Why the AAC’s debut in NET rankings hurts basketball teams like Wichita State
The first batch of NET rankings for the 2024-25 college basketball season were released by the NCAA on Monday, revealing troubling news to teams around the American Athletic Conference.
A lot can change between the start of December and Selection Sunday in March, but a poor overall start to the season from the conference — reflected in the NET rankings — will make it increasingly difficult for a team like Wichita State to build an at-large resume for the NCAA Tournament.
For a conference outside the power structure like the American, a strong showing in nonconference play is a necessity to maintain its status as a multi-bid league. So far, only Memphis (No. 31), North Texas (No. 59) and WSU (No. 93) have held up their end of the deal in the debut NET rankings.
The other 10 AAC teams have combined for an 8-26 record in anything above Quad 4 games with a dreadful 7-16 record in Quad 3 games.
Translation: Come January, WSU will hardly have any chances to boost its resume and several opportunities to harm it.
“A good way to look at the strength of a league is to look at how the middle looks,” said bracketologist Rocco Miller. “You don’t need your middle to be in tournament consideration, but you want those teams between 65 and 125. So (the AAC) is way out of bounds there. What that is going to do is any time one of those top-three teams slip up, it’s going to hurt them even worse and they’re going to fall even further and that’s going to ruin their chances quite a bit.
“Those top teams are going to be expected to handle all of that business and we both know in that league, there are going to be ups and downs and those teams with first-year head coaches are going to get better as the season goes along. So that’s what is most troublesome to me.”
A return to March Madness probably feels far away to Shocker fans after watching their team suffer a 37-point beat-down at the hands of Florida last weekend, but WSU has pieced together a 6-1 start and is considered favorably by results-based metrics used by the selection committee.
While predictive metrics, like Ken Pom and Bart Torvik, view the Shockers as a fringe top-100 team, result-based metrics like Strength of Record (No. 38) and Wins Above Bubble (No. 24) think the Shockers are currently worthy of NCAA Tournament consideration.
So why such a large divide? It’s because the results-based metrics are only concerned about whether you won or loss and the location of the game, while the predictive metrics judge teams on a possession-by-possession basis.
In the eyes of results-based metrics, it doesn’t matter WSU lost by 37 points to Florida — it only sees the game as a loss to the No. 6 team in the NET on a neutral floor. While the predictive metrics severely punished the Shockers for significantly under-performing what was projected to be an 11-point loss.
For a team like WSU, which is only going to have a handful of Quad 1 and 2 games on its schedule, the results-based Strength of Record and Wins Above Bubble can be the team’s biggest ally with the selection committee.
WSU is off to a strong start in both of those categories, but the problem is it’s extremely early in the season and WSU will almost assuredly start dropping once conference play begins and teams from the Big 12, SEC , Big Ten, Big East and ACC start racking up quality games on a weekly basis.
“Top-35 is where you want to be if you’re a team like Wichita,” Miller said. “But it’s going to be tough when these super conferences start playing and you’re going to end up with a 13-loss, middle-of-the-pack Big Ten team having a better Strength of Record if they win at Purdue or another top-10 team. A team like Wichita State simply doesn’t have that kind of chance. The problem is that Wichita could keep dropping and there’s really nothing they can do about it.”
Another problem out of its control is how WSU’s nonconference schedule is shaking out. In an ideal situation, WSU hoped it could rack up as many as six swings at either Quad 1 or Quad 2 wins. Instead, Kansas State, Minnesota and Saint Louis have all under-performed early in the season and the Shockers are currently left with just two quality chances: one ended in disaster in Florida, while the other is coming up in two weeks in Chicago with a Quad 1 (for now) chance at No. 63 DePaul.
That’s why Shocker fans need to be rooting for Western Kentucky (currently No. 158, target is top-135), Minnesota (currently No. 155, target is top-100) and K-State (currently No. 94, target is top-75) to improve their NET rankings to pick up a handful of Quad 2 wins.
But there is a very real possibility that WSU ends up only playing two teams that make the NCAA Tournament: Florida and Memphis. Beating teams in the field is usually a requirement by the selection committee, which means WSU’s games against the Tigers on Jan. 23 in Memphis and Feb. 16 in Wichita could be its only chances left on the schedule to make that kind of impression.
“That’s why the results-based metrics are going to be so important to a team like Wichita,” Miller said. “You’re not going to be able to compare a team like WSU to a high-major profile. You’re going to see teams in the SEC get 20 at-bats at quality games and Wichita might only have three at-bats. So Wins Above Bubble can really help a team like Wichita because they’re not going to have a classic resume where they have wins against the field because they just didn’t get very many chances.”
WSU can force its way into the at-large conversation by continuing to rack up the wins. Miller believes anywhere in the 25 range would give the Shockers a chance, but it also matters who the wins and, perhaps more importantly, who the losses are against.
For now, the Shockers need to keep handling business at Koch Arena with their next challenge coming at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday against Alcorn State (0-9) with the broadcast available on ESPN+.
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 6:02 AM.
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