Latest news with #EvanMiyakawa
USA Today
6 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Five of Texas A&M's transfer additions ranked in Evan Miyakawa's Top 100 Transfer Rankings
Five of Texas A&M's transfer additions ranked in Evan Miyakawa's Top 100 Transfer Rankings Texas A&M's basketball future is in great hands under new head coach Bucky McMillan, who has all but rebuilt a program that was decimated entirely a little less than two months ago after former head coach Buzz Williams departed for Maryland. So far, he has added nine players from the transfer portal, including five who are viewed as "elite" and immediate contributors ahead of the 2025-2026 season. On Friday, college basketball analytics expert Evan Miyakawa released his Top 100 transfer portal rankings, which utilize his unique grading system based on each player's offensive and defensive ratings from their performances during the 2024 season. Going back to the five out of nine new Texas A&M players, forwards Mackenzie Mgbako, Rashaun Agee, guard Pop Isaacs, center Federiko Federiko and small forward Rylan Griffen are all ranked in the Top 100 of Miyakawa's rankings, making the Aggies the only team with more than four players within the Top 100, which is mightly impressive, giving McMillan more than enough talent to work with. Here is where all five players are ranked: Forward Mackenzie Mgbako (40th) Guard Pop Isaacs (51st) Forward Rashaun Agee (60th) Center Federiko Federiko (61st) Shooting guard Rylan Griffen (80th) Currently, Texas A&M's 2025 roster consists of 12 players, allowing the team to add three more players to reach the 15-player maximum. It is likely looking to add three more depth pieces at guard, wing, and center. Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Cameron on X: @CameronOhnysty.
USA Today
25-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Has Wisconsin's primary recruiting focus shifted from high school to the transfer portal?
Has Wisconsin's primary recruiting focus shifted from high school to the transfer portal? For the past two to three seasons, the Wisconsin Badgers have been one of the most active teams in the transfer portal. That trend has continued this offseason, where the program currently ranks No. 17 in Evan Miyakawa's transfer activity rating, plus No. 26 in his ranking of incoming transfer classes. The graphic, as shared below, highlights a trend that is becoming more and more prevalent nationwide: Many college basketball programs, including Wisconsin, have allocated nearly all of their recruiting resources towards transfer portal talent instead of high school recruits. This is a major shift from the 2010s, where high school recruiting was all that mattered when it came to roster construction. What has caused this shift to happen? It's been a mix of NIL, fewer restrictions on transferring, and less of a draw to loyalty. The result is programs getting access to players with years of development, which can be more beneficial than high school recruits who are starting from square one. This is extremely important for Wisconsin, considering it plays in a challenging Big Ten. The Big Ten is known for its defense and physicality. Many high school recruits that the conference's programs land needed a couple of years to bulk up and learn the defensive fundamentals necessary to excel in the league. Five-star recruits are obviously the exception to this dynamic, but those high-level prospects don't come often to Wisconsin, or to any Big Ten team for that matter. Wisconsin's only consensus five-star high school recruit since 2010 was Sam Dekker, who attended Sheboygan Area Lutheran High School in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Since Dekker, head coach Greg Gard has only landed three four-star recruits, including incoming 2025 commit Zach Kinziger. That's not a ton of high-school talent for a program that made multiple Final Four runs and has been an NCAA Tournament regular since 2000. Because of this, the Badgers relied on three-star and low four-star recruits who were willing to be patient with their development and learn how to play in the Big Ten. That isn't as common anymore for the mentioned reasons, as players can now transfer as many times as they'd like without having to redshirt. We even saw it this past season, when composite four-star recruit Daniel Freitag didn't play much during his freshman season with the Badgers, then opted to transfer to Buffalo, as opposed to waiting on the bench for a year or two. Wisconsin has found success in the portal long before it was common practice to prioritize recruiting in that area. Former Badger and current Utah Jazz player Micah Potter transferred to Madison from Ohio State in 2018, then led the Badgers to a Big Ten title in 2019-20. Those early experiences in the portal helped Gard and his staff become comfortable when transferring became a more popular decision in the early 2020s. Gard and his staff added both Kamari McGee and Max Klesmit from the portal in 2023, each who both later became important pieces on both the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 teams. Not only did the portal help fill necessary gaps in the roster, but it also gave former in-state standouts a chance to play for their home state's flagship school. Neither