BOTH 2024 Postseason: Do NCAA Net Rankings Matter?

[grizzlyjournal]

This is a question more than anything... So:

Both Montana men's and women's teams finished with positive March 15th NCAA Net Rankings.
-- Montana MBB finished at 144th (2nd in the Big Sky), one behind 143 EWU, ten ahead of 143 Weber and signigicantly ahead of 186 UNC and 209 MSU.
-- Montana's WBB team also finished a Big Sky second, snugly in the top-100 NCAA teams at 97, 19 behind EWU, but well ahead of 117 NAU and 154 MSU.

Question: Are these rankings considered when officials place teams in the NCAA, NIT and WNIT playoff brackets? If so, the GrizWBB should seem to stand a chance at the WNIT playoffs, though the men would probably be a long shot for a NIT slot. Still.... within a measure of consideration.

Anyone have insider info? A reasoned prediction?
Regardless.... these NET rankings show considerable respect for the full-season accomplishments of both teams.

 

[mthoopsfan]

This shows how off the Net Rankings are. I argued that previously in another thread. I don’t know answer to your main question.

 

[TrueGriz]

I provided a link on how the teams area seeded, etc. in another thread. It has some info on NET, and based on the info in it, it doesn't seem to carry a lot of weight. It may carry more weight with some committee members, but other committee members very little weight.

How the field of 68 DI men’s teams is picked for March Madness

The NCAA’s guide to how the 68 teams are chosen, seeded and bracketed for the Division I men's basketball tournament every season.

www.ncaa.com

NCAA EVALUATION TOOL (NET)​

The NET is one of many resources/tools available to the committee in the selection, seeding and bracketing process. Computer models cannot accurately evaluate qualitative factors such as games missed by key players or coaches, travel difficulties and other effects of specific games.

Each committee member independently evaluates a vast amount of information during the process to make individual decisions. It is these qualitative, quantitative and subjective opinions -- developed after hours of personal observations, discussion with coaches, directors of athletics and commissioners, and review and comparison of various data -- that each individual ultimately will determine their vote on all issues related to selections, seeding and bracketing.

The NET has two components: the Team Value Index, which is based on game results and factors the result, the game location and outcome. The other component is net efficiency (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency), which is adjusted to account for the strength of the opponent and the location of the game.

Each December, the NCAA will release the first official NET rankings, and then post those daily at www.ncaa.com.

 

[TrueGriz]

This is a question more than anything... So:

Both Montana men's and women's teams finished with positive March 15th NCAA Net Rankings.
-- Montana MBB finished at 144th (2nd in the Big Sky), one behind 143 EWU, ten ahead of 143 Weber and signigicantly ahead of 186 UNC and 209 MSU.
-- Montana's WBB team also finished a Big Sky second, snugly in the top-100 NCAA teams at 97, 19 behind EWU, but well ahead of 117 NAU and 154 MSU.

Question: Are these rankings considered when officials place teams in the NCAA, NIT and WNIT playoff brackets? If so, the GrizWBB should seem to stand a chance at the WNIT playoffs, though the men would probably be a long shot for a NIT slot. Still.... within a measure of consideration.

Anyone have insider info? A reasoned prediction?
Regardless.... these NET rankings show considerable respect for the full-season accomplishments of both teams.

NET is split up in 4 quadrants, all based on the number of wins and losses against teams in a specific quadrant. Beating a team in quad 1 is great, losing to a team in quad 4 is bad. Lady Griz never lost to a team in the 4th quadrant, but NAU lost to a team in the 4th quad. Lady Griz also have a better record against teams in quad 2 than NAU. That is why Lady Griz are ranked higher in NET than NAU. Problem with NET is that Lady Griz played 3 teams against teams in quad 2 with a 2 - 1 records and NAU played 7 teams in Quad 2 with a 2 - 5 record. Playing more games against quad 2 and losing hurt NAU. But it seemed to help them in Big Sky conference games except against EWU.

I don't believe any computer generated rankings are that reliable. mthoopsfan argued that RPI is better which it may be and I really do not know why they replaced RPI with NET. But I have seen some of the same variances in the past with RPI (like UM being higher than NAU in the NET rankings). I always liked collegerpi.com but it became a paid subscription site.