Taking another look at NET and NC State’s NCAA tournament resume

Just as I was starting to think that State could stay in the NET top 20 all season, we went and lost to the worst team in the conference and dropped to #31. That’s unfortunately closer to what we deserve, but the good news is that the ACC is very strong this year with 10 teams in the top 60. That means we could pile up a bunch of losses and still be pretty respectable. The best example of this is Purdue. They’re 11-6 and barely getting votes in the human polls but they’re #17 in the NET because the six losses have all been to solid teams (Virginia Tech, Florida State, Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, & Michigan State.)

This was the perfect year for the RPI to go away. We are #137 in the RPI. As you may know, the RPI is 25% your adjusted win percentage, 50% your opponents’ win percentage, and 25% your opponents’ opponents’ win percentage. So if Kansas beat Alcorn State by 1000 points, the Jayhawks’ RPI would drop just because they played a winless team. Our schedule has been bad. Really bad. Our first four opponents have a combined three wins against D1 teams. (Thanks for winning a second game, Maine!) Two of our opponents are literally #352 and #353. And then there’s our power conference opponents, Auburn (2-1 SEC), Wisconsin (3-3 B1G), Vanderbilt (0-4 SEC), and Penn State (0-7 B1G).

Thankfully, the NET gives us credit for beating bad teams by big margins. The “Efficiency” metric, defined as your points per possession minus your opponents’ points per possession, is the single best predictor of NET ranking. Here is how all ACC teams are doing in the NET versus their Efficiency and the three components of the RPI (Adjusted Winning Percentage, Opponents’ Winning Percentage, and Opponents’ Opponents’ Winning Percentage):

The best news is that our Opponents’ Winning Percentage has nowhere to go but up. We also have about eight more chances for quality “Quadrant 1” wins. That’s top-30 at home, top-50 neutral, or top-75 away. There’s Virginia & Virginia Tech at home and Notre Dame, Louisville, UNC, Pitt, Duke, & Florida State away. Yikes. Anyway, here’s how the regular season looks now: