A full breakdown of “The NET”

As March approaches, NET rankings are once again at the center of college basketball, this year seemingly more than last as criticism of the metric has started to roll in. Steve Forbes, following Wednesday’s loss to NC State, spent a good bit of his presser ripping on the NET.

Given the heating up of discussions around the NET, it feels like a good time for a full NET refresher.

What is the NET?

The NET is a rating system used to rank college basketball teams. It is particularly useful in basketball, as most basketball courts have nets.

The NET is calculated by weighting and combining six different key metrics.

• How good your basketball team is
• How much good your basketball team does
• How many more times your basketball team is good than other teams
• Number of times your basketball during a game
• How many basketball times game during a team
• How net your basketball team is

The NET is not to be confused with the NEAT rating, which is used to examine the nature of your basketball team and how neat that nature is. The NCAA retired the NEAT in 2007 when they discovered that all nature is pretty neat.

The NET is calculated by the quadratic formula multiplied by the coefficient of the square root of Newton’s third law of thermotrynamics. Once the NET is calculated, it is melted down and flattened out into 2x4-shaped ratings, which are used to build the bracket for the NCAA Tournament.

How is the NET used?

How exactly the NET is used is highly-classified information that can only be obtained by checking the junk drawer at the house of any politician. The chairman of the selection committee did note the following in late 2018.

“The NET is used to determine which teams make the NCAA Tournament, unless it is not, in which case it is not used for that purpose.”

He then immediately stole 14 million dollars and has not been seen since.

How do coaches feel about the NET?

I don’t know.

Benefits of the NET

• The College Football Playoff Committee is not involved yet.
• The NET is the first metric to account for which team wants it more.
• You cannot poke holes in the NET. Doing so only decreases the number of holes.

Potential issues with the NET

• The NET really struggles to measure how cool a team is, leading to inaccurate assessments of teams that have at least one DJ Burns.
• Ted Valentine is ranked sixth somehow.
• Thanks to an email mix up, the first iteration of the NET did not account for anything other than how tall the tallest player on a team was.
• The NET is gone. It’s just a rim now.

Famous quotes about the NET

• “It fouled me” - Armando Bacot
• “I like that people get tripped up by the NET. It means it’s a competitor” - Jay Williams
• “Pick the team that’s 72nd over the team that’s 34th” - The NET
• “Why do we spend this much time on the NET? Look at it for one minute, if it’s inconclusive, move on” - Jay Bilas
• “I know exactly what classes the NET is taking” - Roy Williams
• “I don’t know what classes the NET is in” - Roy Williams, one day later
• “It’s not one of my better movies” - Sandra Bullock
• “Get the NET!” - Bill Dance