My Tuesday speech asking Senators to pass a resolution stating that states – not judges – should determine their campaign finance laws was pre-empted by a Senator shouting out, “Don’t tell me you had a basketball bracket in the 99th percentile after all these upsets!”
My potentially most stupid pick from the complete bracket below, could come from the movie World War Z, in which an Israeli official explains the “10th Man Theory” to Brad Pitt. The officer’s job was to contradict the opinions of nine other offices to believe that zombies were invading India.
One month before Selection Sunday for March Madness, only 20 teams boast at least four stars for a big March Madness run based on players in the top 10 percent of all players in the new www.valueaddbasketball.com ratings.
Time for me to eat crow for saying the Player of the Year race was over and not seeing a 6-foot-11 Australian sneaking into taking the title.
On December 7, Wofford’s Fletcher McGee broke into the top two percent of all basketball players, enough to make me tune into Wofford’s fun trip to UNC to drop to 0-24 all-time against ranked teams. Only they did not lose.
Thursday the Associated Press named Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield the best football player in the country, and hours later Value Add Basketball calculated that Oklahoma’s Trae Young ranks as the top basketball player in the country.
Any Alabama fan who flipped to basketball after watching their football team’s loss at Auburn witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime performance, as Collin Sexton dominated #14 Minnesota despite playing three-on-five basketball to establish himself as the 16th most valuable player in the country according to www.valueaddbasketball.com.
As I prepared to release these Value Add Basketball ratings right before Midnight Madness, the day that thousands turn out at 351 Division 1 schools to watch the first day of practice and dunk contests, news spread of the arrest of four coaches as the result of an FBI investigation, and the firing of Rick Pitino of Louisville. Count me as the Pollyanna who wants the cheaters caught so that those who refuse to cheat, like Tom Izzo, compete on a level playing court.
Brigham Young withstood bids from power conferences to maintain an independent football program. Value Add projects the BYU basketball team to be better than their football squad this season. TJ Haws (worth 6.00 extra points per game) gives the team a chance in West Coast play to catch national runner-up Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s and National Player of the Year candidate Jock Landale (worth 10.38 extra points per game).
Four Duke 1st Round Draft picks play Summer League with guaranteed NBA contracts bring the total to 38 Duke players in the Value Add historical database who made the NBA, and the average Duke team since 2001-02 boasted a national best 5.5 future NBA players per season.
Value Add Basketball indicates Lonzo Ball, who just pulled off a hilarious Father’s Day rip on his overbearing Dad, should receive $21 million for the next three seasons as the No. 1 pick in Thursday’s NBA draft, while Notre Dame’s Bonzie Colson edges Wisconsin’s Ethan Happ as the best of the 3,704 players still playing for free at the college level.
Despite his claims, Lavar Ball was not better than Michael Jordan, three “white guys” did not cost his son the NCAA title, his son will not be better than Steph Curry, and in fact the final Value Add Basketball calculations prove his son was not even close to the best player in basketball.
Gonzaga and UNC won Final Four games Saturday to set up the championship game predicted by Breitbart Sports on March 14, meaning if you simply filled out all 62 lines as instructed in that post you find yourself in the 99th percentile of the 18 million brackets submitted to ESPN and very likely in first place in your office pool.
If you followed all 63 www.valueaddbasketball.com bracket picks posted on Breitbart prior to the tournament, a Gonzaga-over-UNC championship is almost sure to make you the winner of your pool. Both won this weekend and will be favored over South Carolina, featuring the No. 1 Value Add player in the country in Sindarius Thornwell, and Oregon in Saturday semifinals, respectively.
The brackets were not the only thing Breitbart Sports did right. Breitbart’s March 11 announcement that relative unknown Sindarius Thornwell of South Carolina ranks as the best player in the country garners national notice.
Skeptics abounded after the March 11 announcement that South Carolina’s Sindarius Thornwell passed Kansas’ Frank Mason and Villanova’s Josh Hart as the Most Valuable Player in college basketball according to the www.valueaddbasketball.com rankings. However, there may not be many doubters after his third three-pointer Sunday put South Carolina ahead of Duke 42-41, and was part of a 53-point weekend that denied Marquette and Duke a trip to the Sweet 16 in New York.
The Match-up Bracket predicted six of eight games Saturday, including Wisconsin’s upset of top-seed Villanova, to move into first of the sample brackets and in the 100th percentile of the 19 million ESPN brackets. The East bracket preview explained Wisconsin was
The theory of Value Add Basketball is to calculate the number of points each player is worth to his team above a replacement player, and so far applying it to this year’s bracket correctly predicted 28 of 32 first round games, good for the 99th percentile of all brackets submitted to ESPN (see all picks posted March 14).