Klesmit nor McGee was a highly touted high-school recruit, but both played well enough at the mid-major levels to garner the attention of Gard and other members of the Wisconsin coaching staff. The question now becomes, where does Wisconsin go from here? Does it make sense for the program to allocate all of its resources to transfer portal recruiting, or should it still prioritize landing in-state players? The answer is complicated. Wisconsin can't abandon high-school recruiting, especially with how talented in-state high-school basketball has become in recent years. Landing players from Wisconsin that fit Gard's new scheme is crucial. That's why fans can still get excited about players like Kinziger, who is joining the program from De Pere, Wisconsin. His ability to knock down threes and play solid defense guarantees him a shot to make the rotation his freshman year. Looking forward, there are numerous talented players from the state of Wisconsin in both the 2026 and 2027 recruiting classes. Oregon High School standout Vaughn Karvala is the state's top recruit in the class of 2026. He's garnering lots of interest from Power Four programs. In 2027, both Milwaukee guard Dooney Johnson and Kaukauna wing Donovan Davis rank in the class' top-50, per 247Sports. Both could potentially be as high as five-stars by the end of their recruiting cycle. 'Can't miss' players like both Johnson and Davis are the types of players that Wisconsin should put all of their effort into recruiting out of high school. Both of these players have NBA upside and would take a lot less time to develop than a traditional in-state three-star recruit. Overall, Wisconsin has done an excellent job adapting to the changing times in college basketball. Gard and his staff have hit on many of their portal additions, primarily finding players who were under-recruited and lower-ranked in the portal. John Tonje, who averaged 19.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game for the Badgers last season, is a perfect example. The coaching staff has expanded their focus from developing high-school recruits to also focusing on doing so with transfers. That success has helped the program survive and adapt in the sport's changing landscape. As for what the program should prioritize moving forward, it all depends on the talent available. For most seasons, the portal will have an excess amount of talent that Wisconsin can tap into to reload its lineup, as it has done this offseason. However, in years where the in-state recruits are especially gifted, like 2027, it might make more sense for that to be the place where Badgers extend their resources. Either way, it should depend year-to-year which recruiting method to focus on. It should be an area where Gard and his staff will have to constantly evaluate and pivot. Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes and opinion
Fox Sports
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Efficiency metrics touted Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn all year. Now they're in the Final Four
Associated Press The data told the story all year on Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn. In that regard, it shouldn't be a surprise to see them in the Final Four as only the second all-chalk set of 1-seeds to reach college basketball's final stage. The Blue Devils, Cougars, Gators and Tigers had held the top four spots in daily rankings from KenPom since the first half of February, and their net efficiency ranks among the best ever charted by the analytics site going back more than a quarter-century. They were also the headliners on data-driven rankings from Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa as well, further confirmation of how good these teams have been from November, through March Madness and now entering San Antonio. There's only a few minor variations in those comparisons. Duke is No. 1 for KenPom and Miyakawa ahead of Houston, while the Cougars are No. 1 in Torvik ahead of the Blue Devils. And the offensive and defensive efficiency numbers are all in the top 10 except for Torvik having the Gators at 15th in adjusted defensive efficiency. Otherwise, the data matches the eye test. College and NBA TV analyst Terrence Oglesby, who played at Clemson, pointed to all four having 'big, switchable guys who can make shots" as a common thread between the teams operating at elite efficiency on both sides of the ball. 'Outside of that top four, a lot of people were depending on runs,' Oglesby said. 'You have to be able to play both sides of the ball with consistency. And these four do that so much better than everyone else.' And that applies over years, too, when it comes to KenPom's long-running data. KenPom bases efficiency metrics on points scored or allowed over a standardized 100-possession pace, which eliminates tempo as a factor in high averages boosted by playing at a faster pace or numbers depressed by grind-down-the-clock styles. The overall rankings are determined by net efficiency in terms of how much a team's offensive data outpaces its defensive numbers. In that regard, Duke's plus-39.62 rating is the second-highest net efficiency recorded by KenPom in data back to the 1996-97 season. Only the Blue Devils' 1998-99 team (plus 43.01) that went 37-2 and lost in the NCAA title game ranks higher. Duke is coming off a defensive masterclass in the East Region final against 2-seed Alabama, which had scored 113 points and hit 25 3-pointers in its Sweet 16 win against BYU. The Blue Devils have the nation's tallest roster with every rotation player standing 6-feet-5 or taller, and they're an elite switching group with bigs using their length to capably contest against smaller, quicker guards out to the arc. That helped them smother the Crimson Tide: Alabama went 8 of 32 from 3-point range, made just 45.4% of its two point shots and averaged .942 points per possession. Its 65-point output joined a January loss to Ole Miss (64) as the only times the Tide failed to reach 70 points in the past two seasons. 