I’ve been putting this off, but the time has come.
First, a look at the school’s with the most MAA’s this year:
8 North Carolina
7 Duke
3 UCLA, Georgetown
2 Arizona St., Georgia Tech, Kansas, Louisville, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Syracuse, Villanova
7 of Duke’s top 8 scorers are MAAs, with the only exception being Brian Zoubek.
North Carolina is getting production from some non-MAA players, but they have so much talent to burn, it isn’t even fair. Imagine if Ellington, Hansbrough, and Green had left early last year. How much time would we be spending talking about Tyler Zeller and Ed Davis? Instead, I’m guessing a large segment of fans don’t even know who those players are.
For the first time in a long time, Texas is missing from this list. And Texas, Pittsburgh, Xavier, Purdue, and Michigan St. are the only teams in the AP top 20 without a MAA. In fact, the Big Ten is virtually without any of the country's premiere recruits.
MAA’s by Conference
21 ACC
13 BigEast
9 Pac10
7 Big12
6 SEC
3 Non-BCS
2 Big10
And given the Ohio State’s two MAA players, William Buford and B.J.Mullens are not dominating, this is quite likely the weakest group of MAA’s in Big Ten history.
Let’s take a look at this year’s freshman. ORtg is from Kenpom.com and gives a sense of the efficiency of the scoring.
Productive and Efficient
PPG - R - A - ORtg - Name - School
19.1 - 6.1 - 2.3 - 119.4 - Sylven Landesberg - Virginia
17.0 - 6.1 - 1.1 - 126.6 - Samardo Samuels - Louisville
14.9 - 7.3 - 1.5 - 107.6 - Luke Babbitt - Nevada
13.9 - 1.6 - 2.6 - 113.2 - Willie Warren - Oklahoma
13.3 - 5.8 - 2.1 - 123.9 - Greg Monroe - Georgetown
11.1 - 3.7 - 3.2 - 113.5 - Kemba Walker - Connecticut
10.8 - 3.9 - 2.9 - 121.8 - Jrue Holiday - UCLA
With Virginia sitting at 4-3, no one realizes what a great season Landesberg is having. Between Blake Griffin and Willie Warren, Oklahoma would be nowhere without its two MAAs.
Not as efficient, but still good
16.1 - 5.8 - 3.8 - 95.4 - Tyreke Evans - Memphis
15.9 - 3.4 - 0.9 - 101.7 - Mike Rosario - Rutgers
11.5 - 6.4 - 0.4 - 101.0 - Michael Dunigan - Oregon
11.4 - 4.1 - 6.3 - 97.7 - Iman Shumpert - Georgia Tech
11.3 - 8.8 - 1.9 - 99.6 - Al Farouq Aminu - Wake Forest
9.8 - 4.3 - 1.0 - 86.3 - Demar DeRozan - USC
Evans has had a few bad shooting days. Rutgers probably needs Rosario to keep shooting given the amount of talent on the team. Only DeRozan’s production can really be considered detrimental to the team at this point.
Limited role in offense
10.0 - 1.5 - 0.5 - 109.9 - Tyler Zeller - North Carolina
9.7 - 7.1 - 0.8 - 102.0 - Chris Singleton - Florida State
8.9 - 8.7 - 0.6 - 106.4 - Ed Davis - North Carolina
8.7 - 1.6 - 0.8 - 106.5 - Scotty Hopson - Tennessee
7.6 - 6.4 - 0.7 - 101.6 - JaMychal Green - Alabama
Limited role and limited efficiency
6.0 - 3.6 - 0.1 - 91.2 - B.J. Mullens - Ohio State
5.9 - 2.3 - 0.7 - 90.2 - William Buford - Ohio State
4.2 - 2.0 - 0.8 - 83.7 - Malcolm Lee - UCLA
2.9 - 2.8 - 0.9 - 74.5 - Elliot Williams - Duke
2.2 - 1.7 - 3.2 - 91.7 - Larry Drew - North Carolina
And here are the rest of the MAA’s who have stayed in college. Most are off to tremendous starts, although many of them have yet to face top competition.
