Final Preseason Projections (Probably) Are Up

Unless some major news comes in over the next 24 hours, I probably won't run the season projection model again. Last Friday, CBS's Eye on College Basketball (which has the best reporting on college basketball anywhere) posted a listing of all the injuries and suspensions they were aware of. I incorporated all of that information into the model, as well as the news that's come in yesterday about the suspensions of a couple of Indiana's freshmen for the first nine games of the season, as well as this morning's reversal of the NCAA's earlier decision clearing Maryland's Dez Wells to play immediately.

The Wells decision actually brings me to a point that I've been meaning to post on for a while now. Those who analyze college basketball--fans and media alike--tend to put far too much stock into the impact of a single player on a team's fortunes. While it's true that there is the occasional transcendent player who can singlehandedly take an otherwise ordinary team and turn them into a very good one--Blake Griffin is the most recent example--for most teams at the major conference level, the addition or subtraction of a single player isn't usually enough to move the needle very much.

So, let's look at what the model projected for Maryland as of this morning, when Dez Wells was assumed to be benched for the season under the NCAA transfer rules. (The model isn't as high on the Terps as a lot of humans, mostly because it sees Alex Len not for his potential NBA draft status but for his rather pedestrian freshman season, and it sees the Terps' highly-touted freshmen, Jake Layman and Shaquille Cleare, as, well, freshmen. But the projection itself isn't all that important--just take note of it as a baseline:

Player	Class	Team	MIN	FGM	FGA	3GM	3GA	FTM	FTA	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PTS
Logan Aronhalt	SR+	MD	27.3	4.0	11.1	1.8	5.5	2.7	2.8	1.7	2.9	4.6	0.9	1.9	0.6	0.7	1.6	12.6
James Padgett	SR	MD	27.1	4.3	8.6	0.0	0.0	2.9	5.7	5.2	3.4	8.6	0.8	2.1	0.1	0.5	2.2	11.4
Nick Faust	SO	MD	28.5	3.5	9.4	1.0	3.2	2.6	3.9	1.0	3.9	4.8	2.2	2.9	1.1	0.4	2.4	10.5
Jake Layman	FR	MD	23.3	2.5	6.9	0.5	2.1	1.6	2.2	1.7	3.0	4.6	1.4	1.8	0.8	0.7	2.4	7.0
Shaquille Cleare	FR	MD	18.6	2.4	5.4	0.1	0.4	1.6	2.4	2.7	3.6	6.2	0.4	1.3	0.5	1.5	2.2	6.3
Varun Ram	SO	MD	20.2	1.7	4.9	0.7	2.4	1.0	1.3	0.4	1.3	1.8	1.9	1.6	0.9	0.1	2.0	5.0
Charles Mitchell	FR	MD	14.7	1.8	4.1	0.0	0.2	1.1	1.8	1.9	2.7	4.6	0.4	1.0	0.4	0.9	1.7	4.7
Pe'Shon Howard	JR	MD	16.7	1.4	3.5	0.5	1.6	0.9	1.2	0.1	2.2	2.3	1.8	1.8	0.5	0.2	0.9	4.1
Alex Len	SO	MD	11.6	1.4	2.7	0.0	0.0	0.9	1.4	1.2	2.3	3.5	0.3	1.0	0.1	1.7	1.4	3.6
Seth Allen	FR	MD	7.4	0.7	1.9	0.2	0.8	0.4	0.6	0.4	0.8	1.2	0.5	0.5	0.2	0.1	0.8	2.0
John Auslander	JR	MD	2.8	0.2	0.5	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.0	0.2	0.3	0.1	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.6	0.5
Maryland TEAM			200.0	23.7	59.4	4.8	16.5	15.7	23.7	16.4	26.5	42.9	10.7	16.4	5.4	6.9	18.3	68.0
Maryland OPPONENTS			200.0	26.1	62.1	6.6	19.3	14.1	20.3	13.2	23.8	37.0	7.4	11.7	6.1	6.0	19.9	72.8

So what's it look like once Dez Wells and his projected 10.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game are thrown into the mix? Not much different on the bottom two lines.

Player	Class	Team	MIN	FGM	FGA	3GM	3GA	FTM	FTA	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PTS
Logan Aronhalt	SR+	MD	27.3	3.9	10.9	1.7	5.4	2.7	2.8	1.8	2.8	4.6	0.9	1.9	0.6	0.7	1.6	12.3
James Padgett	SR	MD	25.2	3.9	7.9	0.0	0.0	2.7	5.3	5.0	3.0	8.0	0.7	2.0	0.1	0.5	2.1	10.3
Nick Faust	SO	MD	28.5	3.4	9.2	0.9	3.2	2.6	4.0	1.0	3.8	4.8	2.3	2.9	1.1	0.4	2.5	10.3
Dezmine Wells	SO	MD	27.6	3.7	8.7	0.7	2.1	2.0	2.9	1.7	4.7	6.4	1.1	1.2	1.0	0.6	1.9	10.1
Jake Layman	FR	MD	20.5	2.1	6.0	0.5	1.8	1.4	2.0	1.5	2.5	4.0	1.3	1.6	0.7	0.7	2.1	6.1
Shaquille Cleare	FR	MD	15.2	1.9	4.4	0.1	0.3	1.3	2.0	2.2	2.8	5.1	0.3	1.0	0.4	1.3	1.8	5.1
Varun Ram	SO	MD	17.2	1.4	4.1	0.5	2.0	0.8	1.1	0.4	1.1	1.5	1.7	1.4	0.7	0.1	1.7	4.1
Charles Mitchell	FR	MD	10.6	1.3	2.9	0.0	0.1	0.8	1.3	1.4	1.9	3.3	0.3	0.7	0.3	0.6	1.3	3.4
Pe'Shon Howard	JR	MD	13.0	1.0	2.7	0.4	1.2	0.7	1.0	0.1	1.6	1.7	1.4	1.4	0.4	0.1	0.7	3.1
Alex Len	SO	MD	7.2	0.8	1.6	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.9	0.8	1.4	2.2	0.2	0.6	0.1	1.0	0.9	2.2
Seth Allen	FR	MD	3.2	0.3	0.8	0.1	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.5	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.3	0.8
John Auslander	JR	MD	2.8	0.2	0.5	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.0	0.2	0.3	0.1	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.6	0.4
Maryland TEAM			200.0	23.8	60.0	4.9	16.8	15.9	23.7	16.1	26.6	42.6	10.6	15.3	5.6	6.2	17.7	68.5
Maryland OPPONENTS			200.0	26.3	62.0	6.6	19.4	13.2	19.1	12.6	24.6	37.2	8.1	11.8	6.1	5.9	20.0	72.4

That's because you don't just add Dez Wells' stat line to the baseline. There are only 200 minutes per game to go around, so those 27.6 minutes that Wells is projected to play have to come from somewhere. And while Wells is likely to be a better player than the guys whose minutes he's taking, those guys weren't going to be just standing around doing nothing. They'd be taking shots, and getting rebounds, and playing defense that whole time, too. And these guys aren't just folks plucked off the quad; they're ACC-level basketball players. So the net effect is that the Terps will probably score about a half point more per game, and give up about a half point less per game with Wells than they would have without him.

One point per game, net, isn't nothing. But it's not a whole lot, either. According to the model, it's enough to move Maryland up from the #124 spot to #114 nationally, and to leapfrog Clemson for the #9 spot in the ACC.