Beating the Bracket: A Guide to the Midwest Region, Part II

The bottom half of the Midwest bracket contains a Cinderella that could potentially parlay a play-in game all the way to the Sweet Sixteen.

Red-hot Tennessee has two of the top 35 players, both of whom are NBA prospects, and they improved from 25th to 13th in Value Add the past month. They have good chance to win the play-in game over Iowa and then upset UMass and potentially even Duke.

Home Advantage: Michigan has a great path with two games in Milwaukee and then two more in Indianapolis.

The following are the Value Add Rankings for each player in the bottom half of the Midwest Region, their team’s seed, height, year in school, and which players are NBA prospects (all caps). The teams are Arizona St. (10-seed), Duke (3), Iowa (11), Massachusetts (6), Mercer (14), Michigan (2), Tennessee (11), Texas (7) and Wofford (15). 

The items listed for the top few players on each team should be the biggest considerations along with injured players, the home advantage, and which team enters the tournament hot (which we define as improving the most at www.kenpom.com over the past month of the season). The system is a precise measurement of how many points a player adds to his team’s score per game over the player who takes his place. Every score (three-pointer, two-pointer or foul shot), assist, offensive rebound, foul drawn, etc. helps a team score while every turnover and missed shot costs the team points. On defense, every steal, blocked shot, defensive rebound, turnover forced, and opponent’s missed shot takes points off the board while every basket or offensive rebound allowed adds to the opponent’s score. The player’s offensive and defensive combination calculates together with the help of the stats at www.kenpom.com. How many points a player adds to his team’s score appears in the offensive category (shown as “off” in the table below), and his overall impact on points once defense is factored appears as “Total” on the table.

Bottom Midwest Bracket Players (teams in order they appear in bracket):