Most brackets are in good shape after one day due to only two lower seeds winning. Of the 10 analytical systems used for the sample brackets explained in this Breitbart post, three systems went 15-1 on opening day and the other seven went 14-2.
The following table lists the teams in the order in which they appear on 2017 March Madness brackets. Brackets must be in by Thursday morning on March 16 before the games start, but some leagues may have an earlier deadline. If you simply want to fill out your bracket and be done with it, you can just count the lines below and turn in your bracket to get it off your step.
Breitbart Sports asked the last question to Billy Garrett Jr. as a player for DePaul University, as his hopes of making March Madness died, just like players from 175 other teams. The simplified conference-by-conference list of the 175 teams alive now shows the day of their next conference playoff game, and the chance they will make the tournament if they do not win the automatic bid.
Chris Mullin and John Thompson screamed at each other and the St. John’s and Georgetown players at Madison Square Garden seemed near to blows as cheer leaders scattered and referees started issuing technical fouls and a flagrant and screamed at players to separate. As the Madison Square Garden camera panned to Allen Iverson in the stands, the old Big East that launched ESPN seems to be back with 8:35 to go in a No. 8 vs. No. 9 conference championship opener led by St. John’s 59-55.
Iona pulled out an 87-86 OT thriller to claim the MAAC, and South Dakota State outdid them with thrillers Monday and Tuesday to claim the Summit bid to March Madness, leaving 174 teams vying for the final 24 spots.
The Conference Basketball championships are in fact the opening rounds of March Madness for teams that do not have a chance for an at-large bid to the tournament – and the following is the conference breakdown of 284 teams that still have a chance after 67 teams were eliminated.
Frank Mason defeated Oklahoma Monday in his last home game, staying in 1st place in the newly updated Value Add Basketball rankings to lead the 15 players on the fifth Breitbart Sports All-American team.
The following 32 teams are vying for the final 19 or so NCAA bids that will be left after these locks and auto bids are determined.
Thursday ESPN announced “Josh Hart has led our @Wendys #WoodenAward board nearly the entire year,@KUHoops’ Frank Mason has forced a change,” four days after Breitbart Sports made the same announcement (Mason Passes Hart for POY).
Kansas Frank Mason torched the 6th best defense in the country to pass Villanova’s Josh Hart in the two way race for Player of the Year, according to www.valueaddbasketball.com. However, the Value Add team rankings place Hart’s Villanova in the Final Four along with Gonzaga, UNC and Arizona.
The NCAA’s release of the top 16 bids if March Madness started today left out Wisconsin, Wichita State, and SMU based on Value Add’s new adjustments for injured and returning players.
Frank Mason is worth 12.35 additional points per game to Kansas, enough to turn a would-be 6-point loss to Kentucky Saturday into a 79-73 win according to www.valueaddbasketball.com. That performance moved Mason close to the No. 1 spot in the Player of the Year tally due to Marquette and Virginia holding Villanova’s Josh Hart (13.03) in check.
Objective and subjective methods each have advantages, but the Wooden Award team released a mid-season list of potential Players of the Year that included the top four Value Add Basketball players, leaving off only No. 5 TJ Williams from little-known Northeastern.
The NCAA may replace the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) with systems that reward blowouts in March Madness selection.
Two of the last three teams to have freshman duos among the Top 100 Value Add Basketball players have won the national title – and this season both UCLA and Kentucky have a chance to keep history going.
Fox Sports’ gamble on Big East basketball still results in a small fraction of ESPN’s viewership, but in addition to the defending national champion (Villanova) and Value Add player (Josh Hart), the conference boasts elite players.
The midseason arrival and departures of college basketball players in December lets us put together the first true Top 50 teams with the best chance at March Madness success.
Mirage Manager Jeff Stoneback is a betting line genius, but wrong on one point in this interview with Covers, Value Add Basketball calculates there is no way the best player in college basketball (Villanova’s Josh Hart) is worth only two points a game to Villanova.
This isn’t necessarily my favorite position of the evening, but it is most certainly the most interesting.
For the first time we failed to release a preseason Value Add Basketball team together because – well we were distracted by number crunching on a Presidential Election. However, today we at least put out “pre-conference play” All-Conference and All-American teams.
Virginia rallied to beat Ohio State, thereby holding off Kentucky for the top spot in Value Add by a score of 50.79 to 49.53.
UNC debuts at No. 1 in the Breitbart Sports college basketball rankings, but bettors should look to Utah for the best chance at a big payout. Utah is unranked in the coaches’ and sports writers’ polls, but Value Add Basketball calculates the 6-foot-10 December transfer David Collette will make them up to eight points a game better to project as the 12th best team in the country.
