7-3 would mean a first game exit in the BIG tournament right? I don’t really see us having a chance in that situation. Even with a historically weak bubble.
THE OFFICIAL 2024-2025 NET RANKINGS THREAD
- Thread starter bac2therac
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7-3 would mean a first game exit in the BIG tournament right? I don’t really see us having a chance in that situation. Even with a historically weak bubble.
Yes, but it's being inferred from results. It isn't an official thing. They could always decide to go back to considering them more.
Mississipi State went like 7-0 in Q3
TCU had a win over #1 net Houston and had only 1 loss outside of Q1...and yes I agree I didnt like their profile all that much
Texas was sketchy. They really didnt have alot of big wins Baylor at Texas Tech, at TCU....but likely pointing to 4 quad 1 road wins. they had one loss in Q3 at WVU and were 13-12 in Q1/2/3...they did have 2 wins over Oklahoma who was last team out
TCU had a win over #1 net Houston and had only 1 loss outside of Q1...and yes I agree I didnt like their profile all that much
Texas was sketchy. They really didnt have alot of big wins Baylor at Texas Tech, at TCU....but likely pointing to 4 quad 1 road wins. they had one loss in Q3 at WVU and were 13-12 in Q1/2/3...they did have 2 wins over Oklahoma who was last team out
even if we gave them 1-1 for 19-14 I just think its wrong side of the bubble, but i could be wrong of course, until we actually see the other resumes matched up against rutgers
Yeah, but after going 3-1 we’d then have to also go 4-2. That’s a long time to sustain video game caliber play from Ace and/or Dylan. I can see it happening for a 5-6 game magical stretch easier than becoming the new norm with a few set backs. That’s why the autobid seems a more realistic goal to me.
Agreed - I would think we’d also need to be 2-1 in the BIG tournament to be a serious at large candidate.
I agree with you 100% that there is a clear trend of the committee sending the message that a resume cannot be manufactured in the tournament. But at the same time, let me ask you this. Can you think of a situation (ever) where a team got an At Large bid under the following scenario. They got hot in late Jan / Feb and made a late push at the end of the regular season following a poor start to the season. Then they went 1 and done in their conf tourney and still earned a bid?
I understand that there are first times to everything and a lot of the time it’s what Fluox said - arbitrary historical patterns that correlate with other problematic metrics ultimately resulting in exclusion and the exact cause cannot be definitively pinpointed why a team doesn’t make it. No 16 seed ever beat a 1 seed. Until it happened.
But in the case of the conference tournament, I do think it’s true that history probably says losing in the first round for your 14th loss isn’t a good idea. Just I guess. I haven’t pulled the data - just don’t recall many instances of this off the top of my head. I’m inclined to agree with Billy. I think we’d need a good showing not so much for the resume but just to show we’re still a “hot” team.
True. I think when you have so many Quad 1 games, you get credit for the wins even if you are under .500. There are teams that get in that don't even play 5 Quad 1 games in a season.
RU is now #72
Q1: 2-8 / Q2: 3-0 / Q3: 0-2 / Q4: 6-0
Results:
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
6 - (N)Alabama (L)
9 - Purdue (L)
15 - (N)Texas A&M (L)
17 - MSU (at MSG) (L)
19 - Wisconsin (L)
28 - @OSU (L)
48 - @PSU (L)
55 - @Northwestern (W)
62 - @Nebraska (W)
67 - @Indiana (L)
Q2 (31-75 Home 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
33 - UCLA (W)
48 - PSU (W)
89 - (N)Notre Dame (W)
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
130 - (N)Princeton (L)
157 - @Kennesaw St (L)
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 241+ Away)
161 - Merrimack (W)
194 - SHU (W)
196 - Columbia (W)
249 - St. Peters (W)
280 - Monmouth (W)
332 - Wagner (W)
Upcoming
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
9 - @Purdue
11 - Illinois
18- @Maryland
20 - @Michigan
20 - Michigan
27 - @Oregon
Q2 (31-75 Home, 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
65 - Iowa
73 - USC
98 - @Washington
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
100 - Minnesota
Notes:
- Merrimack knocking on the door of Q3
- UCLA knocking on the door of Q1
- Columbia has fallen apart
Q1: 2-8 / Q2: 3-0 / Q3: 0-2 / Q4: 6-0
Results:
