If you’ve ever watched a March Madness bracket reveal and wondered how some teams made it while others were left out, well, it all comes down to one crucial metric: the NET rankings. But let’s be real—NET isn’t just some boring number-crunching machine. So what exactly are these rankings, and why do they mean so much to women’s college basketball?
Breaking Down the NET Rankings in Women’s College Basketball
Launched in 2020 for women’s basketball (following its introduction for men in 2018), the NET rankings are the official NCAA system for measuring team performance all season long. The objective? To make the selection committee’s at-large bid and tournament seeding decisions more data-driven and objective. So, how does the NET get calculated?
The NET equation incorporates:
- Team Value Index (TVI): A performance-based element that rewards victories over quality opponents, particularly on the road.
- Adjusted Net Efficiency: The difference between a team’s offense and defense efficiency, adjusted for opponent strength and game site.
- Winning percentage
- Game results (wins/losses)
- Strength of schedule
- Game location (home, away, neutral)
One important change: In contrast to the men’s version, the women’s NET rankings do not factor in scoring margin, so teams are not rewarded for running up the score. This protects the integrity of the game and discourages blowouts.
Every game that a team plays—whether it’s a marquee matchup against a top-10 powerhouse or an unranked mid-major—is reflected in the NET. Home wins against weaker teams are not as valuable as wins away from home against difficult teams. A home loss to a low-ranked team, on the other hand, can be a huge blow to a team’s NET ranking.
“The NET isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have for equating teams across conferences and style of play,” said NCAA women’s basketball selection committee chair Lisa Peterson in an interview in 2024. “It does help us distill through some of the noise.”
Similar to the men’s game, the women’s NET is divided into quadrants that categorize win/loss quality:
- Quad 1: Home 1–25, Neutral 1–50, Away 1–75
- Quad 2: Home 26–50, Neutral 51–100, Away 76–135
- Quad 3: Home 51–100, Neutral 101–200, Away 136–240
- Quad 4: Home 101+, Neutral 201+, Away 241+
The more Quad 1 wins you accumulate (particularly on the road), the stronger your résumé appears come tournament time.
Why NET Matters More Than You Think
For fans who monitor AP polls or rankings, it might come as a surprise that they’re not involved in NCAA tournament selection. The selection committee does not take the AP Poll or the Coaches Poll into consideration. Well, it relies very heavily on NET, in addition to head-to-head performance, injuries, and how teams end the season.
NET is also used to decide hosts for the first two rounds of the tournament. The top 16 seeds, who earn the right to host based partly on NET, can get a tremendous advantage. The rankings are updated daily during the regular season, and so fans and teams alike keep close tabs on where they rank. A huge upset or a loss can move a team’s position overnight.
“It’s like a heartbeat of the season,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley explained. “You check it each day to determine if you’re on the right path.”
The NCAA website and programs such as NCAA.com, HerHoopStats, and ESPN’s Women’s Basketball Power Index offer fans live NET scores. Analysts use the NET in comparison to other advanced metrics such as RPI (which NET replaced), Massey Ratings, and Strength of Record to give a complete picture.
On the surface, the NET rankings could be merely another stat sheet for die-hard fans and experts to analyze. But in practice, they have become an important component of the evaluation and admiration of women’s college basketball.
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NET rankings impose order on disorder. They provide a level playing field for smaller conference programs and highlight teams that are winning hard games, even without the national spotlight.
For Belmont, Princeton, or the Florida Gulf Coast, the NET provides an avenue to demonstrate they belong. So next time you’re debating tournament snubs or bracket busters, don’t forget to check the NET.
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