NCAA to replace RPI with NET

[Indoor66]

Breaking news... the NCAA has again changed course and done away with the NET system. Instead they’re just going to let USA Basketball determine the brackets.

Why not Joey Brackets?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Why not Joey Brackets?

Nooooooo... Biggest shyster at the Mothership. Has he released his 2019 brackets yet?

:::eye roll:::

[left_hook_lacey]

Nooooooo... Biggest shyster at the Mothership. Has he released his 2019 brackets yet?

:::eye roll:::

People always pile on Lunardi, but I think everybody is just hatin'. Dude gets paid buckets of money for "working" about 10 hours a year. I'd say he's a genius.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

People always pile on Lunardi, but I think everybody is just hatin'. Dude gets paid buckets of money for "working" about 10 hours a year. I'd say he's a genius.

I have as much respect for him as I do the "if the season ended today" college football playoff rankings. Guess what? The season doesn't end today.

And people applaud him for getting such a big percentage of the brackets correct - that simply isn't impressive to me. Give me a list of the automatic berth teams and all the metrics you can find two hours before the actual brackets are released and I can do the same darned thing.

People act like he's some sort of wizard, and freak out over what line he has Duke on in December. It's meaningless click bait.

[OldPhiKap]

Someone opened a 2019 poll thread here April 4, and it already has 125 posts. Lunardi serves a market all year long.

[sagegrouse]

People always pile on Lunardi, but I think everybody is just hatin'. Dude gets paid buckets of money for "working" about 10 hours a year. I'd say he's a genius.

The "problem" for both Lunardi and KenPom is that the audience wants to see early-season predictions. If they don't supply them, someone else will.

[left_hook_lacey]

I have as much respect for him as I do the "if the season ended today" college football playoff rankings. Guess what? The season doesn't end today.

And people applaud him for getting such a big percentage of the brackets correct - that simply isn't impressive to me. Give me a list of the automatic berth teams and all the metrics you can find two hours before the actual brackets are released and I can do the same darned thing.

People act like he's some sort of wizard, and freak out over what line he has Duke on in December. It's meaningless click bait.

I agree with you here. It's akin to the almighty NOAA and whoever else that weighs in each year to try to tell us if it's going to be a busy hurricane season or abnormally quiet. They're hardly ever right. They kill me with their predicted number of named storms for 2019, etc and then they have to weigh in on what could potentially be the cause. Shut up. You don't know. But they do it because some people believe every word of it, but mostly because they need to feel relevant. You can hear the disappointment in local weathermen's voices when they have to come on the air and finally admit that a particular snow storm or hurricane isn't going to be as bad as they thought. lol.

[left_hook_lacey]

The "problem" for both Lunardi and KenPom is that the audience wants to see early-season predictions. If they don't supply them, someone else will.

Only because this is the expectation they created. This all started with the 24/7 sports news cycle. Speculation is always a good off season click bait topic. It gets the fan bases riled up in the off-season because either A. they're excited because their team is picked to finish on top, or B. They're outraged that their team isn't ranked higher in some meaningless poll that came out before practice even starts.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Only because this is the expectation they created. This all started with the 24/7 sports news cycle.

I think you got the chicken and the egg reversed in your analysis here....the desire created the 24/7 news cycle (along with technology) and desire creates the pre season rankings.

[uh_no]

Someone opened a 2019 poll thread here April 4, and it already has 125 posts. Lunardi serves a market all year long.

like most things, there is value to being early to market. ESPN/Joe were among the first to REALLY push the whole bracket prediction thing. It doesn't mean he's particularly good at it (though he does at least follow the rules/trends closer than most), or even a particularly good bball analyst (I certainly don't think much of him in that regard), but credit to him and ESPN for realizing the potential and building a brand out of it.

[OldPhiKap]

like most things, there is value to being early to market. ESPN/Joe were among the first to REALLY push the whole bracket prediction thing. It doesn't mean he's particularly good at it (though he does at least follow the rules/trends closer than most), or even a particularly good bball analyst (I certainly don't think much of him in that regard), but credit to him and ESPN for realizing the potential and building a brand out of it.

Yup, well stated (as usual).

I’ll add this non-Duke perspective: I live in a world of SEC fans. Their focus is on football. So when UGA or South Carolina are playing well in the early season, they start using Lunardi and others to see where an “expert” rates them; who they need to beat to move on to or off the bubble; etc. it builds throughout the season as they approach the bubble, first in, first out territory and the conference tournaments. While Duke fans only look at this to see where we may be seeded —spoiled as we are— these folks are looking to make the tourney and are as jacked about being in the hunt as I was in the mid-80’s when making the tourney as a top ten team was not a foregone conclusion.

These analysts add excitement to the broad band of teams in contention. They keep fans of something like 70-80 teams interested. That is a HUGE part of the basketball fandom.

So, I applaud these guys instead of dump on them. They are good for the sport, even if true junkies like us may look down on them. Anything that gins up interest in the NCAA tournament, I’m behind 100%.

[Troublemaker]

Yup, well stated (as usual).

I’ll add this non-Duke perspective: I live in a world of SEC fans. Their focus is on football. So when UGA or South Carolina are playing well in the early season, they start using Lunardi and others to see where an “expert” rates them; who they need to beat to move on to or off the bubble; etc. it builds throughout the season as they approach the bubble, first in, first out territory and the conference tournaments. While Duke fans only look at this to see where we may be seeded —spoiled as we are— these folks are looking to make the tourney and are as jacked about being in the hunt as I was in the mid-80’s when making the tourney as a top ten team was not a foregone conclusion.

