Offical Net ranking thread

Gopherbbdude

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Gophers moved up form 66 to 60 after a great showing at Michigan.
 

Interesting.. I don't really know what to make of the Net and how we went about scheduling this year. Does anyone know if there is like a variable Net calculator online anywhere? I wasn't able to find one but I think it'd be nice to see how we could actually raise these rankings that are important for our postseason chances. Really would be curious to see how adding a top 50 game and/or raising the caliber of some of the crap non-conf games we play.
 

Interesting.. I don't really know what to make of the Net and how we went about scheduling this year. Does anyone know if there is like a variable Net calculator online anywhere? I wasn't able to find one but I think it'd be nice to see how we could actually raise these rankings that are important for our postseason chances. Really would be curious to see how adding a top 50 game and/or raising the caliber of some of the crap non-conf games we play.

Honestly after I look at it wow. All of the p5 teams we played really have been less than spectacular with the exception of Washington. I'd like to think if you play A&M, Utah, Washington, Oklahoma State, and Boston College you will have played an absolute minimum of 2 tourney teams maybe 3 on a good year.

Last 5 years:

A&M--2 appearances (2x sweet 16)
Utah--2 appearances(1x sweet 16)
Washington--0 appearances
OSU--3 appearances (no wins)
Boston College-1 appearance

And after I did the research I was clearly wrong in what I had projected above. Maybe putting a little more emphasis on the teams talent and not the name/conference? Could be the solution although I'm not saying this is the problem. Also have to keep in mind that teams exceed/fail to meet expectations every season so putting together the perfect schedule is tough.
 


Strength of schedule has nothing to do with Minnesota's low NET ranking. Teams with much worse SOS's and much worse records are ranked higher. Minnesota's SOS is plenty good. Minnesota's record and Minnesota's quality of wins are both plenty good.

The new NET ranking factors in offensive and defensive efficiency (a predictive measure, not a results measure). The Gophers are neither efficient on offense or defense, but somehow have won games. Winning doesn't help them. In fact, LOSING a game last night allowed them to go UP in the rankings because they were defensively so efficient last night.

Coaches will absolutely have to rethink how they want their teams to play if the NCAA uses the current NET setup as an end-all, be-all. Luckily for Minnesota's sake, it sounds like it won't be an end-all, be-all. It will mostly be a guide to judge a team's quality of wins, etc., as part of an overall team spread sheet.

As an example, NC State plays almost no one in the non-conference, but blew them all out, and were highly efficient. They had one good win (Auburn). They are currently ranked 27th in the NET, which puts them in solid position. In the old RPI formula that the NCAA used for more than 40 years (which factors in SOS much more strongly), NC State is ranked 114th and would not even make the NIT.

The RPI had its faults for sure and was not a perfect metric and it is good the NCAA tried to use something better. But, the NET stuff is a little out of hand with predictive measures that don't really factor in winning and losing, which will create some interesting situations on Selection Sunday.
 
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Well that’s great we lost and increased our ranking. Maybe if we can efficiently lose the rest of our games, we’ll get into a better position to make the tourney!


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If anyone wants to take the time, interesting article about NET at sports illustrated. Its rather long but the crux is that, while the NET formula hasnt been shared,
NET seems to empasize
- efficiency
- final score margin
- road wins
NET seems to de-empasize
- strength of schedule
The article gives examples to support its conclusions and speculates that power 5 teams will start to schedule low major teams on the road as this gives the best potential for a high NET.
 

So it incentivizes annihilating quadrant 4 teams in the pre-season. Cool.
 

Well that’s great we lost and increased our ranking. Maybe if we can efficiently lose the rest of our games, we’ll get into a better position to make the tourney!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It was playing Michigan and playing improved defense that gave a small rise in the NET. You do know that being more efficient than your opponents results in victories.
 



So it incentivizes annihilating quadrant 4 teams in the pre-season. Cool.
The risk is not blowing them out when you should... greasy rope

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Strength of schedule has nothing to do with Minnesota's low NET ranking. Teams with much worse SOS's and much worse records are ranked higher. Minnesota's SOS is plenty good. Minnesota's record and Minnesota's quality of wins are both plenty good.

The new NET ranking factors in offensive and defensive efficiency (a predictive measure, not a results measure). The Gophers are neither efficient on offense or defense, but somehow have won games. Winning doesn't help them. In fact, LOSING a game last night allowed them to go UP in the rankings because they were defensively so efficient last night.

