most fans never seem to think five points sounds like that big an impact, but even a player who makes a team two points better has a huge impact.

CROWDER COULD BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 27-4 and 18-13
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that Marquette’s scores for the rest of the season were all exactly what Pomeroy predicts.  Marquette would finish 27-4.  Now if Marquette had scored five points less in each game because Crowder wasn’t on the team, that would turn nine wins into losses (2nd game vs. Norfolk State, Washington, Louisville, at Villanova, at Notre Dame, at UConn, at WVU, at Cincinnati, Georgetown)- so Marquette would finish 18-13 instead of 27-4.

We can’t measure defense as precisely, but there are four defensive stats in Pomeroy.  Crowder and Indiana’s Cody Zeller are the only top 20 offensive players who are also among Pomeroy’s leaders in all three individual defensive stats (defensive rebounds, blocked shots and steals).  On the table below I listed any of the three on which a player was among Pomeroy's leaders, and I also listed the 4th stat, the team defensive ranking (from 1st to 345th best) for points allowed per trip against an average offense.  

Damian Lillard, Zack Rosen, Nate Wolters, Ryan Broekhoff and Andre Jones are adding a lot of points, but they are not among the top 100 overall players in the country because they are part of defenses that don’t even rank in the top 150 of the country.  Only Doron Lamb (Kentucky, 5th), Mike Scott (Virginia, 9th) and Cody Zeller (Indiana, 24th) play for defenses better than the Marquette defense of which Crowder is a part (29th best defense in points allowed per trip, adjusted for opponents’ strength).

TOP 20 OFFENSIVE PLAYERS 2011-2012

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[/tr]

Rk	Fname	Lname	Team	Ht	Value Add	Defensive Stats
1	Damian	Lillard	Weber St.	6-f-2	11.0%	245th, Reb
2	Zack	Rosen	Penn	6-f-1	8.6%	187th
3	Marcus	Denmon	Missouri	6-f-3	7.5%	43rd, Stl
4	Kevin	Jones	W. VA	6-f-8	7.3%	44th, Blk, Reb
5	Steven	Pledger	Oklahoma	6-f-4	7.3%	96th, Stl
6	Isaiah	Canaan	Murray St.	6-f-0	7.3%	71st, Stl
7	Kenny	Boynton	Florida	6-f-2	7.2%	60th
8	Will	Barton	Memphis	6-f-6	7.1%	77th, Reb
9	Doug	McDermott	Creigh	6-f-7	7.1%	144th, Reb
10	Mike	Scott	Virginia	6-f-8	7.1%	9th, Reb
11	Doron	Lamb	Kentucky	6-f-4	6.8%	5th
12	Jarrod	Jones	Ball St.	6-f-9	6.7%	91st, Def, Blk
13	Nate	Wolters	S. Dak St	6-f-4	6.6%	231st
14	Jae	Crowder	Marq	6-f-6	6.5%	29th, Reb, Blk, Stl
15	Langston	Galloway	St. Joe's	6-f-2	6.4%	107th
16	Ryan	Broekhoff	Valparaiso	6-f-7	6.2%	204th
17	Noah	Hartsock	BYU	6-f-8	6.1%	26th, Blk
18	Herb	Pope	S. Hall	6-f-8	6.0%	69th, Reb, Blk
19	Andre	Jones	Winthrop	6-f-2	5.9%	212th
20	Cody	Zeller	Indiana	6-f-11	5.8%	24th, Reb, Blk,St

Make a few common sense adjustments for defense to the precise measure of offensive value calculated by Value Add, and eight All-Americans become clear.  The two top defensive big men in the country (6-foot-9 Thomas Robinson and Jared Sullinger, the latter of whom is clearly the best player in the country when healthy) are added to six of the players above to form the All-American team to date:

Alphabetical All-American list to date
Jae Crowder - Marquette
Marcus Denmon - Missouri
Kevin Jones â€" West Virginia
Doron Lamb â€" Kentucky
Mike Scott â€" Virginia
Thomas Robinson â€" Kansas
Jared Sullinger â€" Ohio State
Cody Zeller â€" Indiana
Last two spots pick from among Georgetown’s Hollis Thompson (22nd highest Value Add and among rebound leaders for 20th best defense in the country) and UNC’s trio of Harrison Barnes, John Henson or Tyler Zeller.

