NET Ranking for Tournament Selection | Page 2 | The Boneyard

NET Ranking for Tournament Selection

Glenn said:
Zero love for RPI. It literally does not care who you beat. 3/4 of RPI is the win percentage of your opponents and 1/4 is your win percentage. The latter does NOT try to account for who you beat. It is a seriously stupid metric. So NET is better, though still not great.
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It doesn't matter whether you loved it or not. It was far from perfect and it wasn't aiming to be perfect. There is no perfect way of choosing the best 68 (out of 250) teams into a tournament unless they all play a round-robin against each other.

But what the RPI did provide was that (1) it allowed everyone to calculate it easily (2) everyone knew what they needed to do to get a better index and make the tourney (3) and it was mostly transparent and fair to all members of all conferences

Now we lack all three on a new obscure ranking system that isn't perfect anyway and can be easily manipulated...
 
ecasadoSBU said:
It doesn't matter whether you loved it or not. It was far from perfect and it wasn't aiming to be perfect. There is no perfect way of choosing the best 68 (out of 250) teams into a tournament unless they all play a round-robin against each other.

But what the RPI did provide was that (1) it allowed everyone to calculate it easily (2) everyone knew what they needed to do to get a better index and make the tourney (3) and it was mostly transparent and fair to all members of all conferences

Now we lack all three on a new obscure ranking system that isn't perfect anyway and can be easily manipulated...
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If its not easily calculated and teams don't know how to get a better rating how is it easy to manipulate?
 
Brochacho said:
If its not easily calculated and teams don't know how to get a better rating how is it easy to manipulate?
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Because now its in the hands of the NCAA to play nice. Do you trust the NCAA? I don't!

I prefer if the formula is readily available for everyone. That everyone can use the formula to improve their rating as opposed to just having the NCAA gives us weekly NET ratings that we have no idea how they were calculated.

A monopoly on access/information is never a good idea
 
Presumably, if the algorithm for the NET is not fully revealed, the NET is more difficult to manipulate (unlike the RPI). That means the NET can do what it is meant to do, measure the quality of the teams, without being meddled with in scheduling or during games.

I watched the NET very closely last year, and while not perfect (I have my own gripes, such as rewarding teams that play at a very slow pace, aka B10 teams), it is a far superior metric. The reason Kenpom is used as an example so often when talking about the NET is because KP was the closest system the NET replicated.

Some of the criticisms here are just a product of it being too early to judge the NET (you will see a lot of wild swings at this point in the season) and the rest is just misunderstanding. For example, feasting on cupcakes won't have the desired outcome you want unless you REALLY beat up on them. If you want to move up when playing cupcakes, the margin of victory you need will vary depending on how bad the opponent is. A 175 cupcake vs a 250 vs low 300's team will need an increasingly large margin or you could actually see your NET drop. I saw this a lot last year when we (Marquette) beat 300+ NET teams by a wide margin but our NET rating went down.
 
MU in MKE said:
Presumably, if the algorithm for the NET is not fully revealed, the NET is more difficult to manipulate (unlike the RPI). That means the NET can do what it is meant to do, measure the quality of the teams, without being meddled with in scheduling or during games.

I watched the NET very closely last year, and while not perfect (I have my own gripes, such as rewarding teams that play at a very slow pace, aka B10 teams), it is a far superior metric. The reason Kenpom is used as an example so often when talking about the NET is because KP was the closest system the NET replicated.

Some of the criticisms here are just a product of it being too early to judge the NET (you will see a lot of wild swings at this point in the season) and the rest is just misunderstanding. For example, feasting on cupcakes won't have the desired outcome you want unless you REALLY beat up on them. If you want to move up when playing cupcakes, the margin of victory you need will vary depending on how bad the opponent is. A 175 cupcake vs a 250 vs low 300's team will need an increasingly large margin or you could actually see your NET drop. I saw this a lot last year when we (Marquette) beat 300+ NET teams by a wide margin but our NET rating went down.
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if the 300+ Division-I programs + fans + media know the formula and everyone attempts to manipulate the effect is minimized. We all know that what is equal is not an advantage. This applies in sports and in non-sports context. If everyone cheats then there is little gain. It's only when a few cheat and everyone is held to the rules that the cheater benefits!

