Work Those Quads! (Net Rank Thread)

artRAMinMN said:
As the season goes on, each game becomes a smaller proportion of your whole index score (e.g., NET), so there's proportionally less impact. Additionally, as you play in-conference games against the same set of teams, you're primarily just adding more of the same already baked-in numbers. That's not to say you can't still help yourself (just win), be helped by others (SOS improvements), or benefit from the misfortune of others (gain ground by others falling below you)... it just means that movement tends to decrease as more games are played.
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Well said, I will add that winning also has less impact as you move higher up the rankings. Most top 40 NET ranked teams have probably won 4 of their last 5. If we were in the 200s and all of a sudden started winning then a streak like that would have shot us up dozens of spots. A bad loss or multiple losses would cost us quite a bit but winning will only do so much. I also don't think this number means that much on Selection Sunday. We could probably win out until the A10 tournament final and our NET ranking still won't be a high enough number that they will be afraid to leave us out of the tournament. I said this last week but no matter what we do now our resume is going to have some flaws. We are doing all we can lately but our most likely path will be through the A10 tournament. Winning now just limits our flaws and give the other teams around us some time to add a few of their own.
 
Last night's games were mostly favorable for VCU and we now have a 6-4 Q1+Q2 record. VCU is 5-3 in road games in those two quadrants.

Quadrant 1 (1-1):
@ #40 New Mexico
@ #72 Dayton (drops to Q2 if they lose 4 spots)

Quadrant 2 (5-3):
N #75 Nevada
N #77 Colorado State
@ #86 St. Joseph's
@ #99 St. Bonaventure
@ #112 Saint Louis
@ #118 Rhode Island
@ #128 GW (drops to Q3 if they lose 8 spots)
@ #134 Loyola Chicago (drops to Q3 if they lose 2 spots)

We currently have no Q1 games remaining - the only team in Q2 with a realistic shot of moving up to Q1 is St. Joe's, but they need to gain 11 spots to do it. George Mason and Dayton are Q2 home games (assuming Dayton can stay in the top 75), so we have a pretty decent chance of ending the regular season with an 8-4 Q1+Q2 record, which is not too shabby.

It would help if St. Joe's could blow out a few of their remaining opponents and get us to 2-1 in Q1.
 
Something needs to be addressed as far as looking at Quads. A team with a bunch of Q1 opportunities shouldn’t be automatically rewarded for winning a few while teams that get very little opportunities get punished. At best even with our preseason tourney we get 2-3 maybe Q1 opportunities. You can only control scheduling to a point. Many P4 teams aren’t gonna play us even on their court for risk of losing. I mean Indiana St got left out with a 28 net. So what is a mid major suppose to do?
 
rambunctiousrowdyram said:
Something needs to be addressed as far as looking at Quads. A team with a bunch of Q1 opportunities shouldn’t be automatically rewarded for winning a few while teams that get very little opportunities get punished. At best even with our preseason tourney we get 2-3 maybe Q1 opportunities. You can only control scheduling to a point. Many P4 teams aren’t gonna play us even on their court for risk of losing. I mean Indiana St got left out with a 28 net. So what is a mid major suppose to do?
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That appears to be how the system was designed to work.
 
Mercury said:
That appears to be how the system was designed to work.
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More or less. The NET was pretty much designed to favor power conference teams that can get strong schedules just by virtue of being in power conferences. It's why Penn State is #73 in the NET despite being 13-12 overall and 3-11 in conference...imagine if Joe Rockhead hadn't wimped out of the H&H series, that'd be a Quadrant 1 game if we went to Happy Valley!
 
Mercury said:
That appears to be how the system was designed to work.
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Yet Football went the opposite route.

SMU had a 70s SOS and went undefeated until the ACC title game.

Bama went 9-4 with two 6-6 losses against like top 5 SOS.

SMU was picked as it was determined wins take priority over SOS.

So you don’t have consistency over the two biggest college sports. Do wins matter or does simply playing tough teams matter? You put VCU against 10 Q1 opportunities does anyone think a 37 net rank team wouldn’t win atleast one (equal to UNC) if not more?
 
