2021 NET Rankings Thread (Initial rankings 1/4/21)

[pie n eye]

I guess I missed when Colgate joined a “P5” conference.

The idea that there is some kind of NCAA wide conspiracy, in which KenPom and others are involved, against WSU is ridiculous. Step away from the ledge.

Based on our record to date I think WSU should and would get in the tournament if today was Selection Sunday. What I think doesn’t matter. Neither does what Joe Lunardi, Jerry Palm, Ken Pomeroy, etc because those guys aren’t on the selection committee.

The raw NET, KenPom, etc rank is only part of the picture in a normal year. This year is far from normal. I don’t see the point in hysterically worrying about those numbers three weeks before Selection Sunday with so much left to be determined.

I have no doubt there will be plenty to discuss, dissect, and complain about after the field is set. Why not just let it play out before completely losing our minds?

[David Rahm]

Pie, that's not my point. Obviously Colgate is not a Power Five school. There are two examples here, Colgate AND the Power Five schools.

Does it not justify you somehow that 8-10 Power Conference school, even if at .500 or even below get in year after year, but WSU with our upgraded conference and decade of excellence and RESULTS has to fight and struggle to get in, and then get a fair seeding, every year?

Does it not bother you that we were treated like a red headed stepchild while in the Valley, "yes, but who did you play?"
How we are in the 7th ranked conference yet ranked far below two teams from our 11th ranked forrmer conference who play ridiculous schedules?

This doesn't bother you that the same thing happens year after year, because it sure as hell bothers me.

Houston, SMU, Memphis and WSU should be in way before anyone from the Mo Val even gets a sniff, besides the auto qualifier.

This, they taught me in law school, is logic.

If you don't see the basic fairness issue, then I guess I can't help you.

[pie n eye]

Does it not justify you somehow that 8-10 Power Conference school, even if at .500 or even below get in year after year...

Do I think that a team below .500 in their league should be automatically disqualified from at large consideration? Yeah, that seems like a reasonable stipulation to put in place.

...but WSU with our upgraded conference and decade of excellence and RESULTS has to fight and struggle to get in, and then get a fair seeding, every year?

Here you seem to contradict yourself. You want to ignore the past results and conference affiliation of other “P5 blue bloods” but WSU’s history and new conference should absolutely be considered. I don’t think a teams history should come into play much, if at all.

WSU got a 4 seed their first year in the American. Surely you aren’t complaining about that. In year two they were on the wrong side of the bubble and I don’t think many here disagreed with that. We just weren’t quite good enough over the course of the season with all the youth.

Assuming a win or two at the conference tourney last year we were probably on the good side of the bubble. Obviously we’ll never know for sure or what seed we would have received.

So, I’m not sure how you can really assess the affect of our upgraded conference with a sample size of two years.

Does it not bother you that we were treated like a red headed stepchild while in the Valley, "yes, but who did you play?"
How we are in the 7th ranked conference yet ranked far below two teams from our 11th ranked forrmer conference who play ridiculous schedules?

Yes, there were many years in the Valley where we probably should have made the tourney or received a better seed. In a funny twist, a lot of us made the case that we were getting screwed by pointing to our lofty ranks in the very same systems you are now railing against, like KenPom.

How are we ranked so far below? Like I’ve said many times in this discussion, I’m taking KenPom, NET, etc with a huge grain of salt this year due to the unconventional nature of the season. The lack of full non-conference is the biggest missing piece of the puzzle. The tournament will not be seeded solely based on these rankings so I’m not really that worried about it at this point.

Houston, SMU, Memphis and WSU should be in way before anyone from the Mo Val even gets a sniff, besides the auto qualifier.

Why, because they are in the Valley and we are in the American? That sounds a lot like people who want to include a 10th Big 10 or Big 12 team because “they are the American and we are the Big 10.” Or is it because the Valley is “ranked” lower than the American in the very ranking system that you think is so flawed?

If you don't see the basic fairness issue, then I guess I can't help you.

Unfortunately life isn’t fair, although we should definitely aspire to make it as fair as possible when we can. That’s the goal of using computer rankings and metrics to help field the tournament. They don’t have bias in the traditional sense of the word (Billy Packer - “No way should WSU be in, they’re from the MVC!), they try to remove it. Although of course there is the “bias” of whoever created the formula determined which categories would be significant.

The NET, KenPom, RPI, WAB are all imperfect to varying degrees. Yes, we should continue to tweak and improve them. This year is a statistical outlier and I’m not going to get too caught up in the irregularities.

[Kel Varnsen]

Very well-put, pie n eye