In this case when only the NCAA knows the formula how do we know that they are being honest? How do we know they aren't using it to bump up their favorite F5 program at the expense of everyone else? How do we know that the NCAA didn't provide the formula to a few programs so they can take advantage at the expense of everyone else?

Again, I do not trust the NCAA and you shouldn't either. The NCAA is a sanctioning body that has given too much power to a few schools and I can easily see them using this obscure NET to benefit those same power program. Why? Because the NCAA gets more revenue when a big time program is playing whether from ticket sales or TV revenue
 
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ecasadoSBU said:
if the 300+ Division-I programs + fans + media know the formula and everyone attempts to manipulate the effect is minimized. We all know that what is equal is not an advantage. This applies in sports and in non-sports context. If everyone cheats then there is little gain. It's only when a few cheat and everyone is held to the rules that the cheater benefits!

In this case when only the NCAA knows the formula how do we know that they are being honest? How do we know they aren't using it to bump up their favorite F5 program at the expense of everyone else? How do we know that the NCAA didn't provide the formula to a few programs so they can take advantage at the expense of everyone else?

Again, I do not trust the NCAA and you shouldn't either. The NCAA is a sanctioning body that has given too much power to a few schools and I can easily see them using this obscure NET to benefit those same power program. Why? Because the NCAA gets more revenue when a big time program is playing whether from ticket sales or TV revenue
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It is difficult to argue against a conspiracy theory. At the end of the day, the NCAA is just an organization made up of member schools. If schools didn't trust the NCAA, they need to clean house themselves. However, since the NET follows multiple analytical models such as Kenpom, I think it is pretty clear that the outcome is decently satisfactory for most people.

Besides, NET by itself does not determine who makes the tournament. It is only one tool used to evaluate the field. Because of this, and because we can ultimately see who makes it or not, an individual can make up their own mind in March whether things are equitable or not.
 
I can't believe anyone is arguing that teams shouldn't know what goes into a metric that is critical for determining access to and seeding within the NCAA Tournament. This is like arguing an employee should not know in advance what factors will go into his performance review.
 
I appreciate everyone’s well thought and written responses. It’s helpful in trying to understand it better. At the end of the day it is the corrupt NCAA using it. Maybe there should be a corrupt NCAA factor added to it as well. ;)
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I can't believe anyone is arguing that teams shouldn't know what goes into a metric that is critical for determining access to and seeding within the NCAA Tournament. This is like arguing an employee should not know in advance what factors will go into his performance review.
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When it eliminates teams trying to game the system and end up with an arbitrary high ranking, yes that's a good thing
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I can't believe anyone is arguing that teams shouldn't know what goes into a metric that is critical for determining access to and seeding within the NCAA Tournament. This is like arguing an employee should not know in advance what factors will go into his performance review.
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The factors are public knowledge. Just the weights are secret.

Wins, winning percentage, scoring margin, strength of schedule, efficiency.
 
navery12 said:
When it eliminates teams trying to game the system and end up with an arbitrary high ranking, yes that's a good thing
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Is that a true threat or just cover for the lack of transparency?
 
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navery12 said:
The threat of teams gaming the system? Yes it happened every year with RPI
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I don't get into the weeds with this stuff but did this "gaming" really manifest itself in many undeserving teams getting in?
 
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Waquoit said:
I don't get into the weeds with this stuff but did this "gaming" really manifest itself many of undeserving teams getting in?
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Realistically we're talking about like 2-3 bubble teams a year so not really
 
Waquoit said:
I don't get into the weeds with this stuff but did this "gaming" really manifest itself many of undeserving teams getting in?
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They ended up getting 4 bids instead of the 6 that were in the RPI top 45, which is about as many as they deserved. But there's quotes from the actual conference that they withheld NCAA $ distributions if teams didn't schedule properly to game the system.
 
