Want To Know Why Your College Hoops Team Won't Make The NCAA Tournament?

I know this is a bit premature, but if there’s anything that I enjoy more it’s getting excited earlier than I should. This time it’s about the death of the RPI. This was discussed before, but now we have an idea of what the NET looks like. I’m all for this. The RPI was terrible. It was incredibly outdated – similar to the NCAA – but this time the NCAA decided to make a change.

So now we’re onto the NET system. It’s a bit more complex and frankly a bit better. There are still going to be complaints, but nothing will be perfect. This is a correct step though. So to start there are five key factors: Team Value Index, Net Efficiency, Winning Percentage, Adjusted Win Percentage and Scoring Margin.

Right off the bat my biggest problem is the scoring margin. I hate that it’s capped at 10 points. That just doesn’t make sense to me and I really hope the committee uses this as the last factor. What I do like/find interesting is the adjusted win percentage. Here’s how it’s spelled out:

Road Win: +1.4
Neutral Win: +1.0
Home Win: +0.6
Road Loss: -0.6
Neutral Loss: -1.0
Home Loss: -1.4

I’d like to see it perhaps a bit more in depth with a road win vs a top-50 team rated differently vs a road win over a top-150 win, etc. But, this is a great stat. I like that they penalize teams for home losses and reward teams for both road and neutral court wins. Remember, the NCAA Tournament is played on a neutral court. Let’s treat those wins a such.

So mark this stuff down. You’ll want to remember it once football ends. This will be why your team makes the NCAA Tournament or not.