NC State Ranks 31st in 1st Ever NET Rankings

In case you forgot, the RPI is dead, and the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) Ranking system is the new “primary sorting tool for evaluating teams during the Division I men’s basketball season.”

The first ever NET rankings were released today, and the 6-0 NC State Men’s Basketball team sits at #31.

Here’s an explanation of the NET Rankings:

The NCAA Evaluation Tool, which will be known as the NET, relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. To make sense of team performance data, late-season games (including from the NCAA tournament) were used as test sets to develop a ranking model leveraging machine learning techniques. The model, which used team performance data to predict the outcome of games in test sets, was optimized until it was as accurate as possible. The resulting model is the one that will be used as the NET going forward.

The NET was built to create a ranking system that was as accurate as possible while also evaluating team performance fairly. To ensure fairness, certain types of data were omitted from the model. Of key importance, game date and order were omitted to give equal importance to both early and late-season games. In addition, a cap of 10 points was applied to the winning margin to prevent rankings from encouraging unsportsmanlike play, such as needlessly running up the score in a game where the outcome was certain. (NCAA)