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
6 - (N)Alabama (L)
9 - Purdue (L)
15 - (N)Texas A&M (L)
17 - MSU (at MSG) (L)
19 - Wisconsin (L)
28 - @OSU (L)
48 - @PSU (L)
55 - @Northwestern (W)
62 - @Nebraska (W)
67 - @Indiana (L)
Q2 (31-75 Home 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
33 - UCLA (W)
48 - PSU (W)
89 - (N)Notre Dame (W)
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
130 - (N)Princeton (L)
157 - @Kennesaw St (L)
Q4 (161+ Home, 201+Neutral, 241+ Away)
161 - Merrimack (W)
194 - SHU (W)
196 - Columbia (W)
249 - St. Peters (W)
280 - Monmouth (W)
332 - Wagner (W)
Upcoming
Q1 (1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away)
9 - @Purdue
11 - Illinois
18- @Maryland
20 - @Michigan
20 - Michigan
27 - @Oregon
Q2 (31-75 Home, 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away)
65 - Iowa
73 - USC
98 - @Washington
Q3 (76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 136-240 Away)
100 - Minnesota
Notes:
- Merrimack knocking on the door of Q3
- UCLA knocking on the door of Q1
- Columbia has fallen apart
Also, to revisit... # of teams in Top 100 by conference:
18 - B1G
16 - SEC
14 - B12
10 - ACC
9 - BE
6 - WCC, MWC
5 - A10
2 - MVC, CUSA, Big West, American
1 - Southland, WAC, Sun Belt, Big South, ASUN, SoCon, Ivy, MAC
18 - B1G
16 - SEC
14 - B12
10 - ACC
9 - BE
6 - WCC, MWC
5 - A10
2 - MVC, CUSA, Big West, American
1 - Southland, WAC, Sun Belt, Big South, ASUN, SoCon, Ivy, MAC
And another revisit.... Bradley's 23 point home loss to Loyola-Chicago (Q3) was not a good look for any at-large hopes. They've now dropped from 63 to 74 and are on the cusp of becoming a Q2 road game and Q3 home game for Drake.
UCLA absolutely smoking Oregon
Wouldn't be surprised if we wake up to them being Q1
Wouldn't be surprised if we wake up to them being Q1
I would think they bump up 3 spots at least with a 26 point win against the #27 team in the NET, UCLA has really turned things around.
Bradley was never a serious At Large contender. Drake’s magic number in my opinion is 5 losses on selection day for virtual lock status should they lose the autobid (at this point it shouldn’t much matter who they lose to). Vanderbilt has 4 losses and just beat UK. On a midmajor resume that win is a shining trophy worth a ton of collateral. And that’s true regardless of whether Bradley finishes NET 65 or 85. Besides which - there are other musical chairs going on. Drake also beat K-State who just rattled of two wins. At the moment that’s another Q2 win for Drake. But again - I doubt it much matter whether KState clogs in at NET 99 or NET 103 which shifts the quads. Drake has an At Large worthy mid-major profile. If I’m wrong on that, something is very very wrong with the system. No bloated major conference resume should keep Drake out of the tournament unless they absolutely tank down the stretch. They did enough in non-conference and if the committee decides otherwise that would send a terrible message IMO.
At this point, Drake is the presumed Auto qualifier for the MVC. Bradley had a chance to run the table, threading the needle for an outside at large shot... But now they'll need to win their tournament.
Drake still has several games to go, but right now looks good for the AQ if they lose the MVC championship.
Technically, they are tied in the standings but Drake has the head to head. Bradley never had the resume for serious at large consideration.
That said - the MVC is probably underrated overall by the metrics. For perspective, Missouri St hasn’t won a single conference game. In non-conference beat High Point (18-5 midmajor team) on a neutral floor, and lost at Butler by 7. I get that Butler isn’t a good team, but within a few weeks of that game they beat SMU by 11 (home), NW by 3 (neutral) and Miss St by 10 (neutral). Missouri State’s loss AT Washington State also wasn’t as bad as the final score - it was a 4 point game at half-time. Again - we’re talking about the undeniably worst MVC - one that is 0-11 in conference play. Nobody really knows how major conference bubble teams would do if they had to play a stack of true road games at MVC type venues.
You can't refer to the results to explain why you think a conference is underrated. This is the same mistake GRUnit made in saying that "Princeton always plays better than its numbers" a couple years ago. The results are the input; the NET is a mathematical formula and the inputs include the face that Missouri St did the things listed above (halftime scores are meaningless).
