Manipulating the NET

[Orangezoo]

He thinks we need 4 more wins because (in his opinion) beating Louisville and the first game in the ACC tournament won't really help.

Appreciate it. I wonder what the view on Wake is with their 1 Q1 win but high net due to large MOV at home. 4 more wins would likely have us at 4 Q1 wins possibly 5 pending NCSU.

If Wake can’t win at VT they have to beat Clemson to get another Q1 before the tourney and hope Florida jumps back into the top 30.

 

[Nicknack]

Appreciate it. I wonder what the view on Wake is with their 1 Q1 win but high net due to large MOV at home. 4 more wins would likely have us at 4 Q1 wins possibly 5 pending NCSU.

Yeah, good question. I still think if we take care of business on Saturday and then knock off Clemson on the road followed by a win in the ACC tournament, we will at least be in the conversation. 4 more I would think would be nearly a lock.

 

[Orangezoo]

Yeah, good question. I still think if we take care of business on Saturday and then knock off Clemson on the road followed by a win in the ACC tournament, we will at least be in the conversation. 4 more I would think would be nearly a lock.

Yep completely agree.

 

[CorduroyG]

SNL sketch

3 syracuse fans hooting and hollering watching the syracuse louisville game. Syracuse wins by 7, high fives all around!

1 of the guy’s wife walks in the room

Wife - hey syracuse won?

Guys - yea we won by 7. We’re getting closer to that bubble baby!

Wife - actually you only won by 7. And with syracuse’s low NET ranking the only way to really improve it is by winning by 15-20 points. A 7 point win doesnt get you any closer to the bubble, especially against a bad team like louisville.

Then the wife looks at the camera

 

[Orangezoo]

SNL sketch

3 syracuse fans hooting and hollering watching the syracuse louisville game. Syracuse wins by 7, high fives all around!

1 of the guy’s wife walks in the room

Wife - hey syracuse won?

Guys - yea we won by 7. We’re getting closer to that bubble baby!

Wife - actually you only won by 7. And with syracuse’s low NET ranking the only way to really improve it is by winning by 15-20 points. A 7 point win doesnt get you any closer to the bubble, especially against a bad team like louisville.

Then the wife looks at the camera

Clearly she has to be wearing a Hoya’s shirt while doing so….

 

[Nicknack]

SNL sketch

3 syracuse fans hooting and hollering watching the syracuse louisville game. Syracuse wins by 7, high fives all around!

1 of the guy’s wife walks in the room

Wife - hey syracuse won?

Guys - yea we won by 7. We’re getting closer to that bubble baby!

Wife - actually you only won by 7. And with syracuse’s low NET ranking the only way to really improve it is by winning by 15-20 points. A 7 point win doesnt get you any closer to the bubble, especially against a bad team like louisville.

Then the wife looks at the camera

Sad but true. Thing is though, maybe winning by 7 doesn't help our NET but a loss would be devastating.

 

[two3zone]

If we’re looking at NET as the end all be all youre right. But hopefully the committee looks at other things. Other than NET our metrics are tournament worthy, but i guess our blowout losses have killed our NET.

Clemson is an enormous game any way you slice it.

Who would’ve thought that Joe Girard would have a direct impact of our NCAA chances?

 

[pokercuse08]

It's pretty clear that road wins are by far the biggest mover. Road wins should be valued more, but it seems the double counting really comes into play here.

Yeah, just from ballparking expected moves from efficiency numbers/KP and then watching actual NET moves for a few teams here and there the last couple weeks, it's become clear that teams move up maybe 50% farther than I expect when they're on the road, and maybe 25% less than I expect when they're at home. So almost a 2 to 1 ratio.

Not at all scientific and small sample, I wouldn't bet money on the exact ratio, but I am confident it's a significant difference.

If I were advising teams/conferences on how to game the NET, I would tell them to schedule a couple Q4 road games and absolutely SMOKE their opponents. If they're willing to trade the gate money for the NET boost, it's there for the taking.

 

[Orangezoo]

Yeah, just from ballparking expected moves from efficiency numbers/KP and then watching actual NET moves for a few teams here and there the last couple weeks, it's become clear that teams move up maybe 50% farther than I expect when they're on the road, and maybe 25% less than I expect when they're at home. So almost a 2 to 1 ratio.

Not at all scientific and small sample, I wouldn't bet money on the exact ratio, but I am confident it's a significant difference.

If I were advising teams/conferences on how to game the NET, I would tell them to schedule a couple Q4 road games and absolutely SMOKE their opponents. If they're willing to trade the gate money for the NET boost, it's there for the taking.

Just copy the B12 schedules - TCU is a great example for instance. You don’t even necessarily need to be on the road. Stuff the schedule with as many easy 20-30 pt wins as you can , add a few legit p6 tourney level teams then have a top 50 Net party through the conference season

 

[690West]

He thinks we need 4 more wins because (in his opinion) beating Louisville and the first game in the ACC tournament won't really help.

When he started rattling off our big blowout losses I started shaking. I had forgotten how bad like 5 of them were. My God.

 

[Orangezoo]

When he started rattling off our big blowout losses I started shaking. I had forgotten how bad like 5 off them were. My God.

Had we just kept the halftime deficits in those losses our Net would be in the 50s.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Win the next five, then let the chips fall

 

[pokercuse08]

Lunardi weighs in

This doesn't pass the smell test for me. If a team beats the efficiency spread by 30, they're basically adding 1 point per game and probably around 1.4 points per 100 to their overall efficiency margin. That's going to be a 6-10 spot swing in NET for most teams.

