1st Gay Player Tops Value Add List

As the Supreme Court considers same-sex marriage laws, the first openly gay college basketball player may soon rank as the best transfer available to colleges.

Unlike Jason Collins, who was a terrible NBA player by the time he announced his homosexuality, the Value Add database shows that Derrick Gordon played as a high-caliber player that during the past season. And, according to an SB Nation report, opposing players uttered not a single gay slur.

The attempts to equate the Collins announcement to that of Jackie Robinson struck as an absurdity on both sides. Robinson had to fear for his life and faced the nastiest of slurs, taunts, and refusal of admission to hotels. In fact, the attacks in the current situation come from the political left, with such groups as Moveon.org going so far as to pressure ESPN to fire Chris Broussard for even questioning if Collins’s lifestyle could be consistent with Christian beliefs.

Christians got attacked for daring to speak, not Collins or Gordon. No one chants or taunts, and in fact as a conservative stat nerd all I do is run the numbers at www.valueaddbasketball.com and see that whoever gets Gordon will improve by about 4.1 points per game. If Tyler Harris decides on Auburn during a trip this weekend, then Gordon would top the list of players available for the 2015-16 season.

Proj Rnk	Available for 2015-16	Ht	Yr	Value
251	Harris, Tyler	6’9	4 Sr	4.8
367	Gordon, Derrick	6’3	4 Sr	4.1
444	Foster, Marcus	6’3	3 Jr	3.8
445	Robinson, Stanford	6’4	3 Jr	3.8
468	Mooney, Matt	6’3	2 So	3.68
482	Lecomte, Manu	5’11	3 Jr	3.6
565	Smith, Tarin	6’2	2 So	3.31
570	Harris, Tre	6’5	2 So	3.29
621	Thomas, Jevon	6’0	3 Jr	3.12
648	Griffin, Johnny	6’5	2 So	3.03

Harris signing would move Auburn from 66th, a borderline NIT team, to 44th, a team that probably makes the NCAA tournament. Gordon could do the same for another team, and at this stage all coaches try to accumulate talent to move up the top-100 list below.

It should be noted that another 12 players officially still uncommitted provide more value, but these 12 seem to already lean toward a team. The teams enjoying the inside track on even better uncommitted players appear below:

Arizona – Mark Tollefsen; Duke – Brandon Ingram; Iona – Marcus Johnson; Kentucky – Thon Maker and Jamal Murray; Nevada Las Vegas – Stephen Zimmerman; St. John’s Cheick Diallo; South Florida – Tyrone Outlaw; Texas A&M – Dominic Artis; Texas Tech – Chris Boucher; UCLA – Jaylen Brown; and Washington – Shaqquan Aaron.

The following are the top-100 teams right now. Obviously they will keep adding players, so National Runner-Up Wisconsin dropped out of the top 50 with the departure of Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker, but will build up. Still, this gives a snap shot of how much talent each team has assembled (or at least has leaning their way such as the players in the previous paragraph) to date:

Rnk	Team	Value
1	Maryland	49.65
2	Oklahoma	48.26
3	Louisiana St.	47.71
4	Kansas	47.68
5	Kentucky	47.43
6	Villanova	46.75
7	Duke	45.63
8	North Carolina	44.46
9	Indiana	44.02
10	West Virginia	43.65
11	Texas A&M	43.40
12	Arizona	42.43
13	Vanderbilt	39.90
14	Oregon	39.82
15	Cincinnati	38.66
16	Houston	38.39
17	Baylor	38.04
18	Wichita St.	37.87
19	Texas	37.36
20	Louisville	36.22
21	Michigan St.	36.11
22	Iowa St.	35.91
23	Illinois	35.79
24	Virginia	35.59
25	Gonzaga	35.40
26	Oklahoma St.	35.34
27	Utah	35.06
28	Ohio St.	34.83
29	UCLA	34.29
30	San Diego St.	33.77
31	Notre Dame	33.62
32	Oregon St.	33.38
33	Michigan	33.29
34	Utah St.	32.92
35	Southern California	32.87
36	Virginia Commonwealth	32.72
37	Texas Christian	32.61
38	Southern Methodist	32.58
39	South Carolina	32.50
40	Purdue	32.40
41	Memphis	32.35
42	Xavier	32.20
43	Pittsburgh	32.07
44	Florida	31.95
45	Georgetown	31.59
46	Miami FL	31.47
47	Texas Tech	31.08
48	Mississippi St.	31.01
49	Providence	30.87
50	UAB	30.68
51	Davidson	30.63
52	Mississippi	30.51
53	Florida St.	30.42
54	Washington	29.90
55	Iowa	29.85
56	Wisconsin	29.84
57	Iona	29.77
58	Rhode Island	29.31
59	Pepperdine	28.45
60	Clemson	28.36
61	Richmond	28.34
62	Seton Hall	27.88
63	North Carolina St.	27.53
64	Stephen F. Austin	27.23
65	Syracuse	27.05
66	Auburn	27.03
67	Dayton	26.99
68	Buffalo	26.92
69	South Florida	26.91
70	Hawaii	26.75
71	Connecticut	26.67
72	Georgia	26.46
73	Illinois St.	26.41
74	Valparaiso	26.20
75	Vermont	26.15
76	Marquette	25.92
77	Nevada Las Vegas	25.72
78	St. John’s	25.65
79	Butler	24.94
80	Northwestern	24.91
81	Central Michigan	24.43
82	Washington St.	24.30
83	Temple	24.15
84	George Washington	24.07
85	Tulsa	24.05
86	Missouri	24.00
87	Wake Forest	23.94
88	California	23.91
89	Creighton	23.45
90	Virginia Tech	23.31
91	Arkansas	22.96
92	Georgia Tech	22.84
93	South Dakota St.	22.46
94	Missouri St.	22.02
95	La Salle	21.81
96	Colorado St.	21.75
97	Tennessee	21.73
98	Stanford	21.55
99	Penn St.	21.31
100	Loyola Chicago	21.23