A quiet night in NET land with the top 21 unchanged. The highest ranked team that moved more than two places was Iona going from 48 to 38. Yale sinks from 52 to 76 after losing at home to Dartmouth. That about ends the chances of any Ivy team earning a high enough net to be considered for an at large bid.
OFFICIAL NET Thread - 2022/23
- Thread starter fatsam98
- Start date
Interesting movement...some big swings in the top 100
Meanwhile Arizona loss to awful Washington State only dinged them 2 spots
Meanwhile Arizona loss to awful Washington State only dinged them 2 spots
Nailed it! Our defense is carrying us which is a great thing and the amount of turnovers we create is helping our offense because otherwise we are deficient on that side of the court
As far as efficiency goes, I was sweating in the second half because I looked over at the scoreboard and Iowa was shooting 63%. I said “there goes our NET/Kenpom” .. luckily our D turned it up a notch and despite all their 3s, they ended the game shooting I think 41 or 42%, so we still had an efficient D effort - good for those kind of rankings ie Kenpom/NET
To be clear, only points per possession matters for Kenpom/NET efficiency. Obviously that is pretty correlated to FG percentages but it’s not directly used.
Yes definitely. Iowas turnovers in the final 2 minutes helped us out too. Hopefully our NET stays in the teens tomorrow and the AP turns on their brains
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RU is now #20
Results:
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
5 - @Purdue (W)
14 - @Ohio St (L*)
25 - Indiana (W)
43 - @Miami (L)
Q2 (31-75 Home 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
39 - Maryland (W)
42 - Iowa (L)
74 - Seton Hall (L)
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
81 - Wake Forest (W)
133 - UMass-Lowell (W)
168 - (N) Temple (L)
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 141+ Away)
241 - Rider (W)
277 - Bucknell (W)
279 - Coppin St (W)
323 - Sacred Heart (W)
333 - Central CT St (W)
346 - Columbia (W)
Upcoming
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
14 - Ohio St
25 - @Indiana
37 - @Illinois
42 - @Iowa
47 - @Northwestern
52 - @MSU
56 - @Wisconsin
63 - @Penn St
Q2 (31-75 Home, 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
47 - Northwestern
52 - (N)MSU
63 - Penn St
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
77 - Michigan
83 - Nebraska
235 - @Minnesota
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 241+ Away)
235 - Minnesota
Notes:
- Neutral MSU game creeping up toward Q1
- Michigan back to Q3 after flirting with Q2
- Seton Hall into Q2 for now
- UMass-Lowell dropped like a rock to 133, threatening to fall to Q4
- Indiana down to 25... fall any farther, and that might become a Q2 game
Results:
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
5 - @Purdue (W)
14 - @Ohio St (L*)
25 - Indiana (W)
43 - @Miami (L)
Q2 (31-75 Home 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
39 - Maryland (W)
42 - Iowa (L)
74 - Seton Hall (L)
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
81 - Wake Forest (W)
133 - UMass-Lowell (W)
168 - (N) Temple (L)
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 141+ Away)
241 - Rider (W)
277 - Bucknell (W)
279 - Coppin St (W)
323 - Sacred Heart (W)
333 - Central CT St (W)
346 - Columbia (W)
Upcoming
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
14 - Ohio St
25 - @Indiana
37 - @Illinois
42 - @Iowa
47 - @Northwestern
52 - @MSU
56 - @Wisconsin
63 - @Penn St
Q2 (31-75 Home, 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
47 - Northwestern
52 - (N)MSU
63 - Penn St
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
77 - Michigan
83 - Nebraska
235 - @Minnesota
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 241+ Away)
235 - Minnesota
Notes:
- Neutral MSU game creeping up toward Q1
- Michigan back to Q3 after flirting with Q2
- Seton Hall into Q2 for now
- UMass-Lowell dropped like a rock to 133, threatening to fall to Q4
- Indiana down to 25... fall any farther, and that might become a Q2 game
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Maryland and Iowa big rises..they still have potential to slide into Q1
I don't understand why NET rankings seemingly favor Mountain West and the WCC so much.
St. Mary's at 8??
