I've been poking around to try to better understand NET ratings. The more I poke, the less I'm understanding.



Clear as mud, right?

It seems that, given the schedule you have, in order to increase your NET rating you need to A) win, B) win by as many points as possible (up to ten), C) convert a large percentage of possessions into points, and D) make your opponents convert a small percentage of their possessions into points. And you get extra credit for doing that against teams with higher NET ratings, and even more credit for doing it on the road (ie, beating a team at home may count as a lower "Quadrant" win than beating the same team in a neutral or away setting).

It looks as if early Quadrant wins and losses count the same as later ones. But what Quadrant the wins and losses you have had can change as the season moves on and your former opponents' NET ratings change.

Do I have that right?

Page with 12 minute audio Explaining the Net Rankings

Sounds like the algorithm computing "efficiency" and "Team Value Index" is something of a secret

All I know is NET thinks we're barely in the top 200 of teams in D-I and there's no way that's accurate.

(01-30-2022 03:27 PM)Seahawk Nation 08 Wrote:  All I know is NET thinks we're barely in the top 200 of teams in D-I and there's no way that's accurate.

My take on it is that it has made it much more difficult to get an at-large bid even with an excellent record without multiple quadrant i or quadrant 2 wins. The last Keatts team probably would not have gotten an at-large bid with 28 wins had it lost the CAA Championship game...and today there would be no way that team would get a bid.

Right or wrong , if you want a chance today for an at-large bid you are going to have to strategically schedule to get higher quadrant wins.

As it is the poor NET rating (which should get better if we manage to win the regular season title) means that should UNCW then win the CAA Tournament we would get a pretty awful NCAA Tournament seeding (Lunardi has us seeded as a #16 and in the play-in game).

So if the UNCW's of the world want to ever go to the tournament and get a win or wins, you have to schedule accordingly.

(01-30-2022 06:27 PM)70shawk Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 03:27 PM)Seahawk Nation 08 Wrote:  All I know is NET thinks we're barely in the top 200 of teams in D-I and there's no way that's accurate.

My take on it is that it has made it much more difficult to get an at-large bid even with an excellent record without multiple quadrant i or quadrant 2 wins. The last Keatts team probably would not have gotten an at-large bid with 28 wins had it lost the CAA Championship game...and today there would be no way that team would get a bid.

Right or wrong , if you want a chance today for an at-large bid you are going to have to strategically schedule to get higher quadrant wins.

As it is the poor NET rating (which should get better if we manage to win the regular season title) means that should UNCW then win the CAA Tournament we would get a pretty awful NCAA Tournament seeding (Lunardi has us seeded as a #16 and in the play-in game).

So if the UNCW's of the world want to ever go to the tournament and get a win or wins, you have to schedule accordingly.

It's pretty much impossible for a mid major to get a Q1 win late season

The NET stacks the deck against non power conference schools

(01-30-2022 06:38 PM)solohawks Wrote:  It's pretty much impossible for a mid major to get a Q1 win late season

The NET stacks the deck against non power conference schools

True...but my reading is that Q1 wins early in the season count as much as later wins - provided you beat a Q1 team that stays a Q1 team at the end of the season.

But you are right - mid majors don't get even get the chance to beat a Q1 team late in the season to improve their NET ratings, while middling P5 teams get multiple chances to improve their position on the bubble.

One thought would be that creative mid-major conferences would arrange something effectively like the old "Bracketbusters" to give their strongest teams late-season chances to face each other based on Quadrant Status.

(01-30-2022 07:05 PM)70shawk Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 06:38 PM)solohawks Wrote:  It's pretty much impossible for a mid major to get a Q1 win late season

The NET stacks the deck against non power conference schools

True...but my reading is that Q1 wins early in the season count as much as later wins - provided you beat a Q1 team that stays a Q1 team at the end of the season.

But you are right - mid majors don't get even get the chance to beat a Q1 team late in the season to improve their NET ratings, while middling P5 teams get multiple chances to improve their position on the bubble.

