Value Add Predictor: Pac12 Has Best All-Conference Team

Computers rank the Big Ten as the best basketball conference from top to bottom. However, if each conference had to put their Top 10 players on the court for a game, the Value Add Predictor gives the Pac12 an 83-74 win over the best players in the Big Ten. UCLA’s Jordan Adams (pictured) gets the better of his counterpart Ben Brust of Wisconsin in the semifinal and then the Pac12 gets past the American Athletic Conference All-Stars 76-73. The box scores of mock games between all 32 All-Conference teams are contained below and in separate posts.

UCLA appeared to be surging toward a potential title run last season when Jordan Adams broke his foot at the end of the season. He ranked as the 36th best player in the country last year (search all players since 2006 by clicking all seasons at Value Add), and is now ranked as the third best player in the country for 2014.

The point totals by each player actually represent the total offense he could generate for his team based on scoring, offensive rebounds, avoiding turnovers and dishing out assists against the overall defense of his counterpart on the other team (measured in defensive rebounding, steals, blocked shots and the ability of the player’s team hold down opponents scoring). The figure is simplified into a single point total, though a player likely to get a lot of assists and offensive rebounds without turning the ball over would show more points than he would actually be expected to score in a particular match-up and vice versa.

The real Final Four will be played in Arlington, Texas, but in the mock tournament the host Big12 was eliminated by the American in the Elite 8 in Memphis. (no home advantage was actually calculated in the model). The American, enjoying their one season before Louisville players depart for the ACC, then beat the SEC 74-71 in the Final Four.

The difference in the championship game may have been the slow starting Russ Smith of Louisville, who is about three points worse than he was last year according to Value Add. That helped him lose the point guard match-up to the red hot transfer Delon Wright of Utah 10-7 to provide the Pac12’s winning margin. 

The Big Ten is the top conference top to bottom based on computer rankings, and the Big 12 and Big East are right in the mix. However, when you compare the star power – the top 10 players in each conference as was done in this mock tournament – it is clear that no one has more talent at the top than the Pac12. You can also see that conferences like the WCC, MAC and MVC have stars that can play with anyone in the country – a good thing to note for March Madness brackets. 

In the mock tournament, all 32 conferences were seeded based on their ratings at www.kenpom.com, and then sent to their likely 2014 tournament sites. The top 10 players to date from each conference were pitted against their counterpart using the Value Add Predictor to determine how many points each player would score against his counterpart, with the winning team advancing. The Value Add of all Division 1 players can be seen at www.valueaddbasketball.com. The following is the Championship box score, followed by the box scores for the two semifinal games that set up the Elite 8 showdown: 

All-Star (1st 5 starters)	P12	76	Championship	All-Star (1st 5 starters)	Amer	73
Delon Wright	Utah	10	PG	Russ Smith	Louisville	7
Jordan Adams	UCLA	8	SG	Shabazz Napier	Connecticut	8
Nick Johnson	Arizona	10	SF	Sean Kilpatrick	Cincinnati	12
Spencer Dinwiddie	Colorado	11	PF	TaShawn Thomas	Houston	10
Joseph Young	Oregon	12	C	Shaq Goodwin	Memphis	11
Johnathan Loyd	Oregon	5	PG-bu	Joe Jackson	Memphis	6
DaVonte Lacy	Washington St.	6	SG-bu	Chris Jones	Louisville	5
Kyle Anderson	UCLA	6	SF-bu	Dalton Pepper	Temple	6
Josh Scott	Colorado	6	PF-bu	Montrezl Harrell	Louisville	6
Jordan Bachynski	Arizona St.	2	C-bu	Justin Jackson	Cincinnati	2

All-Star (1st 5 starters)	B10	74	Final 4	All-Star (1st 5 starters)	P12	83
Aaron Craft	Ohio St.	5	PG	Delon Wright	Utah	8
Ben Brust	Wisconsin	8	SG	Jordan Adams	UCLA	12
Rayvonte Rice	Illinois	11	SF	Nick Johnson	Arizona	10
Adreian Payne	Michigan St.	10	PF	Spencer Dinwiddie	Colorado	11
Frank Kaminsky	Wisconsin	12	C	Joseph Young	Oregon	8
Roy Devyn Marble	Iowa	5	PG-bu	Johnathan Loyd	Oregon	5
Tim Frazier	Penn St.	7	SG-bu	DaVonte Lacy	Washington St.	8
Lenzelle Smith	Ohio St.	5	SF-bu	Kyle Anderson	UCLA	6
Nik Stauskas	Michigan	8	PF-bu	Josh Scott	Colorado	9
Amir Williams	Ohio St.	3	C-bu	Jordan Bachynski	Arizona St.	6

All-Star (1st 5 starters)	Amer	74	Final 4	All-Star (1st 5 starters)	SEC	71
Russ Smith	Louisville	7	PG	Anthony Hickey	Louisiana St.	7
Shabazz Napier	Connecticut	9	SG	Trevor Releford	Alabama	6
Sean Kilpatrick	Cincinnati	12	SF	Jordan McRae	Tennessee	9
TaShawn Thomas	Houston	11	PF	Casey Prather	Florida	11
Shaq Goodwin	Memphis	8	C	Willie Cauley-Stein	Kentucky	4
Joe Jackson	Memphis	6	PG-bu	Chris Denson	Auburn	5
Chris Jones	Louisville	5	SG-bu	Jordan Clarkson	Missouri	6
Dalton Pepper	Temple	7	SF-bu	Michael Frazier	Florida	7
Montrezl Harrell	Louisville	6	PF-bu	Algie Key	Alabama	5
Justin Jackson	Cincinnati	3	C-bu	Aaron Harrison	Kentucky	11