This is not to say that is how the season will end.  Darius Johnson-Odom had a terrible non-conference season last year, and this year he is already the 62nd best offensive player in the country (see below).  He was already selected on a CBS Sports telecast as one of the top 4 candidates for Player of the Year along with Denmon, Robinson and Sullinger above, so if he explodes to dominate the Big East again this year it could be him rather than Crowder who becomes the third Marquette player of the decade picked as one of the Top 10 players in the country (Dwyane Wade and Jerel McNeal the other two).

Detailed math on calculating Offensive Value
For those of you who want to go through the detailed math, you can go to this link, or below is the explanation followed by the Top 100 offensive players so far this season:

Ken Pomeroy uses the formulas from Dean Olivier’s Basketball on Paper to precisely calculate a players Offensive Efficiency based on his shots, turnovers, assists, offensive rebounds, ability to get to the line, etc.

Jae Crowder scores a 128.8 Offensive Rating, meaning when for every 100 times a Marquette possession goes to Crowder, he scores 128.8 points, well above the national average of about 100.

Value Add starts from that number, and measures it against how many points a typical reserve would score if he had the ball instead of Crowder all of those times.  Overall Marquette has faced the 72nd toughest defense of any team this year, which the average BCS bench player would score 92.18 points per possession against.

When you divide the points Crowder produces by what a replacement would have scored (128.8/92.18) you find that WHEN HE HAS THE BALL, Crowder scores 39.7% more points than a replacement would score.  Scott Wood of NC State has the best total when he has the ball, registering a 143.9 Offensive Rating against very tough defenses, so he adds 58% to NC State’s scoring WHEN HE HAS THE BALL.

However, the next step is to determine how often you have the ball.  Wood only gets the ball 14.8% of the time, so he is actually only adding 8.6% to NC State’s scoring while he is on the court (58% X 14.8% of the time getting the ball).  Crowder gets the ball a lot â€" not as much as DJO but 22.3% of the time, so while he is on the court he adds 8.9% to MUs scoring, slightly better than Wood.  Damian Lillard is tops in the country, improving Weber State’s scoring by 13.7% when he is on the court â€" though with terrible defense on the other end.  Davante Gardner is actually 42nd best in the country when he has the ball, adding 7.3% to Marquette’s scoring.

It may seem that it is just a matter of giving the ball most players the ball more to increase their rating, but actually players start losing ground when they are used too much and they get tired and defenses key on them.  For example, Olivier shows that even Kobe Bryant starts to cost the Lakers points once he starts having to handle the ball more than one-third of the time.  Obviously Gardner is an awesome player when getting  a limited number of chances, but is not yet able to be a guy who can score when getting the ball all the time.

The final step is to calculate what percentage of minutes the player plays.  Crowder is playing 73% of Marquette’s minutes, so when multiplying that by the 8.9% he adds to Marquette’s scoring when on the court, we arrive at the final number of 6.47% of points added to Marquette’s total scoring over the course of the season.  Like with possessions, a player who is forced to play too many minutes often starts to hurt his rating and the team's overall scoring.

The overall figures will stay about the same for most players as competition gets tougher, because the first step adjusts for the defense placed, so players do not have to score as much against tough defenses as they did against creampuffs to maintain the same rating.

The following are the top 100 offensive players in the country, going through each of these figures.  The defensive calculation, which I did calculate last year, is much more complicated, and not nearly as accurate, so these are not adjusted for defense.  We know Chris Otule blocking so many shots helps the rest of the defense, and that their defense was about the 20th best defense with him and the 40th best without him, but beyond that there aren't enough stats to get a truly accurate firm figure for the percentage of points he takes away from opponents, despite my best attempt in this link:

TOP 100 OFFENSIVE PLAYERS (VALUE ADD)
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RkFnameLnameTeamHtYrw/ballon courtOverall[/tr]