One thought would be that creative mid-major conferences would arrange something effectively like the old "Bracketbusters" to give their strongest teams late-season chances to face each other based on Quadrant Status.

A mid season challenge between the CAA and SoCon or MVC would be fun

(01-30-2022 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  A mid season challenge between the CAA and SoCon or MVC would be fun

It would. And if done later in the mid season it would set up games with teams with the highest NET ratings facing each other a chance to get a higher quadrant win.

(01-30-2022 07:26 PM)70shawk Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  A mid season challenge between the CAA and SoCon or MVC would be fun

It would. And if done later in the mid season it would set up games with teams with the highest NET ratings facing each other a chance to get a higher quadrant win.

And if we waited to determine which teams played each other, we could game the system and assure that the best teams, at the later point in the season, played each other.

Even in RPI, we are still rated below Hostra, Delaware and Towson after beating all of them and undefeated in the conference.

(01-30-2022 07:26 PM)70shawk Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  A mid season challenge between the CAA and SoCon or MVC would be fun

It would. And if done later in the mid season it would set up games with teams with the highest NET ratings facing each other a chance to get a higher quadrant win.

ESPN needs to bring back Bracket Buster games. George Mason beat Wichita State on the road in 2006. It’s how they got into the tournament that year

(01-30-2022 07:34 PM)Fletch 8 Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 07:26 PM)70shawk Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  A mid season challenge between the CAA and SoCon or MVC would be fun

It would. And if done later in the mid season it would set up games with teams with the highest NET ratings facing each other a chance to get a higher quadrant win.

ESPN needs to bring back Bracket Buster games. George Mason beat Wichita State on the road in 2006. It’s how they got into the tournament that year

It's ashame that we never got to truly take advantage of that concept

We played in a couple of them if my memory serves me correctly.

Also, I seem to remember they went away because mid majors saw them as beating up on each other and thus reducing the chances of more mid majors in the tourney, because it usually spelled doom for a good mid major that lost AND didn’t get their conference’s auto bid. It gave the committee reasons to slide in P5 bubble teams by using the bracket buster loss.


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(01-30-2022 10:00 PM)B_Hawk06 Wrote:  We played in a couple of them if my memory serves me correctly.

Also, I seem to remember they went away because mid majors saw them as beating up on each other and thus reducing the chances of more mid majors in the tourney, because it usually spelled doom for a good mid major that lost AND didn’t get their conference’s auto bid. It gave the committee reasons to slide in P5 bubble teams by using the bracket buster loss.


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We never got an ESPN game

The 1st year we didn't participate

After they when all the CAA participated we were bad so we got random matches that didn't matter

(01-30-2022 10:05 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(01-30-2022 10:00 PM)B_Hawk06 Wrote:  We played in a couple of them if my memory serves me correctly.

Also, I seem to remember they went away because mid majors saw them as beating up on each other and thus reducing the chances of more mid majors in the tourney, because it usually spelled doom for a good mid major that lost AND didn’t get their conference’s auto bid. It gave the committee reasons to slide in P5 bubble teams by using the bracket buster loss.


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We never got an ESPN game

The 1st year we didn't participate

After they when all the CAA participated we were bad so we got random matches that didn't matter

All true.

But Conferences - or individual schools themselves - might devise a more intelligent way of creating late-season matchups against between schools that make sense for all concerned.

Recall last football season when BYU and Coastal Carolina were both undefeated and they put together a game on the fly? Both had a schedule opening and both were looking for a marquee win (BYU was particularly incented because they knew that even if they finished undefeated they wouldn't make the playoff with the schedule they had.)

No reason why conferences couldn't block out some days late in the season to allow for similar MBB matchups that make sense.

These ideas are brilliant. Something like a late season bracket-buster needs to be revivied.Life as a mid-major has always been tough and become even worse in recent years. Mid-major conferences need to be innovative--hope we find ourselves in a creative conference one way or another!