Rnk	Player	Seed	Team	Ht	Yr	NBA/g	Off	Total
173	Chaz Williams	6	Massachusetts	5′ 9″	Sr	PG	2.84	3.29
230	Cady Lalanne	6	Massachusetts	6′ 10″	Jr		2.12	2.96
356	Trey Davis	6	Massachusetts	6′ 0	So		2.06	2.20
438	Maxie Esho	6	Massachusetts	6′ 8″	Jr		0.76	1.92
501	Raphiael Putney	6	Massachusetts	6′ 9″	Sr		0.88	1.71
866	Derrick Gordon	6	Massachusetts	6′ 3″	So		0.34	0.95
1350	Sampson Carter	6	Massachusetts	6′ 8″	Sr		0.87	0.43
1757	Tyler Bergantino	6	Massachusetts	6′ 9″	So		0.28	0.22
91	Roy Devyn Marble	11	Iowa	6′ 6″	Sr	g	3.92	4.16
136	Aaron White	11	Iowa	6′ 9″	Jr		4.09	3.73
406	Jarrod Uthoff	11	Iowa	6′ 9″	So		2.12	2.03
420	Gabriel Olaseni	11	Iowa	6′ 10″	Jr		2.17	1.97
533	Melsahn Basabe	11	Iowa	6′ 7″	Sr		1.60	1.60
886	Mike Gesell	11	Iowa	6′ 1″	So		1.41	0.93
1060	Josh Oglesby	11	Iowa	6′ 5″	Jr		1.40	0.70
1163	Adam Woodbury	11	Iowa	7′ 1″	So		1.03	0.60
1169	Zach McCabe	11	Iowa	6′ 7″	Sr		1.18	0.59
1617	Peter Jok	11	Iowa	6′ 6″	Fr		0.56	0.28
1838	Anthony Clemmons	11	Iowa	6′ 1″	So		0.36	0.18
18	Jarnell Stokes	11	Tennessee	6′ 8″	Jr	PF	4.37	5.97
35	Jordan McRae	11	Tennessee	6′ 6″	Sr	SG/SF	4.76	5.46
247	Jeronne Maymon	11	Tennessee	6′ 8″	Sr		2.23	2.85
457	Josh Richardson	11	Tennessee	6′ 6″	Jr		2.36	1.87
661	Armani Moore	11	Tennessee	6′ 5″	So		0.80	1.33
675	Antonio Barton	11	Tennessee	6′ 2″	Sr	g	1.37	1.30
839	Darius Thompson	11	Tennessee	6′ 5″	Fr		0.32	1.02
1542	Derek Reese	11	Tennessee	6′ 8″	So		0.00	0.32
2319	Robert Hubbs	11	Tennessee	6′ 6″	Fr		0.00	0.00
	AJ Davis	11	Tennessee	6′ 9″	Fr		0.00	0.00
15	Jabari Parker	3	Duke	6′ 8″	Fr	SF	4.53	6.28
79	Rodney Hood	3	Duke	6′ 8″	So	SF	5.08	4.30
160	Amile Jefferson	3	Duke	6′ 9″	So		3.09	3.48
172	Quinn Cook	3	Duke	6′ 2″	Jr	g	3.51	3.30
236	Rasheed Sulaimon	3	Duke	6′ 4″	So	SG	2.89	2.92
309	Andre Dawkins	3	Duke	6′ 5″	Sr		2.44	2.47
435	Tyler Thornton	3	Duke	6′ 2″	Sr		1.90	1.93
1300	Marshall Plumlee	3	Duke	7′ 0	So		0.46	0.47
1889	Josh Hairston	3	Duke	6′ 8″	Sr		0.32	0.16
	Matt Jones	3	Duke	6′ 4″	Fr		0.00	0.00
214	Langston Hall	14	Mercer	6′ 4″	Sr	g	2.72	3.09
328	Daniel Coursey	14	Mercer	6′ 10″	Sr		1.75	2.34
864	Anthony White	14	Mercer	6′ 2″	Sr		1.91	0.96
912	Bud Thomas	14	Mercer	6′ 6″	Sr		1.50	0.89
1352	Darious Moten	14	Mercer	6′ 6″	Jr		0.86	0.43
1572	Monty Brown	14	Mercer	6′ 11″	Sr		0.57	0.30
1611	Kevin Canevari	14	Mercer	5′ 11″	Sr		0.14	0.28
1759	TJ Hallice	14	Mercer	6′ 9″	Jr		0.44	0.22
1860	Jakob Gollon	14	Mercer	6′ 6″	Sr		0.34	0.17
1908	Ike Nwamu	14	Mercer	6′ 5″	So		0.00	0.15
	Jibri Bryan	14	Mercer	6′ 3″	So		0.00	0.00
	Phillip Leonard	14	Mercer	6′ 2″	So		0.00	0.00
77	Jordan Bachynski	10	Arizona St.	7′ 2″	Sr		2.13	4.36
114	Shaquielle McKissic	10	Arizona St.	6′ 5″	Jr		2.65	3.89
567	Jermaine Marshall	10	Arizona St.	6′ 4″	Sr		2.08	1.50
827	Jonathan Gilling	10	Arizona St.	6′ 7″	Jr		1.36	1.03
856	Jahii Carson	10	Arizona St.	5′ 10″	So	PG	1.03	0.99
1149	Bo Barnes	10	Arizona St.	6′ 4″	Jr		0.59	0.62
1301	Chance Murray	10	Arizona St.	6′ 2″	Fr		0.09	0.47
1570	Egor Koulechov	10	Arizona St.	6′ 5″	Fr		0.23	0.31
1967	Eric Jacobsen	10	Arizona St.	6′ 10″	So		0.07	0.12
118	Jonathan Holmes	7	Texas	6′ 8″	Jr		3.02	3.85
171	Cameron Ridley	7	Texas	6′ 9″	So		1.99	3.34
556	Connor Lammert	7	Texas	6′ 9″	So		1.62	1.54
616	Isaiah Taylor	7	Texas	6′ 1″	Fr	g	0.75	1.41
735	Javan Felix	7	Texas	5′ 11″	So	g	1.43	1.21
791	Prince Ibeh	7	Texas	6′ 10″	So		0.20	1.09
1679	Martez Walker	7	Texas	6′ 4″	Fr		0.32	0.25
1847	Kendal Yancy	7	Texas	6′ 3″	Fr		0.29	0.18
	Damarcus Croaker	7	Texas	6′ 2″	Fr		0.00	0.00
	Demarcus Holland	7	Texas	6′ 2″	So		0.00	0.00
46	Nik Stauskas	2	Michigan	6′ 6″	So	SF	6.59	4.99
204	Caris LeVert	2	Michigan	6′ 6″	So		3.62	3.14
252	Glenn Robinson	2	Michigan	6′ 6″	So	SF	3.48	2.83
339	Jordan Morgan	2	Michigan	6′ 8″	Sr		2.50	2.31
368	Jon Horford	2	Michigan	6′ 10″	Jr		1.67	2.15
453	Derrick Walton	2	Michigan	6′ 1″	Fr	g	2.06	1.88
467	Mitch McGary	2	Michigan	6′ 10″	So	C	0.73	1.82
487	Spike Albrecht	2	Michigan	5′ 11″	So	g	1.80	1.75
902	Zak Irvin	2	Michigan	6′ 6″	Fr		1.81	0.91
346	Karl Cochran	15	Wofford	6′ 1″	Jr	g	0.71	2.27
1035	Eric Garcia	15	Wofford	5′ 11″	Fr		1.46	0.73
1118	Lee Skinner	15	Wofford	6′ 6″	Jr		0.42	0.64
1310	CJ Neumann	15	Wofford	6′ 7″	So		0.93	0.47
1520	Indiana Faithfull	15	Wofford	6′ 4″	Jr	g	0.00	0.33
1708	Spencer Collins	15	Wofford	6′ 4″	So		0.48	0.24
1961	John Swinton	15	Wofford	6′ 2″	Jr		0.24	0.12
2090	Jaylen Allen	15	Wofford	6′ 3″	Fr		0.00	0.08
	Aerris Smith	15	Wofford	6′ 8″	Sr		0.00	0.00
	Justin Gordon	15	Wofford	6′ 6″	So		0.00	0.00