Frank Kaminsky, the Breitbart Sports 1st Team All-American, showed once again why he is by far the best center in college basketball. Baylor was down 5 with 10:22 to play when Kaminsky blocked his first of three shots within 90 seconds and the Bears offense never recovered. Kaminsky then blocked the last shot of the half, and early in the second half blocked another shot, ran down the court to get the ball and dish to Sam Dekker for a dunk that made it 32-16 Wisconsin.
Kaminsky ended up with six blocked shots, and was nearly flawless on offense, hitting 8 of 11 shots, 3 of 4 free throws, and having three assists without a turnover in a 69-52 win that sent Wisconsin to the Elite 8 over one of the hottest teams in basketball. Baylor had just dominated Creighton to make the Sweet 16.
Wisconsin has been touted as a contender all season as the only team to keep three players in the Value Add Top 100. While Dekker had a quiet night, the third member of trio (Ben Brust) went five of seven shooting including three three-pointers and crashed the board for six rebounds.
After finding suitors in the first round, Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell (2nd team all-American Center from Louisville), Willie Cauley-Stein (3rd team, Kentucky) and Joel Embiid (4th team, Kansas) will likely all be better NBA players. Kaminsky will be lucky to make the NBA after his senior season next year, but at the college level he is by far the most valuable center and is actually a very good when he needs to take it from perimeter to the hoop. He improves Wisconsin’s average margin by six points over what a good replacement would do according to Value Add.
The Value Add system measures every thing each player does on offense and defense, good or bad, to determine how many points per game he has improved or hurt his teams scoring margins. Kaminsky was the 16th best player at www.valueaddbasketball.com, and way ahead of every other center.