Top 100 Players on Top 10 Teams Vying for NCAA, NIT, CBI, CIT Titles

The best defensive rebounder in the country, Egidijus Mockevicius, is still playing. So is Chasson Randle, who was already the greatest Stanford player in the history of Value Add. Ten teams are still playing for either the NCAA, NIT, CIT, or CBI title this week, and the top 100 Value Add players still on the court are listed below along with this week’s schedule.

An interesting twist is that all but the NCAA are trying out the 30-second shotclock for the first time—a rule change that may be made for all games next season.

NIT: Randle leads the Cardinal into Thursday’s NIT title game against Miami of Florida, which has the biggest injury in Angel Rodriguez (costs Hurricanes 3.31 points per game if he doesn’t play). Randle now ranks 15th of all players still competing with a 6.45 Value Add, and he is the top player in a tournament other than the NCAA. He ranks ahead of Brook Lopez and other Stanford greats in the All-Time database.

NCAA: Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns (11.35 Value Add after saving Kentucky against Notre Dame) is first on the list, followed by Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky (10.86). Willie Cauley-Stein is third at 8.74.

However, the scary good team right now is Duke. They have the 4th, 5th and 6th highest Value Add players still playing in Tyus Jones, Quinn Cook, and Jahlil Okafor. However, the bigger news is that they also have the hottest player, Justise Winslow, who shot up from 78th to 51st by dominating Gonzaga. Among players still alive Winslow ranks 13th. To have four top-50 players overall is almost unheard of, and to have Duke and Kentucky both enter the Final Four in that position explains why they are both five-point favorites.

Michigan State obviously has Tom Izzo, who will try to work magic with 16th-ranked Denzil Washington and 17th-ranked Travis Trice, but they are truly outgunned now after surprising in the weakest region.

College Basketball Invitational (CBI): The interesting two of three format used by the CBI gives Louisiana Monroe the chance to rally from their first loss to Loyola-Chicago with a home game Wednesday, and if they win another home game Friday they win the title. Louisiana-Monroe’s 6-foot-10 Majok Deng ranks 28th (3.39 Value Add) and is on one-hundredth of a point more valuable than Chicago-Loyola’s top player—6-foot-4 Devon Turk.

Turk leads the team with 72 three-pointers as one of four players hitting over 40 percent from behind the arc. Deng’s value comes as one of the best shot-blockers and rebounders. While other players take more shots on both teams, those are the two most valuable.

College Invitational Tournament (CIT): Egidijus Mockevicius leads Evansville into the tournament. He is the only player in the country who grabs more than one-third of all shots missed by his opponents. He will be matched up against one of the best offensive rebounders in the country in Northern Arizona’s Jordyn Martin, who hits 56% of his two-pointers. Martin ranks 43rd of all players still playing at Value Add, one spot ahead of teammate Quinton Upshur, who goes to the hoop to draw a lot of fouls and would love to get Mockevicius to foul out of the game.

Here is the schedule of the final games of the season:

Wednesday – CBI Championship Game 2 of 3

Loyola-Chicago at Louisiana Monroe (Loyola leads best of 3 series 1-0)

Thursday – NIT Championship

Evansville vs. Northern Arizona 7 pm – CIT Championship

Stanford vs. Miami, 9 pm – NIT Championship

Friday – CBI (if necessary)

Loyola-Chicago at Louisiana Monroe (If LA-Monroe wins Wednesday)

Saturday – NCAA Semifinals

Duke vs. Michigan State 6:09

Kentucky vs. Wisconsin 8:49

Monday – NCAA Championship

Duke or MSU vs. Kentucky or Wisconsin

The following are the top 100 players still playing for one of the 10 teams listed above. You can find out where they rank nationally by clicking on www.valueaddbasketball.com.