NET Update post Purdue

It would be interesting to see bubble team’s Q1 and Q2 récords against consensus tournament teams. I watched the Ohio St game and saw they have one more Q1 victory than MN but only one win was against a consensus tournament team (@Cinci).

Perhaps that will be my contribution gopherhole tonight haha.
 

Not really. Four teams got Quad 1 wins by beating NC State.

The Wolfpack are basically the perfect example of the difference between RPI and NET. And they show the flaws of both systems.

NC State is probably worse than the 35th best team in the country. (NET)
NC State is probably better than the 117th best team in the country. (RPI)
Both systems are wrong.
IMO the right answer is probably somewhere around 55th-60th best team.

That's where my frustration comes into play. Dropping the RPI and implementing the NET with the snap of a finger is the wrong way to handle these things. Did the NCAA know exactly how things would play out? Did they know what kind of disparity there would be? As I pointed out several times....look at Jerry Palm's bracket and compare it to Lunardi's. Lunardi is clearly favoring the NET rankings far more than Palm. It's creating more confusion. But to make matters worse....they've chose to keep the weighting factors under wraps.....probably due to more backlash.

This was just a sloppy implementation. A gradual transition with weights being tweaked over the course of a few years would have turned out much better.
 

That's where my frustration comes into play. Dropping the RPI and implementing the NET with the snap of a finger is the wrong way to handle these things. Did the NCAA know exactly how things would play out? Did they know what kind of disparity there would be? As I pointed out several times....look at Jerry Palm's bracket and compare it to Lunardi's. Lunardi is clearly favoring the NET rankings far more than Palm. It's creating more confusion. But to make matters worse....they've chose to keep the weighting factors under wraps.....probably due to more backlash.

This was just a sloppy implementation. A gradual transition with weights being tweaked over the course of a few years would have turned out much better.

I suggest waiting for at least 1 NCAA Tourney Field to be selected prior to complaining about the change in process.

Lunardi's and Palm's picks I am confident have no bearing on the NCAA Cmte.
 

I'm assuming committee members have common sense.

(Big assumption).

But with utilizing a new system in year 1, I would assume they would still look at traditional metrics and new metrics to see what the outliers are an how they are handled.
 

Even if that is all that it is used for, it is still significant. Take NC State. A lot of teams get to lay claim to wins over a Quad 1 team, that just isn't very good.

Yep. Next year, the dregs of the NCAA will be in hot demand for non-conference games. The #1 thing you can do it schedule the softest cupcakes possible and then drill them by 70. If you do that, your NET will thank you all season. There is no point in scheduling the top teams from the smaller conferences. Avoid them like the plague. Schedule your 4-5 Power 5 games, and then the worst 6 teams you can find.
 


The thing I struggle with is this: Valuing each possession for efficiency fundamentally changes how the game would be played. Why foul down 1 with 0:20 left in the game? A 1 point loss is better than putting the other team on the line and trying to hit a 3 to tie it... Is that the entertainment value/fan experience the NCAA wants?

No NET fans have any thoughts on this point?
 

Yep. Next year, the dregs of the NCAA will be in hot demand for non-conference games. The #1 thing you can do it schedule the softest cupcakes possible and then drill them by 70. If you do that, your NET will thank you all season. There is no point in scheduling the top teams from the smaller conferences. Avoid them like the plague. Schedule your 4-5 Power 5 games, and then the worst 6 teams you can find.

As mentioned earlier, finding teams to play on the road who are ranked 76-135 to pile up Quad 2 wins (who could slide into top 75 even better) would be a good option.
But overall, a better option is to just play weak teams and beat the hell out of them to build up good efficiency rankings.

Buffalo has a NET of 16 and did a good job.
They only have 3 Quad 1 games winning two on the road against decent opponents. Gophers shouldn't schedule any for non-conference since they get enough already in Big Ten season.


Buffalo, Wofford, Nevada, UCF, and Utah St are all teams who NET score is better than their KenPom and this is due to scoring margin. All of those teams have high scoring margins.
 

No NET fans have any thoughts on this point?

I'm not a NET fan, but I agree.
Fouling at the end of game should be highly questioned.
At a certain point, when losing a conscience decision has to be made to lose by as few as possible rather than to try and win. Essentially deciding that you might for the last couple minutes be better off to slow down the pace of the game and try to obtain a 2-for-1 in the final minute.


With evidence of Penn State being in the top 50, wins seems to carry very little value.
 

No NET fans have any thoughts on this point?

Because it's not something based in reality. I haven't seen anything close to that actually happen. Have you? Which game?

Good teams/programs have always valued each possession for efficiency.

Winning is still the most important thing with NET. If it wasn't, there might be examples of what you describe. But you won't find any.
 



I'm not a NET fan, but I agree.
Fouling at the end of game should be highly questioned.
At a certain point, when losing a conscience decision has to be made to lose by as few as possible rather than to try and win. Essentially deciding that you might for the last couple minutes be better off to slow down the pace of the game and try to obtain a 2-for-1 in the final minute.


With evidence of Penn State being in the top 50, wins seems to carry very little value.