Here are KenPom efficiency margin numbers at each KP ranking, and the gap between the spot 10 higher:

1st 32.04
10th 23.69 (8.35)
20th 19.98 (3.71)
30th 17.83 (2.15)
40th 16.55 (1.28)
50th 14.25 (2.3)
60th 12.75 (1.5)
70th 11.73 (1.02)
80th 10.26 (1.47)
90th 9.09 (1.17)

Keep in mind that the major inflection points are around 30th and 75th in the rankings, for determining quadrants.

Given that once a conference gobbles up a bunch of NET equity in the non-conference schedule, it can only be distributed in conference, moving a handful of teams up 6-10 spots makes a HUGE difference.

 

[wiseman3]

Here's the podcast with Stevens. Just came out

‎Syracuse Sports: Finding Syracuse basketball's path to March Madness. With bracketologist Patrick Stevens on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Syracuse Sports, Ep Finding Syracuse basketball's path to March Madness. With bracketologist Patrick Stevens - Feb 29, 2024

podcasts.apple.com

I'm listening now. In general I like these podcasts, but if I hear Axe plug the Syracuse Sports Insiders subscription on one more of these I may lose it, lol

 

[STEVEHOLT]

I was looking at some of those Big12 teams and a few of their resumes are awfully similar to our 2007 team that was penalized for scheduling a week OOC. Texas and Oklahoma specifically.

Ahhh the good old days when every year the committee would choose a random data point with which to weigh most heavily and you just never knew which one it was going to be. One year it would be how much did you challenge yourself in the out of conference schedule (regardless of how you fared ) the next year it would be road record , followed by “could you see this team defeat a team with full on lupine Teen wolf ?”

 

[STEVEHOLT]

You should check out reddit. Every day there is a post on how it's being gamed. There are still many big12 and Mountain West fanbases that believe that it was much needed experience beating Lindenwood level teams 5 times by 50 points. 1 or 2 times not enough "experience" needed 5-6 sometimes 7 or 8 of those games

We need to really get some road games scheduled at Incarnate World

 

[690West]

I'm listening now. In general I like these podcasts, but if I hear Axe plug the Syracuse Sports Insiders subscription on one more of these I may lose it, lol

Yup. I like to fast forward awhile when I first turn it on. Get through all that.

 

[JustPherU]

I'm listening now. In general I like these podcasts, but if I hear Axe plug the Syracuse Sports Insiders subscription on one more of these I may lose it, lol

No thanks to Syracuse sports insiders, Syracusefan.com gives me all the Cuse inside info I need.Maybe not “all” I need but it does give me my Orange sports fix I need.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Thats just crazy to me. Louisville could hit a couple garbage time 3’s in the last 30 seconds, so instead of winning by 12 we win by 6, and thats gonna factor in to our ranking. Aint nobody got time for that!

Well our coaches should be prepared and go full court pressure till the end

 

[Millhouse]

For an example unrelated to sports: US World News and Reports.

Yeah that's what I was talking about

 

[Nicknack]

With all the talk about NET, do we actually know how much the committee will use this for selections? Maybe it's been discussed on the board and I just missed it. Just curious.

 

[Red2003]

My opinion is that Louisville is a must win no matter what obviously. This puts us out of the dreaded 8/9 game by the way (I think?)!!! Also we must win the opening round of the ACCT, this goes for every ACC team not named UNC and Duke. Early ACCT bounce in DC and we'll be waiting for an NIT phone call.

So next Sunday we reset the clock at 11-9 in ACC play with Clemson rematch, likely 10 point dogs.

If we lose at Clemson Then:
-Must win 2 more wins in the ACCT minimum
-2nd game win against Duke or Clemson may be enough
-Must get lots of help with no bracket busters. See last line.
-Will be damn close
*3 wins in ACCT puts us in the championship game and no question we are dancing. 14-10 in ACC play.

If we win at Clemson Then:
-Must win opening ACCT game
-Must not lose 2nd round game to a middle of pack or bottom feeder. If we are competitive but lose to a rested Duke or UNC team with double bye we should be ok
-With our non-con and finishing 13-9 in ACC play that is enough

Need Ncstate and ga tech to finish strong to move up Quads, Oregon if possible too. FSU is a lost cause at Q3, but is our only bad home loss still.

 

[blust2i3d4]

With all the talk about NET, do we actually know how much the committee will use this for selections? Maybe it's been discussed on the board and I just missed it. Just curious.

It is a long time since committee announced that they switched from RPI to NET. Since then there is no new announcement, we can assume NCAA keeps using NET to evaluate teams.

 

[bnoro]

With all the talk about NET, do we actually know how much the committee will use this for selections? Maybe it's been discussed on the board and I just missed it. Just curious.

The selection committee uses it specifically for the quadrants, which is how Rutgers got in with a NET of 77. They won 6 Q1 games and that's why they got in.

If we had 6 Q1 wins we'd be solidly in the tourney currently.

This is why the B12 manipulated the system, so all their teams could win multiple Q1 games and be locks into the tournament despite their weak schedule. It made the whole conference look extremely strong.

 

[orangenauburn]

Sad but true. Thing is though, maybe winning by 7 doesn't help our NET but a loss would be devastating.

Need to see a forty point bomb out on them. 96-55