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Sports Illustrated's numbers guru - and recent Banners hero - Luke Winn has run the projections on the Big East for the upcoming season, and his machine has spit out some unsurprising results. For the season's awards, he has Steve Lavin as the Coach of the Year, D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera as Player of the Year, and Isaiah Whitehead as the Freshman of the Year.
I'm sure Whitehead will get enough possessions to make an impression if he plays well, and it's hard to argue with the work DSR has done so far in his career, but I haven't been impressed with Lavin's coaching so far. When I used to play the NBA Live series on a regular basis, I would try to compile as many guys who could shoot threes as possible and figure out the rest later. Lavin seems to take the same approach except with athleticism, and he and I have won the same number of Big East titles with our respective strategies.
Anyway, here is the projected Big East table, per Luke Winn:
| RANK | TEAM | PROJECTED CONF. W | PROJECTED CONF. L | 2013-14 CONF. W | 2013-14 CONF. L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Villanova | 14 | 4 | 16 | 2 |
| 2 | Georgetown | 12 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| 3 | Xavier | 10 | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| 4 | St. John's | 9 | 9 | 10 | 8 |
| 5 | Providence | 9 | 9 | 10 | 8 |
| 6 | Marquette | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 7 | Seton Hall | 8 | 10 | 6 | 12 |
| 8 | Creighton | 8 | 10 | 14 | 4 |
| 9 | Butler | 7 | 11 | 4 | 14 |
| 10 | DePaul | 4 | 14 | 3 | 15 |
There's nothing too shocking in there. I can see a scenario in which Xavier has a couple of things break their way and they end up in second, but Nova seems to be the class of the conference at this point. On the balance of all the things that could possibly happen, the projection seems just about fair to X.
Winn also projected top players for each team, finally ending the speculation about who he sees as Xavier's fifth scorer. It's worth clicking through to read what he wrote about X, as I have decided to err on the side of Fair Use caution and not paste it here. Here are the numbers for the Muskies:
| NAME | POS | CLASS | PPG | RPG | APG | O-RATING |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Stainbrook | F | Sr | 12.1 | 7.6 | 2.1 | 111.4 |
| Trevon Bluiett | F | Fr | 9.6 | 4.1 | 1.3 | 104.6 |
| Jalen Reynolds | F | So | 8.8 | 6.9 | 0.5 | 112.5 |
| Remy Abell | G | Jr | 8.5 | 2.6 | 1.6 | 116.0 |
| Dee Davis | G | Sr | 8.5 | 1.6 | 4.1 | 108.7 |
| Myles Davis | G | So | 7.4 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 107.6 |
| James Farr | F | Jr | 6.2 | 4.2 | 0.3 | 114.4 |
It's Dee. I'm not sure on how I feel about that. Obviously, I love Dee, but I wouldn't have minded seeing Myles Davis projected to get a few more buckets. It's also interesting to see Remy Abell projected to put up the highest ORtg, as he is primarily noted as a guy who can lock someone down on defense and doesn't need a whole lot possessions to stay engaged.
How do these projections look to you? Did Xavier get sold short on the standings? Is someone missing from the top scorers who should be up there?