Gives us another Quad1 win. Now 3-8 in Quad1 with plenty of opportunities ahead. Not a ton of teams outside the top 25 in the NET with 3 Quad 1 wins. We moved down to 73 from 72 despite the UCLA blowout likely because Kennesaw lost st home to Liberty by 8 and they dropped 6 spots. Boxscore shows they couldn’t shoot yesterday. A loss almost singlehandily affecting our NET by 15 spots
Illinois only drops from 10 to 14 following another loss. Illini seem to be entrenched in the upper regions of the NET no matter how many losses they accrue. They still are the 2nd ranked Big 10 school in the NET despite now losing touch with Michigan State at the top of the standings, now 5 games out of first in the lost column 6-5
Suddenly Michigan and Illinois who looked so ominous a few weeks ago are both struggling. Illinois dropping 4 of 6 including a loss at home to USC and now a road loss to a struggling Nebraska. Michigan losing to Minnesota and barely getting by Penn State/Northwestern and absolutely pummelled by Purdue. Down the road through in Oregon as a team quacking and sputtering with 3 losses in their last 4 and took a giant NET plunge of 7 points down to 34. Amazingly the Ducks have 8 Quad 1 wins.
Suddenly Michigan and Illinois who looked so ominous a few weeks ago are both struggling. Illinois dropping 4 of 6 including a loss at home to USC and now a road loss to a struggling Nebraska. Michigan losing to Minnesota and barely getting by Penn State/Northwestern and absolutely pummelled by Purdue. Down the road through in Oregon as a team quacking and sputtering with 3 losses in their last 4 and took a giant NET plunge of 7 points down to 34. Amazingly the Ducks have 8 Quad 1 wins.
How big was Nebraska's win over Illinois. While breaking a 6 game losing streak that had their NCAA hopes sputtering, the win moved them up 6 to 57 and gave them their 3rd Q1 win. A sneaky good resume 3-6 Q1, 5-8, Q1/2 and 7-8 Q1/2/3 puts them back on the bubble and their road win at Creighton is looking better by the day. Their 2nd half schedule is considerably easier than their first
last week I said RU resume was 17th in the Big 10 and while they have closed the gap between distant bubble schools like USC, Indiana, Penn State, Northwestern, I still have to put them behind them at this time but the Knights do vault over Minnesota so RU now 16th in the Big 10 NCAA pecking order.
and their other guy missed a couple of games. Many schools have had injuries and flu to deal with this year and they have to adjust as part of the game.
Not good news about Kinnesaw losing. Man, was our defense putrid in the first half of that game. And Ace and JMike played awful with the home town jitters. I wish we could have that one back.
The Princeton loss (the other NET killer) is on Pike for drawing up man to man coverage on Princeton's final possession.
Michigan can gameplan off of our Northwestern tape, knowing Dylan isn't going to play. That makes tomorrow's game much tougher. Hopefully Ace and the rest of the crew can find the RAC magic. What is Michigan's health situation?
The Princeton loss (the other NET killer) is on Pike for drawing up man to man coverage on Princeton's final possession.
Michigan can gameplan off of our Northwestern tape, knowing Dylan isn't going to play. That makes tomorrow's game much tougher. Hopefully Ace and the rest of the crew can find the RAC magic. What is Michigan's health situation?
They are saying Vlad is better but we shall see
Kennesaw just couldn’t shoot yesterday. They were like 6-32 from 3 and shot like 39% all game. They outrebounded Liberty by 45-27 so must have had a lot of second chance points. Cottie , one of their better players was 1-13 from 3 and 3-16 for the game and probably why they lost.
Michigan only health issue was Vlad Goldin had a touch of the flu last game and gutted it out. They should have their full squad. Pretty sure Rodney Gayle will try guarding ACE. Need Grant , Dortch and Somerville to handle Wolf and Goldin or at least slow them down.
I don’t remember the context of that discussion regarding Princeton, but the numbers in this case actually aren’t even contrary to the point I was trying to make. Missouri State’s NET is 255 despite being a putrid 5-15 against D1. That’s in the ball park of Q3 (240) on the road for sorting. Also - the reason they sit where they do is entirely as a result of their 0-11 performance in the MVC rather than their 5-4 OOC mark against a paper collection of better teams - High Point, Wash State, Butler, UC Santa Barbara, UT. Arlington, etc.
My point was a different one. I’m saying that no matter how hard Bart, Ken Pom or whatever statistician you prefer tries to come up with a perfect algorithm to account for the added difficulty of playing an OOC schedule almost entirely away from home, and/or the unique intangible challenge of staying focused playing half your conference games at these tiny high school like venues - it’s impossible to do so because major conference teams don’t play those games often and when they do - welp - historic results tend not to go the way Vegas thinks they will - UMass, Fordham, Stonybrook, Kennesaw, take your pick but I imagine it can’t only be RU. You get the picture….