Coaches will absolutely have to rethink how they want their teams to play if the NCAA uses the current NET setup as an end-all, be-all. Luckily for Minnesota's sake, it sounds like it won't be an end-all, be-all. It will mostly be a guide to judge a team's quality of wins, etc., as part of an overall team spread sheet.

As an example, NC State plays almost no one in the non-conference, but blew them all out, and were highly efficient. They had one good win (Auburn). They are currently ranked 27th in the NET, which puts them in solid position. In the old RPI formula that the NCAA used for more than 40 years (which factors in SOS much more strongly), NC State is ranked 114th and would not even make the NIT.

The RPI had its faults for sure and was not a perfect metric and it is good the NCAA tried to use something better. But, the NET stuff is a little out of hand with predictive measures that don't really factor in winning and losing, which will create some interesting situations on Selection Sunday.

That was a pretty thorough explanation. Thank you! I believe they should use a mix of measures: maybe something like 1/3 NET, 1/3 RPI, and 1/3 take your pick between BPI, Sagarin, etc. because those are similar measures. With spreadsheets, combining these measures with appropriate weights is effortless. As the old Geico commercial used to say "Even a caveman can do it."
 

That was a pretty thorough explanation. Thank you! I believe they should use a mix of measures: maybe something like 1/3 NET, 1/3 RPI, and 1/3 take your pick between BPI, Sagarin, etc. because those are similar measures. With spreadsheets, combining these measures with appropriate weights is effortless. As the old Geico commercial used to say "Even a caveman can do it."

Actually kenpom effieciency numbers measure ppp on every possession adjusted for strength of schedule. It reflects how well you play. Look at top 10 in Kenpom and Net and who does not have the wins, who is not playing great. Those teams are running up the score on horrible teams. Hell they are pulling starters with 4 minutes left and letting the metrics suffer.This protects teams that go 20-10 on a power conference that played well but can not match wins with some MAC team that goes 26-4 but played no one and did not play well.
 

Actually kenpom effieciency numbers measure ppp on every possession adjusted for strength of schedule. It reflects how well you play. Look at top 10 in Kenpom and Net and who does not have the wins, who is not playing great. Those teams are running up the score on horrible teams. Hell they are pulling starters with 4 minutes left and letting the metrics suffer.This protects teams that go 20-10 on a power conference that played well but can not match wins with some MAC team that goes 26-4 but played no one and did not play well.

Great. The top 10 teams will perform like top 10 teams. It may adversely affect teams closer to the bubble.

Nate Silver had it right from the jump.
 



Great. The top 10 teams will perform like top 10 teams. It may adversely affect teams closer to the bubble.

Nate Silver had it right from the jump.

Love all of the stats fiver thirty eight puts out...especially the election predictions. Regardless I'd like to see a ranking metric that is like 40% about wins, 20% about sos, 25% on margin of win/loss, 10% offensive/defensive efficiency, and 5% for road/neutral site wins.


Yes this is very arbitrary but it sounds nice to me lol
 

Strength of schedule has nothing to do with Minnesota's low NET ranking. Teams with much worse SOS's and much worse records are ranked higher. Minnesota's SOS is plenty good. Minnesota's record and Minnesota's quality of wins are both plenty good.

The new NET ranking factors in offensive and defensive efficiency (a predictive measure, not a results measure). The Gophers are neither efficient on offense or defense, but somehow have won games. Winning doesn't help them. In fact, LOSING a game last night allowed them to go UP in the rankings because they were defensively so efficient last night.

Coaches will absolutely have to rethink how they want their teams to play if the NCAA uses the current NET setup as an end-all, be-all. Luckily for Minnesota's sake, it sounds like it won't be an end-all, be-all. It will mostly be a guide to judge a team's quality of wins, etc., as part of an overall team spread sheet.

As an example, NC State plays almost no one in the non-conference, but blew them all out, and were highly efficient. They had one good win (Auburn). They are currently ranked 27th in the NET, which puts them in solid position. In the old RPI formula that the NCAA used for more than 40 years (which factors in SOS much more strongly), NC State is ranked 114th and would not even make the NIT.

The RPI had its faults for sure and was not a perfect metric and it is good the NCAA tried to use something better. But, the NET stuff is a little out of hand with predictive measures that don't really factor in winning and losing, which will create some interesting situations on Selection Sunday.

I'm really confused by this post. There are a set number of possessions per game. If you score more points per possession than your opponent you will win the game. The efficiency metrics just control for the number of possessions, but otherwise are very much reflection of what it takes to win or lose.