These analysts add excitement to the broad band of teams in contention. They keep fans of something like 70-80 teams interested. That is a HUGE part of the basketball fandom.

So, I applaud these guys instead of dump on them. They are good for the sport, even if true junkies like us may look down on them. Anything that gins up interest in the NCAA tournament, I’m behind 100%.

I consider myself a junkie, and I love looking at Bracket Matrix. I don't understand why a Duke fan wouldn't want to check in at certain points in the season to gauge where the consensus says Duke would be seeded if the tournament started today. "We just won at UVA. Looks like that bumped us up to a 1 seed" is the kind of clickbait I'm willing to indulge in.

Getting back on topic, though, I'm interested in when the NCAA will release the formula for NET. They're not going to conceal it all the way through the season, are they? That would be annoying and a huge PR mistake.

While NET probably won't be perfect, pretty much the only advantage RPI could enjoy over NET is that the formula for RPI is public knowledge.

[Indoor66]

I consider myself a junkie, and I love looking at Bracket Matrix. I don't understand why a Duke fan wouldn't want to check in at certain points in the season to gauge where the consensus says Duke would be seeded if the tournament started today. "We just won at UVA. Looks like that bumped us up to a 1 seed" is the kind of clickbait I'm willing to indulge in.

Getting back on topic, though, I'm interested in when the NCAA will release the formula for NET. They're not going to conceal it all the way through the season, are they? That would be annoying and a huge PR mistake.

While NET probably won't be perfect, pretty much the only advantage RPI could enjoy over NET is that the formula for RPI is public knowledge.

The bolded - that is the key. August 24 is a little too early for that junk.

[OldPhiKap]

The bolded - that is the key. August 24 is a little too early for that junk.

It is for me, but I don’t begrudge those that want to talk and think about it now.

I have not read the “way too early 2019 poll” thread, nor did I spend time watching preseason scrimmages in Canada. But I have no problem with folks that want to do such things.

First football game in one week!!!! That’s where my head is.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I consider myself a junkie, and I love looking at Bracket Matrix. I don't understand why a Duke fan wouldn't want to check in at certain points in the season to gauge where the consensus says Duke would be seeded if the tournament started today. "We just won at UVA. Looks like that bumped us up to a 1 seed" is the kind of clickbait I'm willing to indulge in.

Getting back on topic, though, I'm interested in when the NCAA will release the formula for NET. They're not going to conceal it all the way through the season, are they? That would be annoying and a huge PR mistake.

While NET probably won't be perfect, pretty much the only advantage RPI could enjoy over NET is that the formula for RPI is public knowledge.

I guess it depends on how you take that information. I recall last year lots of people VERY early on in the season using words like "locks" with very liberal meanings, and others full of consternation regarding which line Joey B had us on that week.

Ugh.

If Duke takes care of business on the floor, things like seeding have a tendency to work themselves out. And pretending anything is "locked" earlier than mid-late February is just folly.

[Troublemaker]

So, it looks like the NET formula won't be publicly revealed AND the NCAA isn't going to be releasing weekly updates, at least not early in the season? Kinda annoying. At the very least, hopefully the NCAA starts releasing weekly updates of the NET rankings by January.

Teams should be allowed to know where they stand.

[MChambers]

So, it looks like the NET formula won't be publicly revealed AND the NCAA isn't going to be releasing weekly updates, at least not early in the season? Kinda annoying. At the very least, hopefully the NCAA starts releasing weekly updates of the NET rankings by January.

Teams should be allowed to know where they stand.

Plus, we and more knowledgeable folks, like Ken Pomeroy, should be allow to point out any flaws in the methodology.

[uh_no]

Plus, we and more knowledgeable folks, like Ken Pomeroy, should be allow to point out any flaws in the methodology.

we have to remember, though, that their method may serve different purposes than KP. KP attempts to give you an answer of what a game would look like if it were played today. any NCAA scheme doesn't have to do that, and needs to come up with a ranking that both attempts to make a fair bracket while also rewarding teams who have already had good seasons. I am completely cool with a system that has increased weighting for strong OOC conferences, which rewards teams for actually winning tough games. KP ignores those things, but i would be lying if I didn't say that you shouldn't be rewarded in seed for tough wins, if even the fact that you won the game doesn't say as much about the quality of your team.

[MChambers]

we have to remember, though, that their method may serve different purposes than KP. KP attempts to give you an answer of what a game would look like if it were played today. any NCAA scheme doesn't have to do that, and needs to come up with a ranking that both attempts to make a fair bracket while also rewarding teams who have already had good seasons. I am completely cool with a system that has increased weighting for strong OOC conferences, which rewards teams for actually winning tough games. KP ignores those things, but i would be lying if I didn't say that you shouldn't be rewarded in seed for tough wins, if even the fact that you won the game doesn't say as much about the quality of your team.

I don't have a problem with that, as long as the selection commitee doesn't put all the teams that have tough wins but aren't that good in UNC's region.

[weezie]

Breaking news... the NCAA has again changed course and done away with the NET system. Instead they’re just going to let USA Basketball determine the brackets.

Actually, this NET sounds strangely similar to the Bill Walton Championship formula.