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The first official NET — which stands for NCAA’s Evaluation Tool — rankings were released on Monday, and Michigan State fans will not be happy with where the Spartans are ranked.
Michigan State came in at No. 119 in the first edition of the rankings, which will be updated daily moving forward. The Spartans were the second-lowest ranked Big Ten team in these rankings, only ahead of Nebraska at No. 186.
Click here to view the complete NET rankings.
The NET rankings are still relatively new to many college basketball fans but they are basically created by a mathematical equation to assess teams. However, there are some potential loopholes in the rankings that could explain why Michigan State is ranked so low in the initial release.
Kevin Pauga, associate athletic director at Michigan State, pointed out shortly after the rankings were released that there are a number of factors in play skewing the data so far. You can see his explanation below:
Early outliers in NET correlate (as expected) to teams who have played a small sample size of games. Teams who have faced opponents with small sample sizes are also among the outliers. When starting at zero, the computer needs time and data to determine how good/bad a team is. https://t.co/hasVKdo5qM
— Kevin Pauga (@KevinPauga) January 4, 2021
This certainly would make sense since Michigan State currently lacks a Quad 1 win since Duke is ranked so low based on the lack of games played. So anticipate the Spartans to start moving up the rankings — assuming they are able to win some games — in the coming weeks.
Michigan State returns to the floor tomorrow to face No. 15 Rutgers in a ranked match-up at the Breslin Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET and the game can be seen on ESPN2.
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