'Duke is as good a team as we've seen all year,' Alabama coach Nate Oats said. "We've got some really good teams in the SEC, and they're at that level.' Houston (plus 36.49), Florida (plus 36.05) and Auburn (plus 35.25) currently have their own lofty perch, too, with historically elite KenPom numbers. Consider: only six teams have finished with a net efficiency of at least plus 35 in KenPom's history: Duke 1998-99, Duke 2000-01 (37.32), Kansas 2007-08 (35.21), Kentucky 2014-15 (36.91), Gonzaga 2020-21 (36.48) and UConn 2023-24 (36.43). Of that group, three teams — Duke 2001, Kansas and UConn — won a national title. Of this year's Final Four teams, Duke, Houston and Auburn have ranked inside the top five in all of KenPom's daily rankings. Florida started the year at No. 26, but cracked the top 10 by late November. 'You need to have depth and need to have multiple guys that can step up when other guys aren't playing their best,' Florida coach Todd Golden said after Saturday's comeback win against Texas Tech for the program's first Final Four trip since 2014. 'That's why we've been good all year and consistent, why we haven't lost two in a row. We haven't got in any droughts or situations where nobody's stepping up.' Now the Gators are part of a quartet ranked 1-2-3-4 in some order of KenPom's daily rankings dating to Feb. 12, while Auburn (80) and Duke (50) have combined to hold the No. 1 spot 89.7% of the time in the 145 rankings dating to Nov. 4. Along the way, Duke (Atlantic Coast Conference ) and Houston (Big 12 ) went 19-1 in league play before winning three games for their league tournament title. Auburn won the regular season and Florida claimed the tournament title in the a Southeastern Conference that produced a record 14 NCAA bids. The only other time a Final Four featured four 1-seeds came in 2008, with Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and North Carolina making it to through the first two weeks of the NCAA Tournament. Coincidentally, that Final Four also came in San Antonio. This time could mark a coronation for a team that, from a data standpoint, ranks among the sport's best teams in decades. 'It's been the most dominant run by four teams that I can remember,' Oglesby said. 'It's amazing to see really.' ___ AP March Madness bracket: and coverage: Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. recommended
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Efficiency metrics touted Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn all year. Now they're in the Final Four
The data told the story all year on Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn. In that regard, it shouldn't be a surprise to see them in the Final Four as only the second all-chalk set of 1-seeds to reach college basketball's final stage. The Blue Devils, Cougars, Gators and Tigers had held the top four spots in daily rankings from KenPom since the first half of February, and their net efficiency ranks among the best ever charted by the analytics site going back more than a quarter-century. They were also the headliners on data-driven rankings from Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa as well, further confirmation of how good these teams have been from November, through March Madness and now entering San Antonio. There's only a few minor variations in those comparisons. Duke is No. 1 for KenPom and Miyakawa ahead of Houston, while the Cougars are No. 1 in Torvik ahead of the Blue Devils. And the offensive and defensive efficiency numbers are all in the top 10 except for Torvik having the Gators at 15th in adjusted defensive efficiency. Otherwise, the data matches the eye test. College and NBA TV analyst Terrence Oglesby, who played at Clemson, pointed to all four having 'big, switchable guys who can make shots" as a common thread between the teams operating at elite efficiency on both sides of the ball. 'Outside of that top four, a lot of people were depending on runs,' Oglesby said. 