scottdude8
Moderator, front page and podcast contributor
@DavidBenAkiva noted in the Nerd Polls thread that the first NET Rankings are out, so it's time to create the designated thread for NET and Bracketology discussion (worthy of it's own thread separate from the other Nerd Polls given it's importance).
First, my yearly disclaimer, copied from the similar thread the past two seasons:
With that out of the way, there's some good, bad, and ugly for Duke in the first NET Rankings this year:
Good:
First, my yearly disclaimer, copied from the similar thread the past two seasons:
In this thread, we will be discussing the NET rankings and projections of the NCAA Tournament field, and speculating about their potential impact on Duke's resume and seeding come March. Many find this a fun topic to debate and discuss. Others find it silly project things so far in advance. (Some fall in both of the previous camps.) Many on this board feel quite strongly that such discussions are unnecessary distractions. Some are quite loud about this latter opinion, but are completely justified in their feelings.
All that said, this is a thread to discuss the NET/Bracketology, not to discuss the value of such discussions. No one is making you read or participate in this thread. Perhaps we can make another thread where we hate on Joe Lunardi and the silliness of the quadrant system, but the (perhaps unfortunate) reality is that they are major parts of the college basketball landscape as it currently stands, so there should certainly be a place on this board to have fun discussing and speculating on these topics.
A reminder about the quadrant system:
The committee splits a team's resume into games falling into four quadrants to facilitate comparison. Games at home against NET 1-30, at a neutral site against NET 1-50, and away against NET 1-75 are "Quadrant 1 (Q1)" games. "Quadrant 2 (Q2)" games are home 31-75, neutral 51-100, and away 76-135. Q3 and Q4 go farther down the rankings.
Generally speaking, a team's Q1 record has been very relevant when it comes to selecting the top seeds in the tournament. Avoiding "bad" losses in Q3 and 4 has been another seemingly important factor. That said, we know the whims of the committee change year to year, so take that all with a grain of salt.
With that out of the way, there's some good, bad, and ugly for Duke in the first NET Rankings this year:
Good:
- Duke is ranked No. 4, which illustrates both our strength in the underlying analytical metrics and the fact that neither of our losses this year are "bad" by any means. While there of course isn't a one-to-one mapping between NET ranking and NCAA seeding, in the past few years being in the Top 10 has been a rough prerequisite for a Top 2 seed (I'll do some more detailed analysis for the front page at some point soon).
- Pitt being No. 5 is HUGE for the ACC. Not only does that potentially give us a shot at a marquee victory when we play them (once, at home... what a break!), but it should help pull up the rest of the conference.
- If we can pull out a victory on Wednesday against Auburn, it should give us a clear marquee victory against a squad likely to be in the Top 5/10 of the NET all year. Illinois is also at NET No. 10, giving us another such opportunity in February.
- George Mason is NET No. 78, meaning that game could end up looking much better than your typical buy/cupcake game. Similarly, Seattle is at NET No. 105, and even Maine is at No. 147.
- Arizona is all the way down at NET No. 65, which is just inside Q1 territory. Now, the early NET rankings are always a bit fluky, and the major conferences tend to move up once conference play starts, so I'm not worried about that win falling out of Q1 territory... but Arizona's struggles place more pressure on the Auburn game.
- Teams that we were hoping to be in the Top 75 and provide road Q1 opportunities in the ACC currently aren't, most notably Wake and Virginia.
- The bottom of the league is, once again, BAD. This should look better in February than it does now, as the NET has a tendency to eventually favor teams from stronger conferences, but as it stands we could have nearly as many Q4 games in conference (currently 2) as we did out of conference (currently 3).