NCAA alters NET formula for 2020-21 season
Good news! The NCAA is finally fixing the NET…hopefully.
In 2018, the NCAA replaced the RPI with the NCAA Evaluation Tool, aka the NET, to help the Selection Committee better sort and seed teams for the NCAA Tournament. Since then, mocking the NET has become a tradition of sorts because the rankings are usually all over the place. (Remember how Duke stayed at No. 6 for most of last season despite losing so many games? Or how UK wasn’t even in the top 50 of the initial rankings the past two seasons? If computer models could get drunk, it had a hell of a good time.)
Today, the NCAA announced it is tweaking the NET formula for the 2020-21 season, doing away with three of the five metrics: winning percentage, adjusted winning percentage and scoring margin. From now on, the computer model will only base the rankings on Team Value Index (TVI) — a result-based feature that rewards teams for beating quality opponents, particularly away from home — as well as an adjusted net efficiency rating, which is a team’s net efficiency adjusted for strength of opponent and location (home/away/neutral) across all games played. For example, a given efficiency value (net points per 100 possessions) against stronger opposition rates higher than the same efficiency against lesser opponents and having a certain efficiency on the road rates higher than the same efficiency at home.
“When we adopted the NET in 2018, we had reviewed several seasons worth of data and we insisted that we would continue to evaluate the metric,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball. “We’ve been very satisfied with its performance thus far, but it became evident after two seasons of use that this change would be an improvement. While we will continue to monitor the metric, I don’t anticipate any additional adjustments for several years. We believe this change will result in more precision throughout the season and will be easier for our membership and the public to understand.”
Here is the new NET formula in infographic form:
The new NET is consistent with the model the Women’s Basketball Selection Committee will start using this season. For more details, click the link below.
[NCAA]
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