'You have to be able to play both sides of the ball with consistency. And these four do that so much better than everyone else.' And that applies over years, too, when it comes to KenPom's long-running data. KenPom bases efficiency metrics on points scored or allowed over a standardized 100-possession pace, which eliminates tempo as a factor in high averages boosted by playing at a faster pace or numbers depressed by grind-down-the-clock styles. The overall rankings are determined by net efficiency in terms of how much a team's offensive data outpaces its defensive numbers. In that regard, Duke's plus-39.62 rating is the second-highest net efficiency recorded by KenPom in data back to the 1996-97 season. Only the Blue Devils' 1998-99 team (plus 43.01) that went 37-2 and lost in the NCAA title game ranks higher. Duke is coming off a defensive masterclass in the East Region final against 2-seed Alabama, which had scored 113 points and hit 25 3-pointers in its Sweet 16 win against BYU. The Blue Devils have the nation's tallest roster with every rotation player standing 6-feet-5 or taller, and they're an elite switching group with bigs using their length to capably contest against smaller, quicker guards out to the arc. That helped them smother the Crimson Tide: Alabama went 8 of 32 from 3-point range, made just 45.4% of its two point shots and averaged .942 points per possession. Its 65-point output joined a January loss to Ole Miss (64) as the only times the Tide failed to reach 70 points in the past two seasons. 'Duke is as good a team as we've seen all year,' Alabama coach Nate Oats said. "We've got some really good teams in the SEC, and they're at that level.' Houston (plus 36.49), Florida (plus 36.05) and Auburn (plus 35.25) currently have their own lofty perch, too, with historically elite KenPom numbers. Consider: only six teams have finished with a net efficiency of at least plus 35 in KenPom's history: Duke 1998-99, Duke 2000-01 (37.32), Kansas 2007-08 (35.21), Kentucky 2014-15 (36.91), Gonzaga 2020-21 (36.48) and UConn 2023-24 (36.43). Of that group, three teams — Duke 2001, Kansas and UConn — won a national title. Of this year's Final Four teams, Duke, Houston and Auburn have ranked inside the top five in all of KenPom's daily rankings. Florida started the year at No. 26, but cracked the top 10 by late November. 'You need to have depth and need to have multiple guys that can step up when other guys aren't playing their best,' Florida coach Todd Golden said after Saturday's comeback win against Texas Tech for the program's first Final Four trip since 2014. 'That's why we've been good all year and consistent, why we haven't lost two in a row. We haven't got in any droughts or situations where nobody's stepping up.' Now the Gators are part of a quartet ranked 1-2-3-4 in some order of KenPom's daily rankings dating to Feb. 12, while Auburn (80) and Duke (50) have combined to hold the No. 1 spot 89.7% of the time in the 145 rankings dating to Nov. 4. Along the way, Duke (Atlantic Coast Conference ) and Houston (Big 12 ) went 19-1 in league play before winning three games for their league tournament title. Auburn won the regular season and Florida claimed the tournament title in the a Southeastern Conference that produced a record 14 NCAA bids. The only other time a Final Four featured four 1-seeds came in 2008, with Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and North Carolina making it to through the first two weeks of the NCAA Tournament. Coincidentally, that Final Four also came in San Antonio. This time could mark a coronation for a team that, from a data standpoint, ranks among the sport's best teams in decades. 'It's been the most dominant run by four teams that I can remember,' Oglesby said. 'It's amazing to see really.' ___ AP March Madness bracket: and coverage: Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. Aaron Beard, The Associated Press
Washington Post
18-02-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
BYU gets 2 shots at marquee wins to help its case for a bid to March Madness
BYU enters a big week for its NCAA Tournament chances. The Cougars (17-8, 8-6 Big 12) get a pair of chances for a resume-topping Quadrant 1 win. BYU hosts No. 23 Kansas on Tuesday, then travels to No. 19 Arizona on Saturday. BYU's record was 3-6 in Quadrant 1 games and 4-2 in Quadrant 2 as of Monday, while average of 87 mock brackets had the Cougars hovering on the right side of the bubble as a No. 11 seed and appearing in 80 projected fields. BYU ranked 36th in the NET , and anywhere from 26th to 35th in analytics rankings by KenPom , Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa . Vanderbilt at No. 17 Kentucky, Wednesday. The Commodores (17-8, 5-7 Southeastern Conference, No. 41 NET) are in the mix under first-year coach Mark Byington, though they're just 2-7 in Quad 1 games. Wake Forest at N.C. State, Saturday. This starts a do-no-harm stretch for the Demon Deacons (19-7, 11-4 Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 58 NET) after last week's late collapse at home against Florida State resulted in a Quad 3 loss. There's only one game left to really boost their chances (at No. 3 Duke on March 3), so there's little margin for error. No. 13 Purdue at Indiana, Sunday. The Hoosiers (15-11, 6-9 Big Ten, No. 57 NET) are just 2-11 in Quad 1, with this being the biggest game remaining on the schedule. Oklahoma: The Sooners (No. 52 NET) have lost four straight, though Tuesday's trip to No. 2 Florida is a shot at a fifth Quad 1 win. VCU: The Rams (No. 34 NET) have positive metrics, such as being ranked 29th for Miyakawa and in the 30s for KenPom and Torvik. But they're just 1-1 in Quad 1 games and might need the league's automatic bid. Xavier: The Musketeers (No. 54 NET) are just 1-8 in Quad 1 games and don't have another ahead. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college basketball: and
