2024-2025 Polls/NET/RPI

[jakejc795]

SDSU punished again for playing in the Summit League. The Jacks are better than a 10 seed.

Yeah, the 10th seed is a rancid carrot right to the chops

[98Jackfarmer]

Hell, they should have just as well dropped us to a 11 seed if that’s all the respect we can get.

[Sodakbull]

Oklahoma State coached by Jacie Hoyt, who was at Kansas City before she took over OSU. She won’t overlook us.

[GoJacks2011]

Well getting a 10 was not at all what we deserved. I still think we can win our first round game. UConn hasn’t had their best season ever but they’re still UConn and they crushed Creighton so the second round game obviously won’t be easy.

[LetsGoRabbits]

WOW we get dropped to a 10 seed and if we knockoff Ok St, we have easily the toughest 2 seed

we are BY FAR!!!!!! the best 10 seed

[adamj95]

SDSU punished again for playing in the Summit League. The Jacks are better than a 10 seed.

[LetsGoRabbits]

well we avoided the 8 vs 9 games

looks like UConn will be the second round matchup if we advance

[peavy]

But this seems to be the point I was getting at: the NET, purely by it's output, has some kind of P4 boost that isn't nearly as pronounced as the RPI (which also does quads now?). Every midmajor looks worse, every mediocre P5 looks better (I used Washington earlier because I watched them play early season when the Griz smoked them and once later in the year; the Jacks are hands down a better team). Is that simply from the margin of victory component? The '09 team was decidedly underseeded at #7 (should have been a 5 or better). The '16 team was a #12 with 6 losses; not sure if underseeded but we played exceptionally well even for a 12 seed. The '19 team was a #6 and played like it, and had 5 losses. I wonder what our NET would have looked like in those pre-2021 seasons.

Although, now I'm looking at the NET and it's totally fluffed the Ivy League too! Harvard gets early season Q1 win at Indiana and now rides that boost into league play and now they've got 3(!) teams possibly in the tournament. And Princeton and Columbia have great NET, too, because they each get to Q1 count for each other with Harvard lol.

from NCAA net thing they released a few days ago. bold courtesy of NCAA formatting
Two key components of NET rankings

1. Team Value Index — A results-based measure that rewards teams for beating quality opponents, with extra weight given to road and neutral-site wins.
2. Adjusted Net Efficiency — The difference between a team's offensive efficiency (points per possession)and defensive efficiency (opponents' points per possession), adjusted for opponent strength and game location.

"rewards for beating quality opponents" and "adjusted for opponent strength" power teams are always going to have better SoS's and more quality opponents. SDSU's overall SOS is 81. The 3 bubble power teams are Washington (SOS 29), Iowa State (37), and Virginia Tech (47). I only have a vague understanding of RPI, but I think it ends up favoring the mid majors a little more because the good ones don't lose, or if they do lose they're losing to great teams. SDSU RPI 19 (GT, Texas, Duke), Richmond RPI 26 (all great teams in Texas, Tennessee, Alabama plus 2 bad q4 losses), etc.

Washington's NET movement can most easily be seen on the NCAA's NET site (can also check Rankings by Week on this site if you cross reference Monday Week X NET updates w/ schedule). As an example, they went from 52-> 49 following a 3point loss in Washington to USC on 2/16, and then a 5 point jump 49-> 44 after beating Nebraska by 21 @ Nebraska Feb 23

Ivy they've maintained where they are with pretty large blowouts (again this is technically referred to as points per offensive possession vs points allowed per defensive possession - since the "NET doesn't reward for encouraging large margins") and as you mentioned, they're getting in based on the ability to basically beat themselves and riding the nice NET
Harvard look at the early schedule, Maine they won by 42, Northeastern won by 52, Northwestern 25. Pretty high efficiency games, and they maintained it with conference blowouts 30, 29, 55, 35, 37.
Columbia saw NET movement while in conference with blowouts 25, 22, 38, 52, 26,
Princeton's rankings are a little more unclear for me. They opened at 44 in the NET (around Dec 3). I think they got rewarded for winning a bunch of games on the road +21 @ Depaul, +9 @ Villanova,+3 @ Seton Hall, +17 @ Rutgers, +5 @ Temple. Then they also had the larger margins later +32, + 33, +23, +26 +29