Penn St is the only sub .500 team with a net better than 75. Missouri right at 75 is also under .500.

In the Gophers favor is they beat the only other 3 sub .500 teams with a NET better than 90:

Texas A&M 78 - Neutral
Ok St 82 - Neutral
N'western - 84 - Road

Looks like the Coach Pitino played the system perfectly.
 
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Because it's not something based in reality. I haven't seen anything close to that actually happen. Have you? Which game?

Good teams/programs have always valued each possession for efficiency.

Winning is still the most important thing with NET. If it wasn't, there might be examples of what you describe. But you won't find any.

My point is that if NET becomes the “primary” criteria in bid selection, this will happen. I don’t think anyone thinks NET will be used exclusively or primarily at this point, so traditional end of game management has taken place in basketball games I’ve watched this year. However, say Penn State makes it this year because of a good NET rating... Guarantee you see something approaching my example next year.
 

My point is that if NET becomes the “primary” criteria in bid selection, this will happen. I don’t think anyone thinks NET will be used exclusively or primarily at this point, so traditional end of game management has taken place in basketball games I’ve watched this year. However, say Penn State makes it this year because of a good NET rating... Guarantee you see something approaching my example next year.

They'll never go to a single primary criteria method like D1 hockey has with the Pairwise. Way too many teams/conferences/factors in D1 basketball for them to do it any way other than by a committee of humans.

And again, let's stay in reality -- Penn St has zero chance at an at-large.
 

Aren’t Ws the second criteria in selection? After automatic bids. I don’t recall an at large bid to a .500 or sub team. But to your point, that’s probably why we are hearing that 14 and 13 loss teams are still in the mix for a bid

I think wins have to be the second criteria, but who knows. Indiana keeps beating good(quad1) teams, but cant beat anybody else. Keep hearing their name in the NCAA talk. If some of these teams get in like Indiana and NC State then they obviously are looking alot into NET. I just heard the last couple of days people talking Penn State! Their NET is in the forties, but if they are actually in the talk then im at a loss for words! lol
 



Great stuff from Bennett.

Barring an incredible ACC Tournament run by #39 NET NC State, the Wolfpack unquestionably will be the #1 test case for the Selection Committee with regards to the NET. They have a highly inflated NET and do not belong in the tournament, at all, and have beaten basically nobody (Auburn, Clemson, Syracuse all at home).

NC State was the team that the author of the article I post analyzed to determine how to skew the NET ranking! here is what they said.

Q: Can we use this knowledge to our advantage?

A: If I really thought I knew some big secret that would benefit the team, I would be bugging Kevin Keatts and Debbie Yow on Twitter instead of talking about it here. Regardless, here is some obvious advice:

Run up the score whenever possible. Yes, the Margin is capped at 10 points per game, but the Efficiency is unlimited. I’m not saying that it’s worth being unsportsmanlike or risking injury, but the math says that every point counts, on offense and defense, every second of every game.
It’s better to schedule bad teams that play good teams than bad teams that play bad teams.
Avoid scheduling tough games at home. Losing at home hurts your Adjusted Win Percentage much more than winning helps it. And if the opponent doesn’t finish in the top 30, it’s not even a Quadrant 1 game.
Consider scheduling away games against teams in the 76-135 rank area. It’s fairly winnable, it can boost the Adjusted Win Percentage, and it counts as a respectable Quadrant 2 game.”
 

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketba...7/net-rankings-ncaa-tournament-what-they-mean


The NET will be the most common word heard throughout selection week and on Selection Sunday.

The purpose of the NCAA’s Evaluation Tool ranking (i.e. NET) is to sort teams into the four quadrants on the team sheets the men’s basketball selection committee uses for selection and seeding.

It is not a deciding factor.

It is not going to determine if a team is in or out of the bracket.

It is an organizational piece for the committee.



When the season ends — the hope is it will show — that when you played and beat good teams you got rewarded, especially if the games were away from home.

Not all home games are created equal (see a Duke home win over Virginia versus a win over Boston College) but all road wins aren’t inherently valued more than a home win. Remember, the NET will help sort the teams for the selection committee to decide on selection and seeding. But it won’t be the ultimate factor in either decision.

Thanks for the source, but it almost seems like it is just the opinion of the author of the article. It says the same thing later on that is the original intentions of the NET:
The goal of the NET was to produce a true ranking/sorting system for the selection committee for Selection Sunday. I hope that they use caution with an unproven new metric.
 

I think wins have to be the second criteria, but who knows. Indiana keeps beating good(quad1) teams, but cant beat anybody else. Keep hearing their name in the NCAA talk. If some of these teams get in like Indiana and NC State then they obviously are looking alot into NET. I just heard the last couple of days people talking Penn State! Their NET is in the forties, but if they are actually in the talk then im at a loss for words! lol

The good news is, short of winning the btt Indiana is toast. Zero 15 loss teams have ever received an at large. Since 1987 there have been two at large bids to teams that were 16 and 14 - seems that’s as low as the selection committee would go
 

The good news is, short of winning the btt Indiana is toast. Zero 15 loss teams have ever received an at large. Since 1987 there have been two at large bids to teams that were 16 and 14 - seems that’s as low as the selection committee would go

It's happened twice.

