Breakthrough Analytics Allow Fans to Project Hoops Upset Margins

Newly created Value Add 3.0 Basketball now creates the equivalent of a Sagarin Projection Rating for all 4000 basketball players to enable quick projections on final scores in light of basketball players being injured or returning. DonBest updates injury status on all teams here.

Denzel Valentine is worth 8.68 points per game to Michigan State, and their Sagarin rating is actually 88.60 with him in the game and 79.91 when he does not play.  Therefore, the Spartans were actually a substantial underdog when they visited Iowa this week—as we walk through the math in the 3.0 system and the Iowa vs. Michigan State game here.

UNC’s Sagarin Rating is 90.35. However, that is being held down because star Marcus Paige (worth 5.95 points a game) was out the first six games, and now Kennedy Meeks (5.95 points per game) sits. The attached table showing all 351 team’s Sagarin ratings with and without players who have been or are injured indicates that UNC’s Sagarin in games Paige misses is 87.15, with both him and Meeks both on the court is 94.61, and with Meeks now out for some games is 91.87. The fact is UNC and Louisville are the to two teams in the country when at full strength.

We provide detail on the 1,000+ lines of code that went into the 3.0 version of the system that was first developed in 2011 is here—but unless you are going to the Analytics Convention at MIT in a couple of months you will probably appreciate this table, which let’s you look up DonBest to see if he lists any key players as injured, then look up the team on the Predictor for any of the 351 teams to see what the true Sagarin Predictor is with or without the player, add four points to the home team, and have your predicted score with the key player(s) properly weighted.

89.0 Sagarin = Sweet 16 team

82.0 = Makes NCAA Tournament. Notice UNC with Meeks and Paige is a national contender, but if both were out would barely be good enough to even make the tournament at 83.73.

79.0 = NIT. Notice a team that loses a player worth 4 points a game can drop from barely making the NCAA to not even making the NIT

75.0 = Makes one of the other tournaments (CBI/CIT)

Below 75.0 = No postseason bid

The following shows the 20 teams with the most riding on the injured or returning players. But all teams are listed in the table regardless of injuries, with a note on which of the above ranges they should fall into with or without the key players in question.

Rnk	Team	Injured Players worth 2+	Player’s value	Sagarin	w him	w/o him
1	TCU	Washburn, Chris	5.50	75.06	80.56	75.06
1	TCU	Williams, Kenrich	6.01	75.06	81.07	75.06
1	TCU	With Both, or Neither			86.57	75.06
2	North Carolina	Paige, Marcus 5	5.95	90.35	93.09	87.15
2	North Carolina	Meeks, Kennedy 3	4.93	90.35	91.87	86.94
2	North Carolina	With Both, or Neither			94.61	83.73
3	Howard	Collins, Damon 15	2.54	65.99	66.22	63.68
3	Howard	Daniel, James 11	7.66	65.99	66.69	59.02
3	Howard	With Both, or Neither			66.92	56.71
4	Wichita St.	Shamet, Landry 11	5.96	82.46	87.23	81.27
4	Wichita St.	VanVleet, Fred 23	4.21	82.46	83.72	79.51
4	Wichita St.	With Both, or Neither			88.49	78.32
5	Vermont	Wills, Dre 24	6.27	71.76	75.42	69.15
5	Vermont	Steidl, Kurt 34	3.63	71.76	72.06	68.43
5	Vermont	With Both, or Neither			75.72	65.82
6	Northwestern St.	West, Jalan 12	9.84	62.06	70.26	60.42
7	Rutgers	Diallo, Ibrahima	6.80	66.34	73.14	66.34
7	Rutgers	Freeman, Deshawn 33	2.96	66.34	67.69	64.73
7	Rutgers	With Both, or Neither			74.49	64.73
8	Arizona	Smith, Ray	6.09	88.07	94.16	88.07
8	Arizona	Tarczewski, Kaleb 35	3.55	88.07	90.25	86.71
8	Arizona	With Both, or Neither			96.34	86.71
9	Iowa St.	Long, Naz	5.01	87.17	92.18	87.17
9	Iowa St.	Burton, Deonte 30	4.20	87.17	90.67	86.47
9	Iowa St.	With Both, or Neither			95.68	86.47
10	Iona	English, AJ 5	8.88	75.03	78.58	69.70
11	Michigan St.	Valentine, Denzel 45	8.68	87.93	88.60	79.91
12	USC	Jacobs, Julian 12	4.89	84.96	86.09	81.20
12	USC	Boatwright, Bennie 25	3.70	80.68	85.24	81.55
12	USC	With Both, or Neither			86.37	77.79
13	Auburn	Purifoy, Danjel	6.00	76.22	82.22	76.22
13	Auburn	Dunans, TJ 4	2.34	76.22	76.43	74.09
13	Auburn	With Both, or Neither			82.43	74.09
14	Middle Tennessee	Potts, Giddy 20	7.84	77.61	79.18	71.34
15	Northwestern	Law, Vic	3.56	82.57	86.13	82.57
15	Northwestern	Olah, Alex 22	4.07	82.57	82.88	78.81
15	Northwestern	With Both, or Neither			86.44	78.81
16	Rhode Island	Iverson, Kuran 23	1.48	80.08	80.08	78.60
16	Rhode Island	Martin, Hassan 12	5.92	80.08	80.08	74.16
16	Rhode Island	With Both, or Neither			80.08	72.67
17	North Dakota	Hooker, Quinton 21	7.30	63.89	64.80	57.50
18	Utah St.	Collette, David	7.04	74.81	81.85	74.81
19	Vanderbilt	Justice, Camron 0	1.90	91.34	92.20	90.30
19	Vanderbilt	Kornet, Luke 3	4.45	91.34	92.55	88.10
19	Vanderbilt	With Both, or Neither			93.42	87.07
20	Wisconsin	Dearring, Riley	2.43	79.39	81.82	79.39
20	Wisconsin	Pritzl, Brevin	3.21	79.39	82.60	79.39
20	Wisconsin	With Both, or Neither			85.03	79.39