PPG - R - A - ORtg - Name – School - Class
23.7 - 6.9 - 3.9 - 126.9 - James Harden - Arizona St. - SO
23.1 - 15.1 - 2.5 - 120.5 - Blake Griffin - Oklahoma - SO
22.8 - 7.2 - 0.6 - 133.1 - Tyler Hansbrough - North Carolina - SR
19.1 - 10.3 - 0.5 - 103.6 - Gani Lawal - Georgia Tech - SO
18.8 - 6.1 - 3.1 - 122.6 - Chase Budinger - Arizona - JR
17.9 - 2.6 - 4.8 - 113.9 - Sherron Collins - Kansas - JR
17.6 - 9.1 - 3.0 - 130.8 - Patrick Patterson - Kentucky - SO
17.5 - 2.4 - 4.8 - 117.2 - Johnny Flynn - Syracuse - SO
16.8 - 11.4 - 1.1 - 111.9 - Jon Brockman - Washington - SR
16.6 - 7.8 - 3.5 - 117.9 - Kyle Singler - Duke - SO
16.3 - 2.2 - 6.9 - 143.6 - Ty Lawson - North Carolina - JR
15.8 - 5.6 - 1.9 - 118.8 - James Anderson - Oklahoma St. - SO
15.0 - 4.0 - 6.7 - 115.2 - Nick Calathes - Florida - SO
14.1 - 10.4 - 1.7 - 128.7 - Cole Aldrich - Kansas - SO
13.9 - 3.2 - 4.6 - 111.5 - Scottie Reynolds - Villanova - JR
13.8 - 4.6 - 2.6 - 117.6 - Austin Freeman - Georgetown - SO
13.4 - 4.2 - 2.4 - 122.7 - Wayne Ellington - North Carolina - JR
13.3 - 4.8 - 3.1 - 133.7 - Danny Green - North Carolina - SR
13.3 - 3.8 - 2.3 - 116.1 - Jon Scheyer - Duke - JR
12.8 - 6.9 - 1.8 - 121.0 - Tasmin Mitchell - LSU - SR
12.4 - 3.4 - 3.8 - 118.2 - Chris Wright - Georgetown - SO
12.3 - 3.5 - 1.1 - 130.6 - Corey Stokes - Villanova - SO
12.3 - 2.5 - 2.2 - 118.5 - Nolan Smith - Duke - SO
11.6 - 8.1 - 3.4 - 110.4 - Earl Clark - Louisville - JR
10.7 - 4.3 - 1.8 - 114.6 - Gerald Henderson - Duke - JR
10.0 - 3.5 - 3.0 - 121.1 - Tweety Carter - Baylor - JR
All of the above players are having incredibly efficient starts with the possible exception of Gani Lawal at Georgia Tech. But again, when you look at Georgia Tech's offense, it isn’t clear to me that he should be shooting less.
How good is the sophomore class? Corey Stokes, was one of the only disappointments last year, but he is off to an incredible start this year, knocking down 49% of his threes.
9.9 - 5.5 - 1.4 - 105.5 - Micah Downs - Gonzaga - SR
9.1 - 5.4 - 1.6 - 108.0 - Mike Williams - Cincinnati - RSR
8.2 - 3.9 - 0.5 - 124.4 - Lance Thomas - Duke - JR
7.2 - 5.0 - 1.0 - 114.8 - Luke Zeller - Notre Dame - SR
5.8 - 1.3 - 1.9 - 104.6 - Greg Paulus - Duke - SR
4.8 - 5.1 - 0.2 - 108.1 - James Keefe - UCLA - JR
I like to poke fun at the above players for having a smaller role on their team, but all of them have been solid role players. Also, Mike Williams has returned from multiple injuries so I really shouldn't expect more out of him yet.
Uggh
13.9 - 1.1 - 3.4 - 102.7 - Eric Devendorf - Syracuse - SR
13.6 - 6.3 - 0.2 - 89.6 - Korvotney Barber - Auburn - SR
13.0 - 8.4 - 2.1 - 97.7 - Brandon Costner - NC State - SR
11.9 - 3.6 - 6.6 - 97.5 - Byron Eaton - Oklahoma State - SR
2.6 - 1.2 - 2.0 - 84.2 - Bobby Frasor - North Carolina - SR
1.3 - 1.3 - 0.3 - 86.3 - Eric Boateng - Arizona St. - SR
You know, the class of 2005 had a surprising number of busts.