Kentucky Duo, Son of 'The Glove' All-Americans at Break

Defense dominates the All-American team at the break. Kentucky’s duo underneath held UCLA Saturday to 3 of 37 shooting in the first half to rank as the best center and power forward, while the son of Gary “the Glove” Payton of the same name remains the only player in the country among national leaders in seven of eight categories.

Stats for all 4000+ players are being updated at www.valueaddbasketball.com. The value indicates the number of points a player improves his team over a back-up that would play in his place.

Even Kentucky fans scoffed when Breitbart Sports named Willie Cauley-Stein an All-American last year based on his overwhelming defense. No more. He is in a three-way race for MVP this year after his four blocked shots, intimidation, and quickness held UCLA to 3 of 37 shooting in the 1st half Saturday, and with his speed he is now likely to go in the NFL Draft before going in the first round of the NBA Draft, according to the Kansas City Star!

Amazingly he is no longer Kentucky’s best shot-blocker, as freshman Karl-Anthony Towns joins him on the first team having blocked more than 15% of opponents’ two point shots.

It was no fluke when Gary Payton’s son joined his father of the same name as only the second player in Oregon State history to record a triple-double. Ken Pomeroy measures the eight main ways in which players help their team’s win – and Payton has the almost unheard of feat of being among his national leaders in each category except drawing fouls:

Shooting (eFG%): 59.9% is top four percent of all players

Offensive Rebounding: he grabs 10.2% of Oregon State’s missed shots

Defensive Rebounding: he grabs 19% of their opponents’ missed shots

Assists: he assists on 20.1% of the baskets he does not score himself

Turnovers: he turns it over only 14.6% of his possessions

Blocked Shots: he blocks 4.0% of opponents’ shots, the 7th best total for anyone 6-foot-3 or smaller – like his Dad’s NBA champ backcourt mate Dwyane Wade

Steals: he steals the ball on 5.6% of opponents’ trips, the 11th best total in the country – his Dad was in the Top 10 in the NBA eight years in a row.

Delon Wright was nudged out for Value Add MVP last year (see all seasons from 2003 to present here) by Shabazz Napier last year and has a shot again.

While those four have used unbelievable defense to go 1st Team All-American at the break, a couple of players in smaller conferences have put up unbelievable numbers – worth about 8 additional points per game on offense alone. Zikiteran Woodley from Northwestern State gets the 1st team nod as the top small forward, though generally players in bigger conferences pass smaller school players during conference play. To that end, Georgia Southern’s Jelani Hewitt and UC Davis’ Corey Hawkins actually have microscopic edges over the first team point guards based purely on Value Add calculations, but we made minor adjustments in selecting the top five All-American teams at this point.