March Madness is the pinnacle of the college basketball season. The highs, the lows, and everything in between. But the process that goes into the selection of all the tournament teams is a lot more complex than you may think.
College basketball has always been a sport on the forefront of analytics and advanced metrics. One of the keys the selection committee uses to decide the tournament field are the NET rankings. But what is NET? Let’s break it down.
An Explanation of College Basketball’s Postseason Metric, the NET Rankings
Until the beginning of the 2018-19 season, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee used what was known as RPI (Ratings Power Index). That was replaced by the NET Rankings, and they’ve been used ever since.
The NET Rankings are used to evaluate a college basketball teams’ resume as it pertains to whether they’ll be selected to take part in the NCAA tournament. At the end of the season, the Selection Committee uses the help of the NET Rankings to craft the tournament.
The NET is made up of two parts: team value index (TVI) and an adjusted net efficiency rating. A result-based feature, TVI rewards teams for beating quality opponents while the adjusted net efficiency rating accounts for strength of opponent as well as the location of the game, whether it be at home, on the road, or at a neutral site. The NET does not take into account scoring margin.
Not included in the NET are the dates of the games — meaning the first game and last game of a teams season hold the exact same weight.
That’s how NET Rankings are determined; a tad confusing, and rightfully so. The algorithm that’s used isn’t 100% known, leaving it up for the imagination at times.
Once the NET Rankings are produced, four separate quadrants are formed. The four quadrants, along with home, neutral, and away categories:
- Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
- Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
- Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
- Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
As you can see, where the game is played contributes a huge role into what quadrants come into play. We’ll use an example and go through multiple scenarios.
As of January 14, 2025, the Auburn Tigers held the number one spot in the NET Rankings. Their next matchup is on the road against the Georgia Bulldogs, whose NET Ranking is 26 — a relatively high number out of 353. For Auburn, since the game is on the road against the 26th NET Ranked team, it falls into Quad 1. Quad 1 on the road goes from rankings 1-75, and Georgia falls in the 26th slot.
A win would be considered a Quad 1 win, great for the resume come postseason. Conversely, a defeat would be considered a Quad 1 loss. Quad 1 losses aren’t anything to be ashamed of — technically, they’re the best loss a team can have.
We’ll use one more potential matchup as an example.
Let’s say the Tigers were to play the Seton Hall Pirates at some point in the season. Currently, Seton Hall is slotted at number 179 in the NET Rankings. If Auburn played Seton Hall at home and lost, that’d be considered a Quad 4 loss, due to the Pirates falling in the 161-353 home game category.
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While one Quad 4 loss likely wouldn’t sink a team as highly-ranked as Auburn, bunches of Quad 3 and 4 losses could plummet a teams’ chances come selection time. Quad 1 and 2 wins are the most desirable at the end of the season, helping build a strong resume.
Quite frankly, it’s more important to not lose the Quad 3 and 4 games than to win them. While a good record in that category comes into consideration, a bad record takes on much more precedent.
For teams wanting to make the tournament; win the games you should win and have a solid record in Quad 1 and Quad 2 matchups. Taking care of business and being solid against the best of the best can be enough — after all, the field is still a large 68-team pool.
It’s important to note that the NET Rankings are not the end-all, be-all for the Selection Committee. The so-called “eye test” by the committee members is also taken into account.
At the end of the day, it’s up to the Selection Committee, with the help of the NET Rankings, to craft a fairly made tournament with 32 automatic bids and 36 at-large bids — the hope being that the best teams in the country are apart of March Madness.
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