5 Mountain West teams in the top 50 and UNLV sitting at 53? There's only 11 teams in that conference. Take a look, for example, Utah State at 26 and Nevada is at 29 and neither team has beaten anybody. Nevada's only "good" win is against Boise St who's NET is inexplicably 35 and Boise St.'s only "good" win is against Utah State. Who's regarding the Mountain west so high that these wins mean that much.
Same thing happened come tourney selection time last year. Mountain West got 4 teams in and WCC got 3 in. Something about the NET ranking that is over valuing these conferences.
St. Mary's at 8??
5 Mountain West teams in the top 50 and UNLV sitting at 53? There's only 11 teams in that conference. Take a look, for example, Utah State at 26 and Nevada is at 29 and neither team has beaten anybody. Nevada's only "good" win is against Boise St who's NET is inexplicably 35 and Boise St.'s only "good" win is against Utah State. Who's regarding the Mountain west so high that these wins mean that much.
Same thing happened come tourney selection time last year. Mountain West got 4 teams in and WCC got 3 in. Something about the NET ranking that is over valuing these conferences.
For Utah State its likely because they are 8-0 in Q3. They dont have an at large resume. Nevada has a better case but the Mountain West is not as good as last year and New Mexicos stock is falling
it’s okay though as long as we go 11-9 or better in conference since we didnt step on any land mines with the cupcakes we should be in
Its seeding where we could be dinged
Utah State is 1-2 in Q4. You'd think that dinged them more than it has. one Q4 loss and 2 Q3 losses killed our NET last year. Doesn't seem to be hurting Utah State too bad right now. Overall my point is that the NET formula somehow seems to inflate ranking of some of these 2nd tier conference teams and in particular MWC and WCC in the past couple years
Agree - as many of us have said 100 times, they need to tweek this formula to not encourage blowouts. It's contrary to the spirit of college athletics. I get that money is taking over idealism, but we don't have to take sportsmanship out of the game as well. It's still a bunch of kids.
Their conferences are set up in a way that is very NET favorable.
WCC: 2 top teams (8 St. Mary's, 12 Gonzaga), 4 mediocre teams (79 Santa Clara, 90 BYU, 101 LMU, 113 SF), and 4 bad but not terrible teams (156 Pepperdine, 186 Portland, 211 San Diego, 214 Pacific). The top teams can pad their wins and efficiency numbers in their conference slate without a ton of risk, so they can stay relatively high without dropping - so long as they play well OOC.
MWC: 5 good-not-elite teams (23 SDSU, 26 Utah St, 29 Nevada, 35 Boise St, 47 NM, 53 UNLV), 2 mediocre teams (107 Colorado St, 112 San Jose St), and 3 bad but not terrible teams (162 Air Force, 191 Fresno St, 200 Wyoming). Similar to WCC, but with fewer bottom-end teams, their benefits to the top end are more spread out and not consolidated in just 2 teams.
The B1G has a lot of quality parity and just one bad-not-terrible team. We just beat up on each other, and no one can really maintain much separation from the pack. If any of our top 13 teams were in the WCC or MWC, they'd probably be Top 10-15... but we keep cannibalizing ourselves because no game is easy.
So I’ve been saying all along that I hate the way the NET works for this reason.
But on the other hand, unless you want to return to the RPI system where a win is a win no matter how it’s attained, efficiency metrics are the most fair approach. Simply assigning a cutoff to define a blow out the way Sagarin does is extremely flawed.
There is a big difference between the way we beat Central CT and the way St John’s did. Our game was over at halftime. They were in a 4 point dogfight.
We should play slightly better cupcakes.. they is no need to be playing #346, #323, and #334. If we could find teams that are more in the mid #200s we could up these numbers without having that much more chance of taking an L
If the NCAA is going to publish a ranking it should be a W/L only one IMO. Not RPI, ideally, but something like it. I have no issue with them looking to some degree at margin of victory, efficiency, etc, but this is why you have a committee. Do that behind the scenes, don't publish some number that everyone can easily look at that goes up when you leave your starters in at the end of a 60 point win.
I also don't think the NCAA is actually using NET the way people assume. It's being used for SOS, not actual selection, which is fine. But people (including coaches probably) don't understand. I've mentioned this before, but I took a look last year at correlation between NET and seeding.. Bart, Kenpom, my rankings that I publish only on Rivals.. they all had MORE correlation to seeding than NET did.
