John Pudner - Page 6

Defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah hopes to keep Oklahoma State on top of its football rivalry with Oklahoma, while Buddy Hield’s surprising decision not to go to the NBA gives the Sooners hope of a big NCAA run.

We ran the Value Add Sports calculations on all returning Tennessee athletes and emailed sports writers and other experts in the state to help rank the 25 state players to watch.

We ran the Value Add Sports calculations on all returning North Dakota athletes and emailed 5 sports writers and other experts in the state to help rank the 25 state players to watch.

Whether or not the Iron Bowl produces one of the top two football teams in the country for a 7th straight year may depend on if the Crimson Tide’s Carl Lawson and Reggie Ragland can get to Auburn quarterback Jeremy Johnson before he fires the ball down the field to D’haquille Williams. So why are we talking about UAB?

Dick Butkus was a Chicago Bear after he starred for the state flagship Fighting Illini, but athletes to watch hail from 10 schools in Bradley, DePaul, Illinois Fighting Illini, Illinois St., Lake Forest College, Loyola Chicago, Northern Illinois, Northwestern, SIU-Edwardsville, Southern Illinois, and Western Illinois with the Academic All-American Player of the Year (Ashley Luke, pictured).

East Coast bias is the only reason we can explain Juju Smith being snubbed from from the preseason Biletnikoff Award list as one of nation’s top receivers.

In 2001, no one from the SEC or 5th ranked Texas worried about 6-6 TCU of Conference USA. On New Years’ Eve, an SEC defense that had beaten Alabama 23-17 keyed on the fastest player in the country, TCU’s Kolby Listenbee, only to have him throw a touchdown pass to begin a 42-3 route in the same place where the SEC plays its championship game.

We ran the Value Add Sports calculations on all returning Virginia athletes and emailed 109 sports writers and other experts in the state to help rank the 20 state players to watch.

LSU has a top-four football team according to ESPN, and a top 4 basketball team according to Value Add Basketball, and two of the four top returning scorers in the country play up the road at Northwestern State.

Heavyweight Joe Frazier’s home state will be represented by the South Carolina Gamecocks against UNC to kick off the ESPN season September 3. But after football wraps up with the annual Clemson-USC rivalry watch out for a breakout basketball season in a lower-weight division with Detrek Browning of Francis Marion.

For years the Won-Loss record dominated pitcher evaluations even more than ERAs. This was wrong, but too many in the baseball analytics community threw out the baby with the bathwater by making winning irrelevant in their calculations.

ESPN refused to cover women’s professional soccer during the new millennium’s first years. Now the network complains that the women receive lower pay than their male counterparts.

Without Kenny Stabler, who passed away Thursday, scouts may have never believed a left-handed quarterback could make it in the NFL and football fans would have not witnessed three of the greatest plays ever in the “Immaculate Reception,” the “Immaculate Deception” and the “Run in the Mud.”

Upon Value Add Baseball’s release two years ago, a disagreement arose over whether the best pitcher necessarily meant most valuable pitcher. The system now lists both. And Cincinnati Reds starter Johnny Cueto ranks as the best pitcher in baseball and deserves the All-Star nod over Clayton Kershaw.

Pat Corbin, one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2013 before Tommy John surgery sidelined him in 2014, returned to the mound for his first regular-season start in 22 months on Saturday night.

When NBA TV asked Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports how DeAndre Jordan could leave $28 million on the table in Los Angeles to sign with Dallas, a laughing Spears blamed taxes.

Anthony Davis decided to collect his $145 million in Louisiana (6% tax rate), Kevin Love chose to get his $110 million in Ohio over LA (5.4% to 13.3%), and Friday Greg Monroe shocked all by rejecting the New York Knicks (3.8% city + 8.8% state) to pay almost 5% less in Milwaukee (0% city + 7.7% state).

The New Orleans Pelicans got a steal in signing Anthony Davis for $145 million—the same amount the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pay Mike Trout even though Davis provides six times as much value.

Three colleges from Massachusetts and Michigan gave the NCAA a strong showing in the NHL Draft, starting when the Buffalo Sabres selected Boston University’s National Player of the Year Jack Eichel with the second pick.

You can call a 1st-round pick a “bust” if he does not produce in the NBA. But his banker will not think of him as a failure.

The big excitement out of the gates in the NBA Draft hinges on if the Los Angeles Lakers pick guard D’Angelo Russell out of Ohio State to play as a temporary backcourt mate and ultimate heir to Kobe Bryant.

The ballot boxes for America’s best college athletes in each state remain open.

With the Virginia vs. Vanderbilt College World Series wrapping up 2014-15 NCAA action, voting has started for the best 2015-16 student-athletes in all 50 states.

Four years after Sports Illustrated hailed the debut of Value Add Basketball, the first Value Add Football database appears today.

Wilt Chamberlain may have been the last player to face a higher degree of difficulty than LeBron James to win an NBA title.

The only “homeless” basketball team, which lost a record 51-straight games several years back and has been shunned by conferences in the northeast, will spend much time in Florida boasting the potential best player and team in an ASun conference that has pulled off big NCAA conference upsets.

The Cleveland Cavaliers try to become the second team in NBA history to win the title by defeating two 60-win teams—without the benefit of Phil Jackson.

The Stanley Cup does not feature a top-two team from either conference, making it only the ninth time that has happened in the past 80 seasons in major U.S. sports.

Michael Jordan never had to take the road without his best two teammates and beat a team that was 47-3 at home. LeBron James’ ability to do that last night, and his history of improving teams more than Jordan, forces the comparison.

For all the abuse Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson took for the intercepted slant pass to lose the Super Bowl, LeBron James’ 21-foot fade away miss at the end of regulation was worse. It could well have cost Cleveland Game

One of the most famous politicians won a basketball title in the only state with no Division 1 team. Before you click on the story, see if you can name the state, the player, and the five other states with only one team.

The “Tonya Harding,” dubbed so by the Atlanta Hawks radio team, who helped the Cleveland Cavaliers sweep the Atlanta Hawks is a former rugby player who “Americans hate,” according an Australian news outlet, and who has “got to learn,” according to the player who nailed him in the head with an elbow.

A year after his chaplain survived an attack from an atheist group for “arranging Bible studies, organizing devotionals and distributing Bibles and other religious materials,” Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has been pressured to cancel an appearance with a pro-family group despite just 1,391 signing an on-line petition against his appearance.

The Hoops Database for the People lists the top 100 teams based on current rosters. Next season’s top 100 teams aren’t this past season’s top 100 teams.

On Memorial Day it is obvious the top Value Add basketball players at each Military Academy have a lot to balance.

Will American companies allow foreign money in political campaigns?