[Bozemaniac]

Seton Hall coach is also an ally in this discussion, so it just makes sense. He's not holding back either

But this seems to be the point I was getting at: the NET, purely by it's output, has some kind of P4 boost that isn't nearly as pronounced as the RPI (which also does quads now?). Every midmajor looks worse, every mediocre P5 looks better (I used Washington earlier because I watched them play early season when the Griz smoked them and once later in the year; the Jacks are hands down a better team). Is that simply from the margin of victory component? The '09 team was decidedly underseeded at #7 (should have been a 5 or better). The '16 team was a #12 with 6 losses; not sure if underseeded but we played exceptionally well even for a 12 seed. The '19 team was a #6 and played like it, and had 5 losses. I wonder what our NET would have looked like in those pre-2021 seasons.

Although, now I'm looking at the NET and it's totally fluffed the Ivy League too! Harvard gets early season Q1 win at Indiana and now rides that boost into league play and now they've got 3(!) teams possibly in the tournament. And Princeton and Columbia have great NET, too, because they each get to Q1 count for each other with Harvard lol.

[peavy]

Seton Hall coach is also an ally in this discussion, so it just makes sense. He's not holding back either

[peavy]

I agree about getting rid of the non d1 teams, but you're sacrificing two home game gates to probably go on the road. I wonder if what it takes would be the willingness to go play one off road games with no return game in a later year.

That's what I was wondering. If it comes down to $$. So that's where the don't blame the net was headed. Chip in to the program. That said, women's game will now have units, so SDSU will be earning $ for everyone in the conference.

"The pot will begin at $15 million for the 2025 tournament, grow to $20 million in 2026, and $25 million in 2027. That means each unit will be worth $113,636 this upcoming year." front office sports article
the original ncaa document says it's over 3 years ( i think men once had a 6 year payout period).

about 113 / 8 team = $14,200 / 3 roughly $4,700 per year for each game SDSU appears in

[peavy]

speaking of d2 games. found this one from the fairfield assistant coach. He is not afraid to go public with things (as an example, he talked about getting ghosted by power schools while in the middle of scheduling conversations). Good guy to follow to get a pulse on what MM coaches are thinking.

[peavy]

What happens if the home games with lower division teams is swapped for a Western Illinois type of team? Is it a wash for points?

Right now SDSU is receiving no penalty for scheduling non-D1 games from a NET perspective. Non d1 is not calculated into NET, strength of schedule, etc. I assume it'll just show up in the team's resume at the bottom (similar to image from a few posts above). A good question would be if this factors into the committee's "observable component."

If you were to look at some of the stronger MM resumes, most don't have those games, but maybe this is just that location/"nobody wants to come to Frost" issue we talk about since teams like Belmont, Richmond, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, etc are in more favorable locations.

Now if you schedule WIU or a Utah Tech, etc, that game is now impacting your non conference SOS (and overall SOS but not as much since there's 30+ games), As seen above, our weakest NET opponent (outside 183 Montana and 215 EWU - again why I'm suspicious of this Big Sky Challenge - it's hurt our non con sos this year) was 110 Wisconsin. The team also played that Montana game close, which didn't help.

If you schedule them, you are encouraged to torch them, as Kansas State did in their non conference (see above: they had large margins in their q4 games ie #348 SC Upstate 110- 24), so that's high points per possession scored, and low points per possession allowed. KState's non con helped their NET, and it would help SDSU's if the game score is nice, but that's not what this team needs.

Fairfield has a 40 some net for a similar reason (nice efficiency), but again they would have been left out had they lost b/c they have 0 q1/q2 wins.

