Field of 68 Projection (New NCAA NET Style)

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SelectionSunday

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All future NCAA Field of 68 projections on GopherHole will be from yours truly, but for our first in-season projection of the 2018-19 season let's go directly to the NET, the NCAA's new ranking system. This is what the tournament field would look like based strictly on current NET rankings.

I'll be completely honest -- except for a couple outliers in terms of identifying the 68 teams -- I think the NET looks pretty darn accurate based on the results we've seen so far this season. Specifically, two things the NET rankings reflect that I think are spot on? (1) The American, Atlantic 10, and Conference USA have been disappointments, but (2) the WCC is up. The WCC has performed very well early in the season. Do not be surprised if its current bid total (3) holds on Selection Sunday. ... Gonzaga + 1 would be my minimum expectation.

In multiple-bid conferences, the conference leader/best NET is accompanied by an *. Current NET ranking is noted in parentheses. Worth noting, the current NET bubble cutline falls at #49.

NET Field of 68 Projection (through Dec. 6)
America East (1): Vermont (128)

American (2): *Houston (20), Cincinnati (34)

ACC (9): *Virginia (1), Duke (3), NC State (13), North Carolina (15), Virginia Tech (25), Louisville (27), Florida State (30), Syracuse (40), Notre Dame (49)

Atlantic Sun (1): Lipscomb (53)

Atlantic 10 (1): Dayton (64)

Big East (4): *Villanova (23), Saint John's (29), Marquette (36), Creighton (41)

Big Sky (1): Northern Colorado (69)

Big South (1): Liberty (37)

B1G (9): *Michigan (2), Wisconsin (6), Michigan State (8), Ohio State (14), Indiana (22), Nebraska (24), Purdue (26), Maryland (33), Iowa (48)

Big XII (5): *Texas Tech (5), Kansas (9), Oklahoma (16), Iowa State (19), Kansas State (39)

Big West (1): UCSB (129)

Colonial (1): College of Charleston (106)

Conference USA (1): North Texas (42)

Horizon (1): Green Bay (114)

Ivy (1): Penn (96)

MAAC (1): Rider (147)

MAC (1): Buffalo (12)

MEAC (1): Morgan State (248)

Missouri Valley (1): Southern Illinois (81)

Mountain West (2): *Nevada (10), Utah State (45)

Northeast (1): Saint Francis-NY (175)

Ohio Valley (1): Belmont (50)

Pac 12 (5): *Arizona State (17), Arizona (18), UCLA (38), Colorado (43), Washington (44)

Patriot (1): Holy Cross (116)

SEC (6): *Auburn (7), Tennessee (11), Kentucky (21), Mississippi State (31), Arkansas (35), Florida (47)

Southern (1): Furman (32)

Southland (1): Abilene Christian (141)

SWAC (1): Texas Southern (164)

Summit (1): South Dakota State (140)

Sun Belt (1): Texas State (95)

WCC (3): *Gonzaga (4), San Francisco (28), San Diego (46)

WAC (1): New Mexico State (99)


Last 4 In: San Diego (46), Florida (47), Iowa (48), Notre Dame (49)

First 4 Out: LSU (51), Butler (52), Loyola Marymount (54), Northwestern (55)

Next 12: UConn (56), Xavier (57), Oregon (58), Vanderbilt (59), Ole Miss (60), Wofford (61), Oregon State (62), Georgetown (63), Minnesota (65), Radford (66), Texas (67), VCU (68)

Non-Power 6 At-Larges (4): San Francisco (28), Cincinnati (34), Utah State (45), San Diego (46)
 
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Is this factoring in that we beat Nebraska? Seems like they should have dropped further after the loss than #24. I also question being ranked #65 despite beating #24 and #44 (Washington). That Vancouver game had to be close to a home game for Washington.

I guess our cupcakes are pretty bad to get to #65.
 
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Otis said:
Is this factoring in that we beat Nebraska? Seems like they should have dropped further after the loss than #24. I also question being ranked #65 despite beating #24 and #44 (Washington). That Vancouver game had to be close to a home game for Washington.

I guess our cupcakes are pretty bad to get to #65.
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And won't get any better before conference season begins, and will decline because of the awful schedule between now and then. Upside is lots of opportunities in B1G to get good wins, and hardly any chance for bad losses.
 

Otis said:
Is this factoring in that we beat Nebraska? Seems like they should have dropped further after the loss than #24. I also question being ranked #65 despite beating #24 and #44 (Washington). That Vancouver game had to be close to a home game for Washington.

I guess our cupcakes are pretty bad to get to #65.
Click to expand...

The NET rankings are updated daily, so that includes the Nebraska game. We jumped from 82 to 65 after beating Nebraska.
 

I just don't get these rankings. Nebraska is #24 and the highest rated team they have beaten in #74 Clemson and lost to #65 and #5 TTU (home by 18 pts.). We have beaten #24 #44 and #72 OkSU and lost to #14 OSU (away) and #98 BC (away).

I admit the rest of our schedule is pretty bad but so is theirs, in fact their next highest win was #125 Illinois and #157 Seton Hall.

This whole ranking system is a freaking joke!
 


Otis said:
I just don't get these rankings. Nebraska is #24 and the highest rated team they have beaten in #74 Clemson and lost to #65 and #5 TTU (home by 18 pts.). We have beaten #24 #44 and #72 OkSU and lost to #14 OSU (away) and #98 BC (away).

I admit the rest of our schedule is pretty bad but so is theirs, in fact their next highest win was #125 Illinois and #157 Seton Hall.