1	Damian	Lillard	Weber St.	6-f-2	Jr	44.0%	13.7%	11.0%
2	Zack	Rosen	Penn	6-f-1	Sr	36.7%	9.0%	8.6%
3	Marcus	Denmon	Missouri	6-f-3	Sr	44.1%	9.8%	7.5%
4	Kevin	Jones	W. VA	6-f-8	Sr	36.0%	8.6%	7.3%
5	Steven	Pledger	Oklahoma	6-f-4	Jr	49.5%	11.0%	7.3%
6	Isaiah	Canaan	Murray St.	6-f-0	Jr	34.4%	9.1%	7.3%
7	Kenny	Boynton	Florida	6-f-2	Jr	42.5%	9.4%	7.2%
8	Will	Barton	Memphis	6-f-6	So	31.8%	8.3%	7.1%
9	Doug	McDermott	Creigh	6-f-7	So	33.5%	9.8%	7.1%
10	Mike	Scott	Virginia	6-f-8	Sr	34.1%	9.4%	7.1%
11	Doron	Lamb	Kentucky	6-f-4	So	43.6%	8.8%	6.8%
12	Jarrod	Jones	Ball St.	6-f-9	Sr	33.3%	8.4%	6.7%
13	Nate	Wolters	S. Dakota St	6-f-4	Jr	26.7%	8.0%	6.6%
14	Jae	Crowder	Marq	6-f-6	Sr	39.7%	8.9%	6.5%
15	Langston	Galloway	St. Joe's	6-f-2	So	39.6%	7.4%	6.4%
16	Ryan	Broekhoff	Valparaiso	6-f-7	Jr	35.7%	7.6%	6.2%
17	Noah	Hartsock	BYU	6-f-8	Sr	36.8%	7.7%	6.1%
18	Herb	Pope	S. Hall	6-f-8	Sr	24.0%	7.5%	6.0%
19	Andre	Jones	Winthrop	6-f-2	Sr	27.0%	6.9%	5.9%
20	Cody	Zeller	Indiana	6-f-11	Fr	37.7%	8.3%	5.8%
21	Brian	Conklin	St. Louis	6-f-6	Sr	33.7%	8.2%	5.8%
22	Hollis	Thompson	Gtown	6-f-8	Jr	39.4%	8.2%	5.8%
23	Matt	Dickey	NC Ashv	6-f-1	Sr	34.4%	7.3%	5.7%
24	Robert	Nyakundi	SMU	6-f-8	Sr	30.9%	6.8%	5.6%
25	Deremy	Geiger	Idaho	5-f-11	Sr	40.8%	7.3%	5.6%
26	Ken	Horton	Cent Conn	6-f-6	Sr	25.4%	6.4%	5.6%
27	Jeremy	Lamb	UConn	6-f-5	So	26.5%	6.1%	5.6%
28	Reggie	Hamilton	Oakland	5-f-11	Sr	21.1%	6.7%	5.6%
29	Erick	Green	Va Tech	6-f-3	Jr	33.9%	7.4%	5.5%
30	Jim	Mower	Lafayette	6-f-3	Sr	32.5%	6.4%	5.5%
31	Scott	Wood	NC State	6-f-6	Jr	58.2%	8.6%	5.5%
32	Kevin	Pangos	Gonzaga	6-f-1	Fr	34.2%	7.1%	5.5%
33	Chase	Tapley	S. Diego St	6-f-2	Jr	30.8%	6.4%	5.4%
34	John	Jenkins	Vanderbilt	6-f-4	Jr	29.8%	7.1%	5.4%
35	Andre	Young	Clemson	5-f-9	Sr	33.8%	6.3%	5.4%
36	Scott	Machado	Iona	6-f-1	Sr	24.6%	5.9%	5.3%
37	Robert	Covington	Tenn St	6-f-8	Jr	28.7%	7.4%	5.3%
38	Joe	Ragland	Wichita St.	6-f-0	Sr	42.8%	8.1%	5.3%
39	John	Shurna	N Western	6-f-9	Sr	23.1%	6.2%	5.3%
40	Erving	Walker	Florida	5-f-8	Sr	30.3%	7.1%	5.2%
41	Justin	Edwards	Maine	6-f-3	Fr	26.2%	6.9%	5.2%
42	Ricardo	Ratliffe	Missouri	6-f-8	Sr	40.5%	8.8%	5.2%
43	Drew	Crawford	N Western	6-f-5	Jr	27.2%	6.2%	5.1%
44	J'Covan	Brown	Texas	6-f-1	Jr	22.6%	6.1%	5.1%
45	Dennis	Tinnon	Marshall	6-f-8	Jr	42.1%	7.5%	5.1%
46	Gerald	McLemore	Maine	6-f-3	Sr	27.7%	6.3%	5.1%
47	Shabazz	Napier	UConn	6-f-0	So	23.9%	5.8%	5.0%
48	Garrett	Sim	Oregon	6-f-1	Sr	37.8%	6.7%	5.0%
49	Anthony	Raffa	Coast Carol	6-f-1	Jr	24.6%	6.4%	5.0%
50	Robert	Sacre	Gonzaga	7-f-0	Sr	30.0%	7.3%	5.0%