Mercury said:
That appears to be how the system was designed to work.
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And unfortunately it'll only make it that much harder to retain a good coach. Getting to the tournament every year like we used to could be a big sell, but now it's obviously harder. Could be one more reason for a coach to go p5 and have better chances even with subpar teams.
 
rambunctiousrowdyram said:
Yet Football went the opposite route.

SMU had a 70s SOS and went undefeated until the ACC title game.

Bama went 9-4 with two 6-6 losses against like top 5 SOS.

SMU was picked as it was determined wins take priority over SOS.

So you don’t have consistency over the two biggest college sports. Do wins matter or does simply playing tough teams matter? You put VCU against 10 Q1 opportunities does anyone think a 37 net rank team wouldn’t win atleast one (equal to UNC) if not more?
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The CFP rankings are more subjective and much less formula-based, so things like that are bound to happen.

NET is more or less completely automated, although the formula is some ancient Chinese secret where if the NCAA told you, they'd then have to kill you.
 
Mercury said:
That appears to be how the system was designed to work.
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agree - the system was designed to try and identify the best teams - no system is perfect because of sooooo many variables that are not controlled - then take the fact that if teams understand the system then they will game the system like RPI was easily gamed - one of the tricks of the NET is running the margin of victory to above 20

remember the ncaa tournament tries to get the BEST 36 teams after the AQs

P4s/P5s will not help good mid majors in scheduling because they know of their inherent advantage gained from their conference schedules and recognize that even good mid major conferences will rarely get Quad 1 games in conference play (only MWC recently has been able to overcome that)

As such, the NCAA committees have Always encouraged good mid majors to challenge themselves in OOC play - VCU does that with the MTEs but recently we have not done much in the rigor of OOC scheduling with those 7 home games - we need 3 games like New Mexico every year

once again, all that is now history and we want our Rams just to win the next game , then the next game, etc

this is a darn good team that is one of the most NCAA tourney ready VCU teams' in a long time - Let's enjoy the ride during the next 5 weeks
 
share the ball said:
agree - the system was designed to try and identify the best teams - no system is perfect because of sooooo many variables that are not controlled - then take the fact that if teams understand the system then they will game the system like RPI was easily gamed - one of the tricks of the NET is running the margin of victory to above 20

remember the ncaa tournament tries to get the BEST 36 teams after the AQs

P4s/P5s will not help good mid majors in scheduling because they know of their inherent advantage gained from their conference schedules and recognize that even good mid major conferences will rarely get Quad 1 games in conference play (only MWC recently has been able to overcome that)

As such, the NCAA committees have Always encouraged good mid majors to challenge themselves in OOC play - VCU does that with the MTEs but recently we have not done much in the rigor of OOC scheduling with those 7 home games - we need 3 games like New Mexico every year

once again, all that is now history and we want our Rams just to win the next game , then the next game, etc

this is a darn good team that is one of the most NCAA tourney ready VCU teams' in a long time - Let's enjoy the ride during the next 5 weeks
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So you reward power conferences being afraid to to challenge themselves. They need to force the power to take on top mid majors. If the powers threaten to walk oh well. It’s better than them getting to call all the shots. Plus they’ll have to face the backlash for walking out because their plan to crush the mid majors will be on full display.

Yes VCU could have scheduled better teams but you also can’t anticipate certain OOC teams playing bad. Should there be consideration regarding your conference strength? Yes. But it shouldn’t be everything. Should USC be 90 net ranking even when it can’t win a single SEC game all year? Should UNC really get love because it had one good win in Dec when it’s been mediocre in the ACC?
 
rambunctiousrowdyram said:
Something needs to be addressed as far as looking at Quads. A team with a bunch of Q1 opportunities shouldn’t be automatically rewarded for winning a few while teams that get very little opportunities get punished. At best even with our preseason tourney we get 2-3 maybe Q1 opportunities. You can only control scheduling to a point. Many P4 teams aren’t gonna play us even on their court for risk of losing. I mean Indiana St got left out with a 28 net. So what is a mid major suppose to do?
Click to expand...

Perhaps they should add Q1 win percentage so it's noted that you had 10 tries to get your one Q1 victory and maybe that would add some insight.
 
Does anybody have the NET conference rankings? I see on Warren Nolans site that the A10 is the 7th place conference but that looks to be an error and we're actually the 6th place conference as our NET win pct is higher than the Mountain West
 
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