This whole ranking system is a freaking joke!
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It's still pretty early. Skewed just like RPI was. If it stays similar after there is more data, we should be worried about the formula.
 

Otis said:
I just don't get these rankings. Nebraska is #24 and the highest rated team they have beaten in #74 Clemson and lost to #65 and #5 TTU (home by 18 pts.). We have beaten #24 #44 and #72 OkSU and lost to #14 OSU (away) and #98 BC (away).

I admit the rest of our schedule is pretty bad but so is theirs, in fact their next highest win was #125 Illinois and #157 Seton Hall.

This whole ranking system is a freaking joke!
Click to expand...

What I've learned about rankings over the years is, they're a joke if they don't rank your team high enough, highly accurate when they do!
 


Otis said:
I just don't get these rankings. Nebraska is #24 and the highest rated team they have beaten in #74 Clemson and lost to #65 and #5 TTU (home by 18 pts.). We have beaten #24 #44 and #72 OkSU and lost to #14 OSU (away) and #98 BC (away).

I admit the rest of our schedule is pretty bad but so is theirs, in fact their next highest win was #125 Illinois and #157 Seton Hall.

This whole ranking system is a freaking joke!
Click to expand...


Agreed. Must still be large emphasis given to last year's results. Wish they would just not do NET until they get enuf data from this season.
 




Holy Man said:
And won't get any better before conference season begins, and will decline because of the awful schedule between now and then. Upside is lots of opportunities in B1G to get good wins, and hardly any chance for bad losses.
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Or over the next few weeks, will last season count less and less? Which would immensely help us and cause our score to jump.
 

Otis said:
I just don't get these rankings. Nebraska is #24 and the highest rated team they have beaten in #74 Clemson and lost to #65 and #5 TTU (home by 18 pts.). We have beaten #24 #44 and #72 OkSU and lost to #14 OSU (away) and #98 BC (away).

I admit the rest of our schedule is pretty bad but so is theirs, in fact their next highest win was #125 Illinois and #157 Seton Hall.

This whole ranking system is a freaking joke!
Click to expand...

Nebraska's only has 1 win by less than 10 points. Nebraska's losses are by >10 pts and 7 points.

We have 5 wins by less than 10 points. We have 2 losses by greater than 10 points.

I would guess that they are too heavily including point differential into the rankings.
 

Tim1406 said:
Nebraska's only has 1 win by less than 10 points. Nebraska's losses are by >10 pts and 7 points.

We have 5 wins by less than 10 points. We have 2 losses by greater than 10 points.

I would guess that they are too heavily including point differential into the rankings.
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Poiint differential is considered?
 





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I'm not too worried about the next four cupcake games...

Cons:
1) Each game will hurt our non-conference SOS.
2) Utah and Texas A&M will most likely end up towards the bottom of their conferences (I still have hope Oklahoma State will turn things around and steal some games in the Big 12. They aren't an NCAA tournament team, but I'm hoping they can give our non-conference a small boost when all is said and done).

Pros:
1) This team needs some easy games. We've had ONE cupcake home game this season. This is a perfect time to work on the offensive and defensive issues that have plagued us early in the season.
2) Would you rather Curry's first couple games be against Big Ten teams, or against easy opponents? It's already been said that Pitino is hoping he's back for the North Florida game. That will give him three games to knock off the rust. We need Curry ready, or at least somewhat ready.
3) Dupree, IW, Oturu, and Stull really need some confidence (in my opinion). I would've added Coffee to this list before the Nebraska game. These next four games will provide plenty of playing time against weaker opponents to hopefully get things rolling for these guys.
4) As said in many other threads, the Big Ten is stacked this year. Every single game, outside Rutgers and Illinois, is going to be considered a good victory. And the best thing? Rutgers and Illinois most likely won't even be considered bad losses (neither of these two have any bad losses at this point). There's an abundance of opportunities to gather big wins.
5) Did any one else see the Washington-Gonzaga game on Wednesday? Now that is how many thought Washington would be, and the reason they had a preseason rank of #25 going into the season. They went punch for punch with Gonzaga and lost by 2. I still think this team is going to roll in the Pac-12 and finish in the top 3. Obviously this is just a prediction, but Washington will be the gift that keeps on giving for the Gophers.
 

Tim1406 said:
Nebraska's only has 1 win by less than 10 points. Nebraska's losses are by >10 pts and 7 points.

We have 5 wins by less than 10 points. We have 2 losses by greater than 10 points.

I would guess that they are too heavily including point differential into the rankings.
Click to expand...

Got it. But point differential alone cant account for the large gap in ranking between us and Nebraska or us and Maryland, for example. We have better wins.
 
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Dumb.. but so are field projections in early December

The only team to worry about now is ourselves
 

SelectionSunday said:
Here's the initial release of how the NET works.

https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2018/ncaa-net-ranking-system-rpi-replacement-explained

I have a hunch if the Gophers end up on the bubble, the most problematic criteria for them will be true road record. Must protect home court with vigor this season, and get at least 3 road wins somewhere.
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Yep. 3 road wins is what I have been thinking as a minimum requirement. Despite our flaws, we have enough weapons to be dangerous. I would not be surprised if they knock off a big time opponent on the road this year. We force the other team to foul and that is a big key that could win some games that one might not expect. The flaws might also lead to an unexpected or two...
 

ltf said:
Got it. But point differential alone cant account for the large gap in ranking between us and Nebraska or us and Maryland, for example. We have better wins.
Click to expand...

I agree it shouldn’t. That why I think the formula is off somehow to do with points.

Edit: Nebraska has 1 true road win against Clemson so maybe that too?
 
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