It's not that the Gophers haven't been efficient but have managed to win games, it's just that the ranking systems adjust for schedule. Take for instance, the North Florida game. It had 73 possessions, and NF scored 71 points. That would be .973 PPP. But since NF's offense is bad, T-Rank (a free version of KenPom) adjusts that defensive efficiency up (which is bad) to 1.001. http://barttorvik.com/team.php?team=Minnesota

Or the MSM game. Gophers scored 71 points in 68 possessions, for 1.044 PPP, but it is adjusted down to .975 because MSM is garbage.
 

Great. The top 10 teams will perform like top 10 teams. It may adversely affect teams closer to the bubble.

Nate Silver had it right from the jump.

Silver's analysis was silly because he was taking the NET as it appeared very early in the season, before the data started to connect. The RPI was also very famously noisy early in the season. Over time, as more games are played, the numbers start to settle down and the teams start to sort out as you'd expect.

Note that the one part of his analysis that he got right was that the efficiency metrics should factor MORE heavily.

NET is imperfect, but it's MUCH better than RPI. It's biggest flaw now is still including some metrics that are similar to RPI.
 

If anyone wants to take the time, interesting article about NET at sports illustrated. Its rather long but the crux is that, while the NET formula hasnt been shared,
NET seems to empasize
- efficiency
- final score margin
- road wins
NET seems to de-empasize
- strength of schedule
The article gives examples to support its conclusions and speculates that power 5 teams will start to schedule low major teams on the road as this gives the best potential for a high NET.

This is not really true. The most heavily-weighted component is still game results based on opponent and location, which is heavily dependent on strength of schedule.

The 2nd least heavily-weighted factor is adjusted winning percentage which takes into account road games. So if you want to game the system by focusing on the 2nd least-heavily weighted factor, you can start playing road games against bad teams, but you'd be focusing on something that contributes probably 10% of your NET score. That would be really dumb.

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This is not really true. The most heavily-weighted component is still game results based on opponent and location, which is heavily dependent on strength of schedule.

The 2nd least heavily-weighted factor is adjusted winning percentage which takes into account road games. So if you want to game the system by focusing on the 2nd least-heavily weighted factor, you can start playing road games against bad teams, but you'd be focusing on something that contributes probably 10% of your NET score. That would be really dumb.

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Liberty has a kenpom sos of 337 and yet they are ranked ahead of us. There are other mid and lows with awful sos also ranked ahead of us. Doesnt seem like sos is valued much.
 

I bet next year we won't see many quality non conference opponents outside of what is already on the schedule (@Utah, OK St in Tulsa, ACC/Big Ten opponent at home, Gavitt games?) We will be scheduling teams we can crush.
 

I bet next year we won't see many quality non conference opponents outside of what is already on the schedule (@Utah, OK St in Tulsa, ACC/Big Ten opponent at home, Gavitt games?) We will be scheduling teams we can crush.


We as a P5 school may not want that as we want other P5 schools on our NC schedule but that is what the majority of schools have begged for. Their biggest complaint over the last two decades is that the 'big boys' wont play lower level teams on the road. Doesn't this new system encourage that?

I really don't know much about the NET Rankings other than what I've read on this site but if what everyone hear is saying is correct it seems like this system would not reward the Duke's of the world that play neutral site or home NC games. Isn't that a good thing for the game?
 

Best coaches and programs still seek out great games as they believe you get better by playing great teams. The research reveals that to become a top program you schedule hard, and that does not mean middle or bottom tier power 5 teams. The problem is the games are hard to get. Trying to game the schedule to make the tourney is cowardly. As a fan and ticket holder at several venues i see high end power games in the non con and would love to see ISU and Marquette in home and home here. I do think the Gophers tried to schedule very good teams and could not help it that several of those schools that are usually very good turned out to be very good. It also hurt to get clobbered in the ACC game at Boston College.
 

We as a P5 school may not want that as we want other P5 schools on our NC schedule but that is what the majority of schools have begged for. Their biggest complaint over the last two decades is that the 'big boys' wont play lower level teams on the road. Doesn't this new system encourage that?

I really don't know much about the NET Rankings other than what I've read on this site but if what everyone hear is saying is correct it seems like this system would not reward the Duke's of the world that play neutral site or home NC games. Isn't that a good thing for the game?

Yes, the SI article agrees with you that an unintended effect might be that pwer 5 schiols will start playing some mids and lowers on the road, which might be kimd of a good thing for a change. I suppose a counterargument would be that schools' fans may not be too happy about losing home games. Also, how much money would be lost through sacrificing home games. Still seems like needs to be tweaked to value sos more.
 