51	Kris	Joseph	Syracuse	6-f-7	Sr	32.3%	6.9%	5.0%
52	Kerron	Johnson	Belmont	6-f-1	Jr	25.7%	6.9%	5.0%
53	Mark	Lyons	Xavier	6-f-1	Jr	30.7%	7.3%	5.0%
54	Henry	Sims	Gtown	6-f-10	Sr	30.4%	8.6%	4.9%
55	Cameron	Ayers	Bucknell	6-f-5	So	39.9%	6.1%	4.9%
56	Zack	Novak	Michigan	6-f-4	Sr	46.9%	5.9%	4.9%
57	Omari	Grier	Fl Atlantic	6-f-4	Fr	51.8%	9.9%	4.9%
58	Jaime	Serna	UC Sa Clara	6-f-9	Sr	47.5%	8.5%	4.8%
59	Nick	Barbour	H. Point	6-f-3	Sr	24.2%	6.2%	4.8%
60	Jared	Sullinger	Ohio St.	6-f-9	So	34.4%	8.6%	4.8%
61	Charles	Hinkle	American	6-f-5	Sr	18.6%	5.4%	4.8%
62	Darius	Johnson-Odom	Marq	6-f-2	Sr	26.5%	7.0%	4.7%
63	Robbie	Hummel	Purdue	6-f-8	Sr	23.5%	6.1%	4.7%
64	Austin	Morgan	Yale	5-f-11	Jr	33.0%	6.7%	4.7%
65	Tyler	Murray	Wagner	6-f-5	Sr	33.9%	5.8%	4.7%
66	Tu	Holloway	Xavier	6-f-0	Sr	27.5%	6.7%	4.7%
67	C.J.	Harris	W. Forest	6-f-3	Jr	22.0%	5.4%	4.7%
68	Chace	Stanback	UNLV	6-f-8	Sr	35.4%	7.2%	4.6%
69	Miguel	Paul	E. Carolina	6-f-3	Jr	22.9%	6.2%	4.6%
70	Jerian	Grant	N. Dame	6-f-5	So	29.4%	5.6%	4.6%
71	Justin	Cobbs	California	6-f-2	So	30.3%	6.7%	4.6%
72	Adam	Smith	NC Wilm	5-f-11	Fr	25.6%	6.1%	4.6%
73	Nik	Cochran	Davidson	6-f-3	Jr	37.5%	6.8%	4.6%
74	Brian	Stafford	Denver	6-f-4	Sr	28.3%	5.9%	4.6%
75	Nasir	Robinson	Pitt	6-f-5	Sr	31.0%	6.2%	4.6%
76	Chris	Smith	Louisville	6-f-2	Sr	39.3%	6.6%	4.6%
77	Jeremy	Granger	E. Illinois	6-f-1	Sr	22.0%	5.8%	4.6%
78	Deonte	Burton	Nevada	6-f-1	So	23.4%	5.8%	4.6%
79	Brandon	Young	DePaul	6-f-3	So	22.7%	5.9%	4.5%
80	Tyrus	McGee	Iowa St.	6-f-2	Jr	51.8%	9.1%	4.5%
81	Evan	Roquemore	S. Clara	6-f-3	So	22.1%	5.3%	4.5%
82	Terrell	Stoglin	Maryland	6-f-1	So	16.2%	5.5%	4.4%
83	Ashton	Gibbs	Pitt	6-f-2	Sr	20.5%	5.1%	4.4%
84	Scott	Eatherton	St. Franc PA	6-f-8	So	30.8%	6.9%	4.4%
85	Jordan	Hulls	Indiana	6-f-0	Jr	35.8%	6.1%	4.4%
86	Gerardo	Suero	Albany	6-f-4	Jr	16.6%	5.8%	4.4%
87	Arnett	Moultrie	Miss St.	6-f-11	Jr	29.0%	7.0%	4.3%
88	Cody	Ellis	St. Louis	6-f-8	Jr	32.9%	8.1%	4.3%
89	D.J.	Richardson	Illinois	6-f-3	Jr	27.5%	5.5%	4.3%
90	Sean	Johnson	Duquesne	6-f-2	Jr	27.1%	6.9%	4.3%
91	Charles	Odum	Portland St.	6-f-0	Sr	22.1%	5.6%	4.3%
92	Terell	Parks	W. Illinois	6-f-7	Jr	26.2%	6.2%	4.3%
93	Ryne	Smith	Purdue	6-f-3	Sr	43.0%	6.3%	4.3%
94	Neil	Watson	S. Miss	5-f-11	So	28.6%	6.6%	4.3%
95	Tyler	Zeller	UNC	7-f-0	Sr	27.5%	6.4%	4.2%
96	Maalik	Wayns	Villanova	6-f-2	Jr	17.7%	5.1%	4.2%
97	Clint	Steindl	St. Mary's	6-f-7	Sr	43.4%	7.1%	4.2%
98	Grant	Gibbs	Creigh	6-f-4	Jr	35.1%	5.9%	4.2%
99	Torye	Pelham	S. Miss	6-f-6	Sr	47.4%	7.6%	4.2%
100	Jake	Koch	N. Iowa	6-f-9	Jr	28.8%	6.7%	4.2%

