After a 6-0 start to the season, the Ohio State Buckeyes are the first team to be ranked No. 1 in the history of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET).
The NCAA’s new metric, which completely replaces the RPI, debuted today.
The NET will be more than just a highly publicized and debated ranking of all 353 D-I men’s teams; it will also be the sorting tool that’s used on official team sheets to illustrate strength of schedule, quality of wins and losses, and will group the incipient quadrant system.
Team sheets are constantly referenced and weighted against each other by selection committee members as they debate teams for selection and seeding in the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68.
Monday’s reveal has the 6-0 Buckeyes leading the way, followed by Virginia, Texas Tech, Michigan and Gonzaga.
The release of the NET rankings comes 20 days into the season and on the precipice of a lot of significant games this week.
The rankings from here on out will be available to the public and will update daily.
And in case you’re wondering: What is the NET?
In short, it is a blend of results-based statistics and predictive algorithms.
It’s a modification in the team and resume evaluation process. The NCAA put out this graphic to show how the NET’s rankings are built.
Ultimately, that means the NET is predictive in nature; the introduction to any elements of forecasting intrinsically makes a model predictive.
That’s a good thing for college basketball and the selection committee.
“It’s a complete replacement (of the RPI),” senior vice president of NCAA men’s basketball Dan Gavitt told CBS Sports over the summer. “This metric, we are very confident it achieves what our intention was, and what the recommendation was from the NABC. It’s a composite ranking from the standpoint that it’s got a very significant foundation based of being results-oriented, because that is so important, we believe, to committee and coaches in the selection and seeding process. It has some levels of predictiveness to it now that the RPI never did.”
Ohio State’s football team is ranked #6 in the nation and play for the B1G10 title this Saturday against Northwestern.