The challenge going purely by W/L is that it hyperinflates teams that have good records in terrible conferences, and it encourages playing the worst teams possible in the OOC slate. Any ranking model needs to have some mechanism to determine the quality of a win or loss - though that is clearly not something easily defined, or even able to be defined in a way that everyone will be happy with.
Margin of Victory
#17 St. Mary's +13.83
#24 Gonzaga +13.00
#28 New Mexico +12.76
#35 UNLV +12.07
#42 Boise St +11.50
#46 Utah St +11.16
#61 Saǹ Diego St +10.07
#76 Nevada +9.41
Margin of Victory and Efficiency go hand in hand to buy you brownie points in the NET. We are #11 at +15.31, UMass Lowell is 22nd at +13.29. Some teams score a lot of points inefficiently and go no where, big difference scoring 80 pts, 55 FGs, 65 possessions compared to 80 pts, 65 FGs 75 possessions.
#17 St. Mary's +13.83
#24 Gonzaga +13.00
#28 New Mexico +12.76
#35 UNLV +12.07
#42 Boise St +11.50
#46 Utah St +11.16
#61 Saǹ Diego St +10.07
#76 Nevada +9.41
Margin of Victory and Efficiency go hand in hand to buy you brownie points in the NET. We are #11 at +15.31, UMass Lowell is 22nd at +13.29. Some teams score a lot of points inefficiently and go no where, big difference scoring 80 pts, 55 FGs, 65 possessions compared to 80 pts, 65 FGs 75 possessions.
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Ive been saying that for years...though to be fair you never know how bad one school will be. We should drop Central Connecticut State. That is a wretched program. I felt this year there was one cupcake game that seemed like overkill and we need to replace that with less awful cupcake...but to me i want a 4 or 8 game tourney scheduled. I felt tge Temple game was just odd scheduling. Why not just do home and home series with Temple
Correction - it strongly DISCOURAGES playing the “worst teams possible”. Your RPI takes a massive hit for destroying a 2-24 team. Any system that “punishes” a team for a blow out win is more flawed than the NET is in rewarding it. This was the feature I despised the most about that system. That type of win shouldn’t move the needle either way.
Rather, RPI encouraged major conference coaches to do their due diligence and schedule teams that they thought would be autobid contenders. Lots of games against UMass Lowell types was the key to a gaudy RPI under the old system.
The fact is most of the other BIG teams play a more difficult OOC sched but no one is in the top 50 in today's NET OOC-SoS. Only one team (Mich St) is in the top 75 with 4 others are in the top 100.
Replacing our #300+ wins with wins against #250,260 and 270 would have some impact but I am in the camp of thinking it doesn't make that much difference in getting in as long as you have success in conference.
In the big picture, recruiting and national cred is growing very nicely for RU but a couple bad years could still wash that away quickly. I think Pikes view is that it is much more important to make sure RU gets into the tourney than where they are seeded in 2023. A day will come when we need to obsess about seeding in the tournament, just dont feel like that is where we are yet.
In theory it still can tell the difference between good and bad schedules, but in practice there might not be enough data in a single season (if you are only using binary W/L) to fully differentiate between the quality of conferences if you start out assuming everyone is equal.
In a properly designed W/L system your rating won't go down for a win no matter how bad the opponent is.. it will just remain essentially unchanged.
Actually - it doesn’t hyperinflate those teams per se - it hyperinlates the value of wins over those teams. UMass Lowell has an RPI of 132 which is almost identical to their current rank in NET (133).
The issue is how that type of win impacts Rutgers RPI. 25% of the formula is about just winning regardless of who you play. But then a whopping 50% of the formula looks at your opponents record - so if UMass Lowell finishes 26-6, that ends up being way more helpful in the formula than a home win over an 18-14 PSU team. The final 25% of the formula is supposed to correct for the SOS factor by looking at opponents’ opponents records but it does a poor job. This is partly because once conference play begins - everyone’s opponents have approximately a 500 blended record from there on in because the same teams are playing each other so someone always has to win or lose. That waters down the W-L percentage of the opponents’ opponents record component of the formula.
Oh yeah - Rutgers RPI is in the 70s. If you removed the CC and Columbia games (as if we didn’t play them at all) it would be much better. If you added more wins over UMass Lowell it would improve a ton too.
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