Also - since you brought up Princeton, I’ll add this one thing for thought. If NET were a perfect (or close to perfect) metric, it would be true that approximately 174 teams would be no worse than 14-5 if they played Princeton’s schedule to date. I think we both know that has to be off. Princeton may not be close to a bubble team but even if every major conference team (80ish?) were better than them (they aren’t) Princeton is much better than the 90-100th best midmajor…
Not my point. My point is we missed Dylan and lost some games we likely win. Just like Illinois lost some games because they missed their best or 2 of their best players. You’re downplaying Dylan ‘s loss and claiming just because he saw some minutes against Wisconsin and Purdue , you considered that playing , is where you are way off base. One thing to beat a team at full strength , another to beat them with damaged goods a shell of themselves. Rutgers has had some of the worst luck this year. It is okay to acknowledge it.
I’m not sure which game you can go as far as to say we “likely” win? Again - we were 8-5 before he got the flu. Our best win was home against PSU.
Well we beat a very hot Penn State team with him and a talented UCLA team with him. We lost to Indiana without him , we lost to Penn State away when he turned his ankle and was a shell of himself , we lost against MSU when he couldn’t go second half. We lost to Wisconsin when he could barely walk and played 15 minutes total. Do you think a fully healthy Dylan like the Dylan from the beginning of the year in November until the Columbia game on December 30, 2024 , would have made a difference between winning and losing in those 4 games ?
playing what if games is pointless, if the team was better other guys would have stepped up. They found a way to do that at Northwestern. RU still lost games vs Princeton and Kennesaw State with a healthy team and barely beat a wretched Seton Hall on a Dylan 3 at the buzzer. Derkcack scored 26 vs Michigan State so is Dylan scoring more than that...Ace came up pretty much empty that game. Rutgers was not beating Purdue that night and Dylan did play significant minutes 28. He wasnt all that good vs Penn State in the first 15 minutes AND SHOULD HAVE NOT PLAYED THE 2ND HALF NOR PLAYED AT ALL VS MICHIGAN STATE...his progess likely pushed back a week because of those actions...just who is making the decisions with that
It could’ve, but the point still stands that leading up to that Indiana game, we were 8-5 with an OT win vs ND and losses to Princeton (175) and Kennesaw (163) according to the primary metric the committee will use for reference. I’m not sure how any reasonable neutral assessor would conclude that we would’ve “likely” beaten Indiana at that time in the next game based on the data to that point. Would’ve had a better chance is different from likely winning.
Agreed. I also think the injury case would’ve been better should we be fortunate enough for it to hypothetically matter if he was a DNP in those games.
I never mentioned Purdue. Penn State away he had 5 first half points and was about to make it 7 points when he turned his ankle and then proceeded to miss the 2 foul shots. That was with 4 minutes left in the half in a game that was tied or a 1-2 point lead for either team. You don’t think a healthy Dylan would have made a difference 2nd half. ? Really ?
We didn’t lose Kennesaw because of Dylan who almost willed us to a comeback with his second half but because ACE couldn’t handle the homecoming . We didn’t lose Princeton where Dylan played real well , because of him , but because of Pike ‘s incompetence and being outcoached and allowing Martini to be switched onto Lee 3 straight plays in crunch time. Plus Princeton played a great game with their 2 stars and their 19 offensive rebounds and second chance points.
MSU. We have been waiting for forever for the supporting cast to step up and have a third option and Jordan gets 26. You really think not having Dylan in the second half and allowing Pike to go with Martini , who was 0-4 with open 3 point looks , and JMike who was terrible , wouldn’t have made a difference ? Really ?
We just see things different ways but you not seeing Rutgers is hurt tremendously when we do not have a healthy Dylan is mind boggling.
Don't have much time today to post, but something in here caught my attention.
Missouri State's NET ranking is not being driven by their record. That is to say, wins and losses aren't included in NET. It's an efficiency based metric (it also doesn't care about conference vs. ooc).... and efficiency will impact both your ranking AND your record, but record is not what feeds into your ranking.
That said... Missouri State has had a rough year in their last MVC rodeo. Their successes have come against 4 Q4 teams (3 at home), and a 10 point win in a neutral game vs. #96 High Point. They lost by 17 at 254 Evansville and by 22 points at home to 200 Southern Illinois. Their NET has them worse than 70% of Div-I programs.
its alot of excuses, I agree RU has not been dealt a kind hand yet they didnt control the things they could. Failure to do anything in non conference play. There wasnt much difference in the game played in beating Nebraska and losing to Princeton. Team plays poor defense and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesnt. Overall RU has improved their defense but their tendency to go through long scoring droughts and long stretches of bad defense was a big issue before Dylan ran into his troubles.