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/12/1st-value-add-top-100-of-2012-points-to.html

[UticaBusBarn]

'bama Guy, just great stuff! Three dimensional thinking at its best. How do you come up with the premise to calculate and assemble all all this data and integrate it into a coherent, logical whole?

One question - in your analysis, how do you account/value, for those nights that Crowder does not "show-up"? That is, if he were to show-up every game, would he be all world in your calculations?*

Once again, thank you sharing your thoughts and Merry Christmas.

* It strikes this Warrior fan that when Crowder get into foul trouble he starts thinking, which, in turn, makes him less effective. Said in another way, Crowder is a pure instinct player. When he stops playing instinctively, then he becomes just much less a player.

[madtownwarrior]

definitely All-American in showboating - yelling "and 1" and 3 googles before the ball leaves his hands.   Lucky it was a double T last night when he punched the ball out of thew UW-M players hand after UW-M TO (thought he should have been sat down on the bench by Buzz after that)

definitely plays and carries himself on the court "instinctively"...

[bamamarquettefan]

One question - in your analysis, how do you account/value, for those nights that Crowder does not "show-up"? That is, if he were to show-up every game, would he be all world in your calculations?*

Thanks, and that is a good question.  The stats do account for all games, so they are an overall average.  Yes, if Crowder were to play every night like he did against LSU, or West Virginia last year or many other games he would shoot up to No. 1 of all players - but really that is true of most top players.  Basketball is one of those sports where even the superstars can have 30 point games and then have 6 turnover games (I have researched, but it seemed Wade, McNeal and now DJO all threw in some of the later.  But I agree that Crowder has even more inconsistency that is typical - higher highs and lower lows - and the occasional event like hitting the ball last night or going back to push the Vandy player last year that you can't have.

madtownwarrior - I had to laugh because it occurred to me that when I was at the LSU game I was yelling "and one" every drive and making the google sign every time we put up an open three, so maybe I'm too into things.  I get your point on the possibility of sitting Crowder for the poorly timed technical, but it also reminds me of the Al McGuire play.  He talks about telling George Thompson (I believe, maybe it was another star) that he is sitting the rest of the game for some transgression.

Then he says something like, "You are going to sit for the rest of the game to learn your lesson ... We are up 14 points.  Well, I look up at the scoreboard and then we are up 10.  I look back and we are up 6.  I look up one more time and we are up 2.  I yell down to George, 'Have you learned your lesson yet?!?!?!?!?' and he says 'YES SIR' and I stick him back in the game.  Heck, I'm not losing the game with my best player on the bench!"

I guess my point is, maybe Buzz decides to sit him if we are 20 points ahead of UWM, but maybe he can't quite bring himself to do it with the game in single digits.  Not saying you are right or wrong, just that he might decide he'd rather put up with the temper on that play than take a chance on being the coach who dropped MU to 38-1 against UWM.  :-)

[bilsu]

Has MU really played their last mid-major opponent this year? The Big East is a mjor conference, but are teams like Seton Hall, Rutgers, South Florida, Providence and DePaul major programs. Certainly at one time I would of considered DePaul and Providence to be major programs and maybe someday they will be again, but I do not consider them a major program right now. Does conference affiliation make you a major program? it is hard to argue that a school like Northwestern who has never been to the NCAA tournament is a major program.

[brewcity77]

Has MU really played their last mid-major opponent this year? The Big East is a mjor conference, but are teams like Seton Hall, Rutgers, South Florida, Providence and DePaul major programs. Certainly at one time I would of considered DePaul and Providence to be major programs and maybe someday they will be again, but I do not consider them a major program right now. Does conference affiliation make you a major program? it is hard to argue that a school like Northwestern who has never been to the NCAA tournament is a major program.

Looking at Pomeroy, I think they're still major programs. We had a strong non-con this season, Mount St. Mary's is our only sub-250 team. Last year we played 6 sub-250 teams. But that said, I'd say we can rule out Green Bay and Milwaukee as prototype cupcakes...we schedule them because they are local. So our cupcakes are 181 Northern Colorado, 196 Norfolk State, 239 Jacksonville, 242 Winthrop, and 313 Mount St. Mary's.

Looking at the Big East, Seton Hall is actually looking like a pretty good team, ranked 55. As far as the bottom of the Big East, we have...

119 Providence
131 Rutgers
133 South Florida
151 DePaul
172 St. John's

So the worst Big East team out there is rated higher than the best buy game cupcake we've played so far. They may not be tourney teams, but they are still better than most teams in the nation.

If you consider the top-150 to be your upper echelon programs -- not necessarily tourney teams but good enough to give competitive games -- then every major conference has some outliers. The Pac-12 and ACC both have 3 sub-150 teams. The Big East has 2, the SEC and Big 12 each have 1, and the Big Ten is the only major conference without any (Penn State is 146). Just the nature of the beast that not everyone will be top-100, especially when there are 74 high-major programs and a lot of good mid-majors. It's not like we have a Utah in our conference.

[bamamarquettefan]

Has MU really played their last mid-major opponent this year? The Big East is a mjor conference, but are teams like Seton Hall, Rutgers, South Florida, Providence and DePaul major programs. Certainly at one time I would of considered DePaul and Providence to be major programs and maybe someday they will be again, but I do not consider them a major program right now. Does conference affiliation make you a major program? it is hard to argue that a school like Northwestern who has never been to the NCAA tournament is a major program.

Yes, the "BCS" conferences are considered the "Major" conferences in basketball, so regardless of how good a team is we will not play any more Mid-Majors.  There has been occasional argument over which conferences are Mid-Major and which are lower - but even when Memphis and Butler go to the national championship they are mid-majors and no matter how bad DePaul has been they are still a Major Conference opponent.

Just to add to BrewCity's point, the amazing thing this year is just how much more balanced the schedule is.  Looking at last year's RPI, and this year's projected RPI;

We are expected to play 7 Top 25 RPI teams this regular season compared to a ridiculous 12 last year, but

We are only expect to play 4 teams outside the top 200 this year (with only one being outside the Top 300), compared to last year when we played 7 teams outside the Top 200 and 4 were outside the Top 300.

My complements on the scheduling that we seem to be trying to get the RPI killing bottom teams off the schedule, and that is another reason Crowder's numbers are so good to date - the average defense is so much better this season than it was during the early season last year.