Big East Basketball: Top-five rising juniors for 2018-19

Big East Basketball did lose the bulk of its top players from a year ago, but this rising junior class means the conference is still loaded with talent.

Advanced metrics guru Bart Torvik has helped proliferate a stat called PORPAGATU! (PRPG!) throughout this decade. While the acronym looks messy, as Torvik writes, it simply measures how many more points per game a player creates than a replacement player would, while taking one’s usage into account. For reference, offensive rating does not do this. Llst season, Marquette’s Matt Heldt tied for the best offensive rating in the nation but did so with just an 8.8% usage rate.

Amongst college basketball’s returning high-major players, all five of the Big East’s best rising juniors – Shamorie Ponds, Markus Howard, Sam Hauser, Myles Powell, and Kamar Baldwin – ranked within the top 60 in PRPG! last season, and inside the top 20 of all rising juniors.

Even though those five players would create a massively undersized unit on the floor together – only Hauser stands taller than Powell’s 6-foot-2 – there is perhaps more playmaking, ball handling, and shooting in that group than any other conference class in the country. These players are also heavy favorites to assume five of the six All-Big East first-team positions once March rolls around, with the best Villanova player (still to be determined) likely joining them.

The performances of Ponds, Howard, Hauser, Powell, and Baldwin this season will not only decide the Big East Player of the Year race but also who pushes Villanova atop the conference. Here is a full breakdown of all five rising juniors.

Honorable Mentions: G Justin Simons (St. John’s), F Alpha Diallo (Providence), G Quentin Goodin (Xavier), and F Sean McDermott (Butler).