NCAA makes significant changes to NET Rankings

The NCAA has announced a change in the way the NET Rankings are calculated for basketball, discontinuing 3 of the 5 original components.

The NCAA is making changes with its main metrics model for team performance again. Just two years ago, it introduced the NET Rankings to replace the Ratings Percentage Index. Both aren’t used to qualify or disqualify a team from the postseason, but are used as one of the main tools used to evaluate and stack rank teams.

The first year of the NET Rankings resulted in some confusion and criticism — especially in the early releases — and now it appears that three of the original five components are being discontinued. The two that will be used going forward are Team Value Index (TVI) and adjusted efficiency. The three components being discontinued include winning percentage, adjusted winning percentage, and scoring margin.

According to Joe Lunardi of ESPN, the best way to think of these two components going forward are “who” did you play, and “how” did you play.

From Lunardi:

“RPI was primarily a measure of the “‘who,'” whereas the first iteration of NET was a reasonable attempt at measuring the “how.” This newly revised and still undisclosed NET formula appears to be an attempt to combine the two, while retaining an increased emphasis on the “‘how'” and perhaps eliminating some of the less-than-credible early-season NET releases.”

By the way, both the men’s game and women’s game will be affected by this change. The NCAA women had been still using the RPI even with the move to the men using the NET Rankings. However, the women announced earlier this month that they would also be switching over.

So there you have it. The ever-evolving way of quantifying and qualifying teams for the NCAA Tournament continued to get tweaked. One school of thought is that correcting things is the right way to go so that the secret sauce is more reliable. Another is that if you keep changing metrics, you simply don’t know what you are doing.

Which side of the fence do you land on?

Michigan State ranked No. 7 in latest NCAA NET Rankings

The Spartans rank high in one of the tools the NCAA Selection Committee uses to seed the NCAA Tournament

The folks over at the NCAA are taking notice of Michigan State’s late-season surge.

The Michigan State men’s basketball team has moved up to No. 7 in the NCAA’s NET Rankings–the highest ranking of any Big Ten team.

The NET Rankings–or NCAA Evaluation Tool for those of you that despise brevity–are used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee to help sort out which teams should be ranked where. It uses a number of measure, including strength of schedule, victory margin, efficiencies, and location of games to create a more accurate ranking of college basketball teams. The NET Rankings are not the end-all be-all when it comes to the final rankings and determining seeds, but it does play a major factor.

Many of the most recent brackets have Michigan State either as a low three seed or high four seed, so it looks like the NET Rankings like the Spartans a little bit more than the bracketologists think the committee will. It will all become moot next Sunday–Selection Sunday–when the official bracket is revealed.

No. 16 Michigan State hosts No. 19 Ohio State Sunday (4:30 CBS) with a chance to win their third consecutive Big Ten title.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1363]

Ohio State basketball now up to No. 16 in the NET Rankings

After the win over Michigan, Ohio State is now up to No. 16 in the latest NET Rankings.

There are several measurables when it comes to ranking college basketball teams. There’s the AP Poll, USA Today Poll, Ken Pom, and the relatively new NET Rankings from the NCAA.

If you don’t know, the NET Rankings were implemented last year to replace the RPI used primarily as a tool for comparing teams in a ratings metric when it comes to selection in the NCAA Tournament.  For Ohio State, there’s good news there.

That’s because while the Buckeyes are barely inside the AP and USA TODAY polls as of late, they have continued to be fairly high when it comes to the NET. In fact, after the win over Michigan Sunday, OSU is now all the way up to No. 16. Ohio State continues to rise in all metrics after winning eight of its last ten, and that’s good news when it comes to Selection Sunday.

Right now, most projections have OSU as a No. 6 seed, but the NET seems to indicate it is more of a No. 5 seed potentially headed to a No. 4 seed if it continues to string wins together down the stretch.

Now, there’s more that goes into it than just the NET, but there’s no doubt at this point that Ohio State will be seeded high enough to have a decent location and seed when all the fun starts in a couple of weeks.

Michigan State Basketball ranked No. 13 in latest NCAA NET Rankings

Despite recent losses, MSU is still ranked in the top-15 of the new NET rankings.

This has been a frustrating part of the Michigan State Men’s Basketball season, with recent losses to Michigan, Indiana, Penn State, and Wisconsin, but the Spartans are still looked at favorably in the NCAA NET rankings. In games through February 8th, which includes yesterday’s loss to U of M, MSU is ranked at No. 13, just one spot below their previous ranking at No. 12.

The NET rankings have replaced the RPI as a tool for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee to use to help select the NCAA Tournament seeding and field. The fact that the NET still looks at MSU so favorably makes a lot of sense, given that it just made them a 4-seed in the first tournament preview of the year.

Michigan State will face yet another big road test as they travel to Champaign, Illinois to face off against Illinois in a battle of two teams that are right at the top of the Big Ten standings.

[lawrence-auto-related count=1]

We should still be ignoring the NET rankings

The Ohio State Buckeyes fell from No. 1 to No. 2 in the most recent NET rankings. That’s fine, because we should still be ignoring them.

The Ohio State Buckeyes fell from No. 1 to No. 2 in the most recent NET rankings. However, like I said about last week’s rankings, they should still be entirely ignored.

