How the NCAA will value its new metric will impact all three Triangle teams
N.C. State’s inclusion in the NCAA tournament might depend on how much weight the NCAA selection committee will put on its own new metric.
The same can probably be said for the chances of both Duke and North Carolina to land on the top line as No. 1 seeds when the bracket is revealed in 13 days.
The NCAA introduced a new primary ranking metric, the NCAA Evaluation Tool or NET, to sort and compare teams for the 68-team field this season.
The NET replaces the RPI (Rating Percentage Index). The NCAA has not revealed the formula for the NET but among the factors are game results, game location, net offensive and defensive efficiency, strength of schedule and scoring margin (capped at 10 points).
N.C. State (20-9) begins the week at No. 31 in the NET with a home game with Georgia Tech (13-17) on Wednesday and a road game at Boston College (14-14) on Saturday to close out the regular season.
Under the previous system, the Wolfpack would have been in a safe spot for an at-large bid in that RPI range. The RPI was adopted in 1981 and used through the 2018 tournament. It had evolved to the point where it was more of a comparison tool — how did Team A do against teams ranked in the top 50 of the RPI or top 100? — than it was for its individual ranking.
Mid-major teams had figured out how to manipulate the RPI, essentially “gaming” it by playing more games away from home since those were more mathematically valuable.
The RPI didn’t factor performance, or efficiency, but the NET does. That should help N.C. State’s case. The committee adopted a “quadrant” system last year, as a way to weight and compare home/neutral/away results.
N.C. State has a 2-8 record in Quadrant 1 (H: 1-30, N: 1-50, A: 1-75) and 5-0 mark in Q2 (H: 31-75, N: 51-100, A: 76-135). The combined 7-8 record compares favorably to other teams vying for the final 10 at-large spots.
Working against N.C. State is the number of Q4 (H: 161+, N: 201+, A: 241+) games it has played (10) and its nonconference strength of schedule. Only one other Power 5 conference team (Arizona State) ranked in the top 70 of the NET has played more than eight Q4 games.
The committee has historically used the nonconference SOS as one of its primary factors in comparing and seeding teams. Essentially, the committee is interested in the games you control on your schedule and what you decided to do with those games. Did you schedule a bunch of easy home wins? Or did you choose to challenge your team?
Nonconference SOS and Division I SOS (all games) are both listed on the NCAA’s “team sheets,” which the NCAA updates daily on its web site. N.C. State’s nonconference SOS is No. 353, which is last among all Division I teams. Its DI SOS is No. 211, which is the lowest among the top 50 teams in the NET.
How much will the committee rely on those numbers as a point of comparison when SOS is already factored into the NET, no one really knows.
The NCAA did not go back and show how the NET would have been applied in previous years. The absence of the formula also means no one has been able to reliably go back and apply the new standard to previous brackets.
David Worlock, the media coordinator for the NCAA tournament, said the NCAA consciously made the decision not to retroactively apply the NET.
“When we broke the news about the new metric, our interest was to look forward, not backwards,” Worlock wrote on his Twitter account on Monday. “We felt that releasing data from previous years would have created an unnecessary narrative that wouldn’t purposely serve our membership.”
So how the NET will be used to sort the teams at the end of the at-large board won’t really be known until Selection Sunday on March 17.
The committee did provide a snapshot of how it will treat the top of the seeding board. It released the top 16 teams on Feb. 9, with both Duke and Virginia as No. 1 seeds and UNC as a No. 2 seed.
Since then, Duke beat Virginia a second time, the Cavaliers beat UNC and the Tar Heels beat Duke. So now what?
Virginia (24-2) begins the week at No. 2 in the NET, followed by Duke (25-4) at No. 3 and UNC (24-5) at No. 7.
Could all three ACC teams get a No. 1 seed? The Big East had three No. 1 seeds in 2009, which is the only time a conference has done that.
With Duke and UNC set to meet on Saturday, and then likely some combination of Duke/UNC/UVa meeting in Charlotte in the ACC tournament, it seems unlikely all three could wind up as No. 1 seeds.
Committee chair Bernard Muir noted in February that strength of schedule was the deciding factor in putting Duke at No. 1 overall.
The Blue Devils have lost twice since the initial seedings were released, and have yet to get injured star Zion Williamson back in the lineup, but Duke’s SOS ranks (NC SOS: 7, DI SOS: 2) are superior to the other candidates for the No. 1 seed.
UNC has a strong SOS (NC SOS: 11, DI SOS: 4) and marquee wins over Duke and Gonzaga.
Virginia has a weak nonconference SOS (No. 202) but an impressive combined Q1/Q2 record (14-2 with the only losses to Duke).
Gonzaga (29-2), No. 1 in the NET, has won 20 straight games and is the only team to beat Duke at full strength this season. The Zags’ SOS (NC SOS: 64, DI SOS: 46) won’t be a negative factor.
Tennessee was one of the No. 1 seeds on Feb. 9 but the Vols have gone 3-2 in their last five games and their SOS (NC SOS: 128, DI SOS: 81) does not compare favorably to Duke, UNC or Kentucky (NC SOS: 28, DI SOS: 16).
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 4:32 PM.