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I'm still in wait-and-see mode on the NET rankings. The biggest factor we still don't know is how the committee will use them. Do they get more weight than the other rankings (KenPom/Sagarin/etc.) in the committee's eyes? Or are they seen as equal to other rankings by the committee? Also, what does NET look like with a full season of data? Still too many unknowns to for me form a strong opinion.

Every system is going to have its outliers and flaws. NET is no different. But I know I like NET better than RPI.
 

I bet next year we won't see many quality non conference opponents outside of what is already on the schedule (@Utah, OK St in Tulsa, ACC/Big Ten opponent at home, Gavitt games?) We will be scheduling teams we can crush.

Bear in mind that the NCAA will still use NET to analyze wins against quadrant. Being 10th in NET (for example) but having only 4 Q1&2 wins (for example) will not play well on Selection Sunday. This is also the reason teams won't suddenly start scheduling Campbell on the road.
 
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I'm still in wait-and-see mode on the NET rankings. The biggest factor we still don't know is how the committee will use them. Do they get more weight than the other rankings (KenPom/Sagarin/etc.) in the committee's eyes? Or are they seen as equal to other rankings by the committee? Also, what does NET look like with a full season of data? Still too many unknowns to for me form a strong opinion.

Every system is going to have its outliers and flaws. NET is no different. But I know I like NET better than RPI.

People should take a wait-and-see approach because the data is still sorting itself out. Lots of systems incorporate last year's results along with incoming recruiting and it doesn't really leave the system until the last 10 games or so. NET (for obvious reasons) doesn't have that luxury and so it's very noisy to start and gets gradually less noisy over time.

Here's a good explanation of how NET will be used. I think the implication is that Sagarin, KenPom, and BPI will still be used, but I'd imagine it will be used only as a corner-case tiebreaker.

This marks the second consecutive year the committee has made a significant change. Before last season, a quadrant system was adopted to place greater emphasis on success in games played away from home on the team sheets, which offer a snapshot of each team’s schedule and results. The existing quadrant system still will be used on team sheets, with the NET replacing the Rating Percentage Index to sort games based on the opponent’s ranking:

Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

While the quadrant system was widely deemed an improvement to the selection process, the NET is another significant step in addressing the recommendations the NCAA received from the NABC’s ad hoc committee, whose purpose was to make recommendations regarding the selection, seeding and bracketing of teams.

Another change made last year to the team sheets was the inclusion of other metrics. These include the Kevin Pauga Index and ESPN’s results-oriented metric, the Strength of Record. The team sheets also included three predictive metrics: those managed by renowned basketball analytics experts Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin, as well as ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketbal...ed-ncaa-adopts-new-college-basketball-ranking
 

The way I see it, the NET ratings are a politically correct way to consider margin of victory without technically weighting margin of victory. The various advanced metrics are a reliable surrogate for a score-based rating system. That's why KenPom and the like have always correlated well with Sagarin and the like.
 

The way I see it, the NET ratings are a politically correct way to consider margin of victory without technically weighting margin of victory. The various advanced metrics are a reliable surrogate for a score-based rating system. That's why KenPom and the like have always correlated well with Sagarin and the like.

It doesn't show up in the embedded tweet, but if you click the tweet you'll see that scoring margin is explicitly a factor in the ranking. It's the least heavily weighted, but it's an explicit factor.
 


Teams in the top 75 who are benefiting from NET over their KenPom are:

NET KP rank School
7 21 Houston
13 24 LSU
19 33 Marquette
31 42 Kansas St.
35 45 UCF
39 51 St. John's (NY)
47 63 Hofstra
53 93 UNC Greensboro
54 75 Temple
62 90 Furman
67 88 Memphis
68 80 Yale
69 84 Davidson
75 107 Saint Louis


Avg Strength of schedule is 156.

On the other hand, teams most penalized by NET from KenPom are:

KP rank NET School Difference SOS
15 27 Auburn -12 28
26 37 Florida -11 13
31 45 Ohio St. -14 26
35 48 Saint Mary's (CA) -13 108
48 58 Creighton -10 7
54 71 Oregon -17 68
60 70 Arkansas -10 44
62 74 New Mexico St. -12 174


Average SOS of 58.5
That average goes down to 42 if you toss out the last entry (NMSU).

254 of the 353 teams are within 15 spots of the two rankings.
138 are within 5 spots either way.
 

It doesn't show up in the embedded tweet, but if you click the tweet you'll see that scoring margin is explicitly a factor in the ranking. It's the least heavily weighted, but it's an explicit factor.

Got it - good to know; thanks!
 




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