The NCAA makes a big mistake in trying to release these rankings so early. They want fans to know the process and understand what’s going on, but all this does is add frustration and confusion.

The NET rankings are entirely based off the results of games played. The problem is, with a formula meant to rank wins and establish resumes after about 30 games, the numbers after just 12 games are meaningless. They’re volatile and will swing wildly.

For example, right now the NET rankings have Kentucky at No. 74 and North Carolina at No. 89. North Carolina might end up with a relatively low ranking due to struggles without Cole Anthony, but Kentucky is clearly suffering from a small sample size here. And, of course, both those teams played Ohio State.

Those are merely two examples out of dozens of problems with the NET right now. So the rankings might currently have San Diego State ahead of Ohio State. That’s fine. The rankings are meaningless. Ohio State being No. 2 is meaningless–it doesn’t mean that the Buckeyes actually have a worse resume than San Diego State. And, if course, it doesn’t mean that the Buckeyes actually have a better resume than dozens of other teams.

NET Rankings Debut: San Diego State At No. 3

Where do the Mountain West teams stack up in the first NET rankings?

[jwplayer 18QegcJn-sNi3MVSU]


Net Rankings Debut: San Diego State Aztecs at No. 3


Initial rankings have Mountain West teams distributed as expected


Contact/Follow @HardwoodTalk & @MWCwire

With the Net Rankings debut the Aztecs look to be the clear Mountain West front runner.

The Holidays came just a week early for some as the media, fans and coaching staffs across the country were given their first look at this season’s NET Rankings this morning. And after a much critiqued initial debut last year, adjustments were made to the ranking system in it’s second year of existence to assure accuracy and draw less scrutiny. And amongst the blue bloods, high majors and Gonzaga’s of the world stood a familiar face at number three.

The Aztecs were the highest ranked Mountain West team in our first glimpse of the season, debuting at number three in the nation just behind Ohio State and Kansas. San Diego State is also the highest-ranked undefeated team in the nation, followed by No. 7 Auburn, No. 19 Liberty and No. 20 Duquesne.

The NET is the new NCAA metric and it gives the selection committee an idea of team’s performances based on the combination of four ratings. It takes it’s own metrics and those of KenPom, BPI, the Sagarin ratings and team’s strength of schedule to give us a full 353 team ranking.

Now for one, these aren’t set in stone and there is still plenty of basketball to be played before these rankings turn into tickets punched, but it’s a start. And though they have been adjusted and initial critiques are taken into consideration, they are still a tad flawed.

Number six ranked Kentucky is currently listed at 58th, but a more explainable ranking could be found with North Carolina at 95th at 6-4 on the season with some questionable losses. But there can be some truth to the rankings, as National Champion runner up Texas Tech debuted at No. 3 last season. Right behind eventual champion Virginia at No. two.

The rest of the Mountain West faired a bit how you may suspect at this point of the season. Utah State is in the top-50 at 47th and New Mexico is just outside of it with losses to Auburn and UTEP at 57th. Nevada and Boise State are the only other Mountain West teams in the top-100, while Colorado State is the last team to be ranked inside of the top-200.

Mountain West NET Rankings:

3. San Diego State 10-0

47. Utah State 10-2

57. New Mexico 10-2

94. Nevada 7-4

100. Boise State 6-4

140. Colorado State 7-6

219. Fresno State 3-7

224. Air Force 5-6

232. UNLV 4-7

268. San Jose State 3-8

289. Wyoming 3-8

As the conference has hopes of becoming a multi-bid league in the near future this wasn’t a bad start. The conference as a whole is better when San Diego State and New Mexico are at their best, and Utah State’s reemergence after taking some time off from their 2000s dominance in the WAC doesn’t hurt.

While others like Nevada and Boise State will figure it out with a first year head coach settling in and sit-out reinforcements coming next year. And other traditional powers like UNLV may be back to normal sooner than you may think. But this first ranking has certainly given us something to keep our eyes on and come tournament time something to refer back to.

Full List Here

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1361]

Don’t overreact to college basketball’s first NET rankings

The first NET rankings are out. As always, don’t overreact to them, because they’re meaningless this early.

Last year, the NCAA switches ranking systems it uses to help determine which teams make the college basketball tournament. The NCAA switched from the somewhat-flawed RPI to the still-somewhat-flawed NET. Supposedly, the switch to NET was to make things simpler (in terms of breakdowns of value of wins) and to fix some of the RPI’s flaws. Whether it actually does that (in my opinion, it doesn’t) is a post for another time.

Instead, I’m going to point out that the NCAA does itself a huge disservice by releasing the first rankings this early in the season. This is a computer formula and teams have only played about ten games, so things are incredibly volatile. A few wins or losses could move a team from Quadrant 1 to 4 or vice versa.

Now, Ohio State comes in at No. 1 in the initial rankings. Which is well-deserved, so far. But “so far” is only a tiny fraction of the season. That can change, rapidly. It won’t change if the Buckeyes continue to play well (the dud against Minnesota notwithstanding), but the difference between being No. 1 or No. 30 right now is still tiny.

I was going to say to ignore these rankings no matter where the Buckeyes came in. Had they been No. 30, the story would have been exactly the same. It’s fun that Ohio State is No. 1, but it’s still meaningless for now. When the rankings are less volatile in early February, that will be the time to take them seriously.