Ultimately, any objective ranking system should put the best teams in the tournament. If a system is doing a good job of placing the best teams in the tournament, then it should be a fairly accurate predictor of who will win games. The RPI was not the most effective tool at predicting tournament success; therefore, I'm open to a new system like NET that incorporates offensive and defensive efficiency. My quick Google search hasn't found data on the performance of NET rankings last year, but here is an article demonstrating that RPI was a worse predictor of tournament performance than preseason rankings from 2002-2017.

fivethirtyeight.com

Want To Know Who Will Win During March Madness? Go Back To The Preseason Polls.

Data is king. When we’re making any decision of consequence about the future — whether in business, sports or politics — our tech-filled world demands that we…
fivethirtyeight.com fivethirtyeight.com
 
More evidence the RPI wasn't the best option. I'd trade some level of transparency for a better system. I'm sure NET isn't perfect. I think it's probably an upgrade, though.

harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com

The RPI is Not the Real Predictive Indicator

Despite taking quite the beating recently, the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) is still the official and favored ranking system of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Selection Committee. The RPI does n…
harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com
 
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Record vs top teams - Top 25
Record vs tournament level teams - Top 50
Record vs at large bubble teams - Top 100

Losses vs everyone else

That's all that should really matter. Even a mid major should have a winning record vs Top 100 teams and enough of a sample for it to mean something. Sure, Duke gets more Top 25 games but if they go 1-5 in those games then you can determine they aren't that good compared to a team that goes 2-1.

Conversely, a mid major that goes 0-1, better have a superior record agaisnt the Top 100.

This shouldn't be this hard.
 
SubbaBub said:
Record vs top teams - Top 25
Record vs tournament level teams - Top 50
Record vs at large bubble teams - Top 100

Losses vs everyone else

That's all that should really matter. Even a mid major should have a winning record vs Top 100 teams and enough of a sample for it to mean something. Sure, Duke gets more Top 25 games but if they go 1-5 in those games then you can determine they aren't that good compared to a team that goes 2-1.

Conversely, a mid major that goes 0-1, better have a superior record agaisnt the Top 100.

This shouldn't be this hard.
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I guess the question then is what metric do you use to rank the teams that a team played? If you're going to use a record against top 25, top 50 and top 100 then you need a good way to rank every team. Sort of a circular calculation though.
 
navery12 said:
Up to 63 in the latest rankings
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If NET were the only criteria (beyond auto-qualifiers), it would appear a team would need to get to at least #48 to get on the bubble, then wait to see how the one-bid leagues shake out.
 
storrsroars said:
If NET were the only criteria (beyond auto-qualifiers), it would appear a team would need to get to at least #48 to get on the bubble, then wait to see how the one-bid leagues shake out.
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Last year the last 4 in were Belmont (47), Temple (56), Arizona St (63), St John's (73)
 
navery12 said:
Last year the last 4 in were Belmont (47), Temple (56), Arizona St (63), St John's (73)
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Which would tell me that NET wasn't the only criteria. Which makes the "murkiness of selection process" arguments very valid.
 
storrsroars said:
Which would tell me that NET wasn't the only criteria. Which makes the "murkiness of selection process" arguments very valid.
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Correct, it's not and has never claimed to be the only criteria. It just replaced RPI as the primary tool
 
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pepband99 said:
hey @nelsonmuntz - the NET got changed today - it's bad for the black box piece, probably good for running up the score concerns...

i really wish they would just publish the damn algorithm - why even hint at something nefarious?

www.espn.com

NCAA drops 3 of 5 factors from evaluation tool for tourney selection

The NCAA is streamlining its evaluation tool for selecting NCAA tournament teams.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
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I was fine with the RPI.

The selection criteria should reward positive performance by the teams, and the teams should know what the basis is for that assessment. If there is a black box, then how does anyone know how to maximize their teams' performance?
 
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