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):

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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