I was bummed that the team didn't blow out teams (technically viewed as efficiency with the NET) because it wasn't causing NET movement, but I don't think the story changes all that much when it comes to the committee. A 44 NET SDSU with 3 Q2 wins should be treated the same as a 37 NET SDSU with 3 Q2 wins.

To answer your question, if it came down to 2 300 teams, you might be better off going d2 so it doesn't affect anything. Belmont does have 4 Q4 games, but those 6 Q1 games are dominating that SOS non con conversation to overpower those weaker games. If you had to play them, with the way away wins > home wins, you may want to play them at their place. From my understanding, a 30 point away victory will be viewed better than a 30 point home victory

[peavy]

Maybe play at the Pentagon or Summit Arena in Rapid?

Neutral games are 1-35, Away are 1-45. It's going to sound crazy, but if a team is playing a MM and looking for a Q1 win (because let's face it Q2 doesn't move the needle as we're seeing this year && keep in mind this year is a very very weak bubble) they're going to want to play that as an away game because the chance of a MM being <36 at the end of the year is slim.

SDSU NET 44 this year, so we gave Duke a Q1 win (not that they needed it), if the game is sioux falls, it's Q2.

I guess could be a debate of battling against home-court advantage versus having a Q1 win. If anyone went to the South Carolina game at the Pentagon, how many SC fans were actually there? Was the atmosphere any different than at Frost? If it's a title contending team like Texas or SC, they should have 0 issue coming to Brookings since they're probably wining anyway.

[peavy]

That great win + good win would give us a one loss season just to be sniffing a #4 seed. And I don’t think you can plan it ahead in nonconference because you're still at the whim of your opponents playing well in conference. And they are disincentivized from scheduling you OOC because they can skate against the bottom of the barrel teams, play middling ball in league, and still make the tournament.

I agree about getting rid of the non d1 teams, but you’re sacrificing two home game gates to probably go on the road. I wonder if what it takes would be the willingness to go play one off road games with no return game in a later year.

This is why I think you just latch yourself to the good consistent programs, as SDSU has been doing with Creighton for however many years. I like the Big East for this reason as an alternative to Rice and Wisconsin. They are still small time enough to need to fight for their nonconference schedules, and they're strong enough for the whole conference to receive the benefit of the NET with the conf games.

You approach Seton Hall (or Marquette) coach Bozzella and tell him, "I'm going to give you an opportunity for a Q1 win on a great year (ie this one), and Q2 on a good year (last year SDSU is NET 55, missing the 1-45 away cutoff for Q1). I'll even let you come play us in Brookings first, so you get the benefit of that potential Q1 win opportunity first". Seton Hall for reference has 0 Q1 wins and 3 Q2 wins this year. NET 76 so on a 'down-year' for them, it's a Q2 away game for SDSU, Q3 home (again still better than Q4 home for Wisco/Rice)

We're seeing this year that Minnesota & their attempt at making the tourney with a non con ranked 359/365 or whatever isn't working out for them. Same thing with the Virginia Techs, Iowa States, etc. They're literally just skating by. With the new net quadrants, Q4 is so large, that if people are scheduling easy, it'll stick out. You can take a look at the list and see a team like OSU has 14 Q4 wins, KSU, 12, etc. True seed list (1-68 ranking for all the teams) should give a new indication of where the teams that scheduled easy in non con stand this year.

Are we still playing buy games? I assume the Texas game is not considered a buy game if they come to Brookings this year, just like I assume Duke isn't either if there's a H&H.

A good way of putting it is if you're not a yearly top 25 power team, away games is where you'll find the most benefit unless you're scheduling top 25 teams (Texas, Duke) at home. If you're a power team looking for Q1 opportunities in conference, it's the same thing. Some of these b12 teams are missing 1-2 Q1 wins because the team they've beat while playing at home are just spots away from being < 25 (Utah 26, Oklahoma State 27). It sounds very strange but it's like there's more incentive to play an away game, so I'm hoping this changes things from the "they won't play us" perspective