Vanderbilt in 2017 and Alabama in 2018 both got at-large bids with 19-15 records.
 

It's happened twice.

Vanderbilt in 2017 and Alabama in 2018 both got at-large bids with 19-15 records.

Good catch and thanks for the correction. Forgot all about northwestern beating vandy in the tourney in 2017. Sorry if I got anyone’s hope up with respect to Indiana being hosed.
 

As mentioned earlier, finding teams to play on the road who are ranked 76-135 to pile up Quad 2 wins (who could slide into top 75 even better) would be a good option.
But overall, a better option is to just play weak teams and beat the hell out of them to build up good efficiency rankings.

Buffalo has a NET of 16 and did a good job.
They only have 3 Quad 1 games winning two on the road against decent opponents. Gophers shouldn't schedule any for non-conference since they get enough already in Big Ten season.


Buffalo, Wofford, Nevada, UCF, and Utah St are all teams who NET score is better than their KenPom and this is due to scoring margin. All of those teams have high scoring margins.

There was a 25 page thread where we went over this. People need to stop looking at NET as though it's going to be used to bracket the teams directly. You reference Q1 wins, but then act like NET is a problem for bracketing. THe committee has EXPLICITLY said it is using NET to determine the quadrants.

Buffalo should be a 4 seed according to NET, but Lunardi has them as a 6 seed.

http://www.forums.gopherhole.com/bo...ical-Net-ranking-thread&p=1686917#post1686917

(emphasis added)

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.

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

There was a 25 page thread where we went over this. People need to stop looking at NET as though it's going to be used to bracket the teams directly. You reference Q1 wins, but then act like NET is a problem for bracketing. THe committee has EXPLICITLY said it is using NET to determine the quadrants.

Buffalo should be a 4 seed according to NET, but Lunardi has them as a 6 seed.

http://www.forums.gopherhole.com/bo...ical-Net-ranking-thread&p=1686917#post1686917

(emphasis added)



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

Lunardi isn't on the committee, but I think I agree with what you are saying.
 

I've looked at this like three times and I still have no clue what point is trying to be made with that statistic.

It is ridiculous to compare two resumes by comparing quad wins when the metric you use to measure a quality win gives you credit for beating a 13-17 team on a neutral court as a quad 1 win.
 

Interesting that Penn St. climbed the net rankings a few spots while the Gophers dropped one spot. I guess they played better in the loss?

It's probably a positive that Penn St. stays Q1, but still weird.
 
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Interesting that Penn St. climbed the net rankings a few spots while the Gophers dropped one spot. I guess they played better in the loss?

It's probably a positive that Penn St. stays Q1, but still weird.

Just about to post on this too.

Agreed it keeps them Q1 so thats helpful.

I know you cant look at NET rankings in the time frame of 1 game as it is a season long metric but definitely strange that they move up 2 and gophers move down 1 immediately following a game we beat them in. Definitely some weird anomaly but adds fuel the the NET detractors fire.
 

Definitely a good thing they stayed a Q1. Other big thing is BC is just hanging by a thread as a Q2 loss at #135 (#136 would be a Q3 loss). A couple teams on each side of them are in action today. Let's hope they all lay a turd.
 

I don't understand what can lead to this.

With RPI, you could move down after a win because you took on a weak opponent which hurt your Strength of Schedule component more than the victory helped you.

NET isn't supposed to work that way in regards to SOS. Also, if anything, the Gophers SOS should have gone up playing a higher ranked team.

The only thing I can think of is that Penn St was "more efficient" in losing, but I didn't think that was really a possibility, and if so, not by a margin that would move the two teams in opposite directions.
 

Interesting that Penn St. climbed the net rankings a few spots while the Gophers dropped one spot. I guess they played better in the loss?

It's probably a positive that Penn St. stays Q1, but still weird.

Yeah how weird is that? Where's Nebraska these days? Are they still killing it in the NET or have they dropped 10 spots because they have won 2 days in a row?
 

I don't understand what can lead to this.

With RPI, you could move down after a win because you took on a weak opponent which hurt your Strength of Schedule component more than the victory helped you.

NET isn't supposed to work that way in regards to SOS. Also, if anything, the Gophers SOS should have gone up playing a higher ranked team.

The only thing I can think of is that Penn St was "more efficient" in losing, but I didn't think that was really a possibility, and if so, not by a margin that would move the two teams in opposite directions.
1) The net ranking is really really dumb
2) All the other teams that played yesterday are going to affect your net ranking. We're still hoping for everyone we've played to win as many games as possible.
 

Yeah how weird is that? Where's Nebraska these days? Are they still killing it in the NET or have they dropped 10 spots because they have won 2 days in a row?

Nebraska moved to 49 from 52. Because they won I guess??
 

My only possible explanation for the movement is that the actual NET scores of the teams around us factored in more than our wins did.

Oregon was the team that passed us, so their efficient 12 point win over Utah (NET 101) was enough to pass our 5 point slug fest over NET ranking #47 team, Penn State.

As a former NET defender, these counter intuitive late season shifts are really inexplicable.
 





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