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James O'Brion is a D2* shooting guard, and was just named a second team Preaseason All American in Knight.  Wrap your head around that.  EVERY ONE OF YOU has a better SG than that guy.  If you want to tilt at the "How are Preseason AA's selected?" windmill, start with this data point right here.

If one of y'all can offer any plausible explanation for this, you are officially the smartest guy in the world... or at least the best at understanding dumbness.

*He might have shown up on some D2 lists, but he was listed as D3 for me.  I was so sick of this recruiting class that I decided to bail on this cycle entirely.  O'Brion was one of two D3 seniors I signed to just shift out of this cycle.  He's even the lesser of those two guys!

its mostly about stats, not ratings, but his stats really aren't that good, either. what are the stats of the 3rd AA and maybe some of the honorable mention guards? maybe a poor crop stats wise of upperclassmen sgs?

Good guess, but no... Stephen Mackey is 3rd team.  19 PPG last season in D2.  I don't remember where O'Brion played last season, but he put up 9.9 PPG there.  He doesn't begin to make up the deficit in other areas.

Edit: I'm pretty sure he played D3 last season.  To all eleven of you who will read this - did you cut him?

That's a new one for me.

Maybe projected team importance combined with projected team success? I'm looking at your team though and he's obviously not your best SG so who knows.

How did he shoot 40% from deep last season with those ratings? Even at D3 he's not much good

Wow, that's....well...wow. I would assume that you had a super-successful season last year and that most of your leaders graduated off that team, leaving this kid as the top of the pile for returning productivity (and I'm quite sure that last season's success is a significant contributor to Preseason AA). The problem is the other overall elements that I think go into that list -- productivity the previous season and overall player rating as per the default position formulas -- are just bombed with this kid. 

That's just...wow...I'd actually send a ticket just to see what sort of explanation you get on it. I can't imagine that there aren't 100 teams in the world who bring back a player that good if not better at that position. 

ETA: Wait, I just reread the original post...do you mean you just signed this kid off the D3 list for this season and he was named a Preseason All-American??!?

Well, he has more steals, more rebounds, much better at the line and less turnovers than Stephen Mackey and you are the #3 team in the country.

Ha. Yeah, I was looking through the team earlier today and noticed that. I suppose it's because he scored 10 PPG last year for you, and you project to be excellent again this year.

So here's a theory, which at least makes this plausible:

Let's say that, for the purposes of Preseason All American selections, players at each position are evaluated in certain categories against all the other players at their position.  Let's say that there are 1000 SG's total on the 384 D3 teams.  We'll go way out on a limb and say that the top player in each ranked category gets 1000 points (for being the best out of 1000) and the worst gets one point.  Let's say that there are 700 SG's total on the 276 D2 teams.  The top ranked player in each category would get 700 points, and the lowest would get 1.

Prior to recruiting, O'Brion was considered by WIS to be a D3 player.  Let's say that he is right around the 60th percentile as a D3 SG.  He gets 600 points in, oh, 10 categories or whatever.  That's 6000 points.  That wouldn't be nearly good enough to get anywhere near the top of the leaderboard in D3.  Now, a PERFECT D2 score would be 7000 points.

So here's the possible glitch.  After evaluating him on the player level, as a D3 player, then WIS has to put the lists together.  O'Brion has his 6000 points in his pocket already.  WIS looks at all SG's on D3 teams and, well, wouldn't you know it, O'Brion isn't there!  The D3 Preseason AA's come out as normal.  Then, WIS looks at all the SG's on D2 teams, and, WOW, this guy has 6000 points attached to his name!  He gets slotted in among the players that WIS always considered D2 players, who had a much smaller pool of points available to them.  That 6000, instead of being at the 60th percentile, is suddenly 2nd highest of all SG's on D2 teams.  Meet your new 2nd team SG.

It's a shot in the dark, but the logic works.

Posted by ab90 on 2/2/2015 7:42:00 PM (view original):
Ha. Yeah, I was looking through the team earlier today and noticed that. I suppose it's because he scored 10 PPG last year for you, and you project to be excellent again this year.

...except that he wasn't on my team last year.

Posted by llamanunts on 2/3/2015 1:38:00 PM (view original):
So here's a theory, which at least makes this plausible:

Let's say that, for the purposes of Preseason All American selections, players at each position are evaluated in certain categories against all the other players at their position.  Let's say that there are 1000 SG's total on the 384 D3 teams.  We'll go way out on a limb and say that the top player in each ranked category gets 1000 points (for being the best out of 1000) and the worst gets one point.  Let's say that there are 700 SG's total on the 276 D2 teams.  The top ranked player in each category would get 700 points, and the lowest would get 1.

Prior to recruiting, O'Brion was considered by WIS to be a D3 player.  Let's say that he is right around the 60th percentile as a D3 SG.  He gets 600 points in, oh, 10 categories or whatever.  That's 6000 points.  That wouldn't be nearly good enough to get anywhere near the top of the leaderboard in D3.  Now, a PERFECT D2 score would be 7000 points.

So here's the possible glitch.  After evaluating him on the player level, as a D3 player, then WIS has to put the lists together.  O'Brion has his 6000 points in his pocket already.  WIS looks at all SG's on D3 teams and, well, wouldn't you know it, O'Brion isn't there!  The D3 Preseason AA's come out as normal.  Then, WIS looks at all the SG's on D2 teams, and, WOW, this guy has 6000 points attached to his name!  He gets slotted in among the players that WIS always considered D2 players, who had a much smaller pool of points available to them.  That 6000, instead of being at the 60th percentile, is suddenly 2nd highest of all SG's on D2 teams.  Meet your new 2nd team SG.

It's a shot in the dark, but the logic works.

This is actually a good theory here llamanunts...although I still have a hard time accepting that, even at D3, that kid had enough points to be second in the D2 All-American rankings at the position.

But the explanation is definitely plausible in terms of computer logic (and programmer thought...who would plan for a D3 lift up to D2 for the senior season when thinking of All-American logic? It's one of those scenarios that just doesn't come to mind readily...)