Men's College Basketball Top 10, Bubble Team NET Rankings: UConn Slips Again

The top 25 rankings are important for understanding just who is killing it in college basketball, but we can go deeper — all the way to the bubble and beyond. The NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, is a rankings system used in Division I basketball to help figure out which teams are going to participate in March Madness. As the NCAA puts it, NET "takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses," the latter of which is determined by placing every Division I matchup into different quadrants, ranked 1 through 4, with 1 being the strongest teams and 4 the weakest — Quads aren’t just determined by record, but also whether a game was played at home, on the road or at a neutral site. Using NET, we can get a sense of which teams are the best at a given moment, as well as which ones are on the bubble for selection in March. While updated daily by the NCAA, we’ll track changes weekly. With that, here are the top 10 men’s college basketball teams through Feb. 16, according to NET. The Top 10 10. UConn (previous: 8) UConn is still winning, having lost just two games this season, but it’s just not winning by enough to keep its spot in NET, never mind to move up. The Huskies’ adjusted Net Rating, via KenPom, is just 24th: since NET incorporates offensive and defensive ratings as well as strength of schedule, UConn is in a tough spot between facing Big East teams that aren’t particularly well-regarded, and then winning, but usually just by a few buckets. If Nebraska had one more road win or Quad 1 victory, the Husker might even be in this spot instead of the Huskies. 9. Florida (previous: 9) Florida remains in 9th after picking up wins against Georgia and Kentucky since last time in. Florida didn’t do anything wrong with those wins, it just was less impressive than some of the competition ahead of it, so here the Gators stick for another week. 8. Purdue (previous: 10) Purdue defeated top-10 Nebraska in overtime and followed that up with a 21-point victory over Iowa, which came into the week 20th in NET. As said above, Florida didn’t do anything wrong — Purdue was just extremely back on track after a tough end to the previous month. 7. Gonzaga (previous: 7) Gonzaga might have woken up a bit after its shocking loss to Portland, as it beat Oregon State by 20 on Feb. 7, then as far as this week’s calculations are concerned downed both Washington State and Santa Clara — the last of those is particularly meaningful, since the Broncos were actually a game up on the Bulldogs in the West Coast Conference standings before this matchup, as well as a near top-40 team in NET. [Get to Know a Mid-Major: West Coast Conference] 6. Houston (previous: 6) Now, it might not look like there was any movement here, but it’s all a matter of the dates involved. For instance, Houston was 4th in NET last night, in its first game as the new No. 2 team in the poll. And then it immediately lost to Iowa State. Iowa State, meanwhile, was 8th in NET, but has not been mentioned here yet in this list because its win over the Cougars propelled it past Houston. See? Movement! 5. Iowa State (previous: 5) The Cyclones jumped from managed to negate what would have been a loss in NET by turning around what started as a tough week into two great dubs. While Iowa State lost to TCU on Feb. 10, 62-55, the Cyclones then took down then-No. 9 Kansas — which had just defeated then-No. 1 Arizona — and on Monday upset new No. 2 Houston. 4. Illinois (previous: 4) Illinois was also caught up in the Houston fallout, as the Fighting Illini were 5th in NET on Monday. Without even playing, Illinois found itself moved up another spot with Houston slipping back and Iowa State’s loss to TCU keeping it from jumping even more spots forward. As far as the things Illinois did control, a loss to Wisconsin — its third against a top-10 opponent this year — and a win against Indiana have it otherwise rooted in place. 3. Arizona (previous: 2) Arizona seemed bound to lose eventually, just based on how close some of its games had been of late and how tough the competition still ahead of it was. However, losing to Kansas without Darryn Peterson, and following that up with another loss, this time to Texas Tech, was a lot to take in, especially since the second one was a home game. 2. Duke (previous: 2) It’s entirely possible Duke would have fallen from the 2nd spot if not for Arizona’s more significant struggles. It’s not that Duke had a bad week by any means — and Monday-night blowout of Syracuse helped — but it beat Pitt by less than you would expect given the vast gulf between the two, and had its offense held back a bit by Clemson even as the defense took care of business. Good wins, but not great ones, basically, which with the razor-thin margins up top can matter. 1. Michigan (previous: 1) For instance, Michigan defeated a bubble team in Northwestern and a top-40 team in UCLA by a combined score of 42 points. It remained 1st in NET despite one fewer win than Duke because of the aforementioned margins in a pair of Quad 2 matchups. Risers and Fallers In the span of a week, some teams can see their spot in the rankings dramatically shift. Here are the five teams that rose the most in men’s college basketball in the last week… T5. Howard, 239 to 219: The Bison beat Maryland Eastern by 26 and then Delaware State 91-59, and while both are bottom-tier clubs, taking care of business is important. T5. Delaware, 289 to 269: Delaware beating FIU by 2 points doesn’t seem impressive sans context, but the Panthers were 191st in NET. Delaware then took out the similarly ranked Missouri State the next time out, 76-67 — a great week for the Fightin’ Blue Hens. 4. Robert Morris, 185 to 161: Beating Cleveland State 85-68 is how things should go in that matchup, but a 93-69 victory over then-136th-ranked Oakland was a significant W for the Colonials. T2. UIC, 141 to 116: UIC lost both of its games before last week’s check-in, but this time around defeated Drake and then Illinois State — the latter victory was particularly notable, given that it was against a near-bubble team and UIC won by 27 points. T2. Samford, 236 to 211: An impressive week for the Bulldogs, which defeated Wofford by 17 and then ETSU by 10. East Tennessee State was ranked 115th in NET, making this quite the upset. 1. Boston University, 291 to 265: A three-win week for the Terriers, which took down Army, Bucknell and Colgate by a combined 57 points. It moved BU into fourth in the Patriot League, as well, putting it in a better position for a bye in the conference tourney. [Get to Know a Mid-Major: Patriot League] …and the five that fell the furthest. T5. Marist, 149 to 169: Merrimack crushed Marist, 81-56, which despite the Warriors being atop the MAAC was a significant upset by NET’s calculations. The Red Foxes then lost a close one to Siena, and dropped to fifth in the conference and out of the top-150 in NET thanks to these defeats. T5. Kennesaw State, 167 to 187: Kennesaw State lost both of its games this week by an unfortunately close amount — 7 combined points — and while the gap between these teams wasn’t huge enough alone for this kind of shift, that both Ls came at home was less forgivable for NET. T5. Jacksonville State, 197 to 217: The loss to New Mexico State wasn’t a big deal for NET given the two were ranked close together, but dropping a game to UTEP — nearly a bottom-100 team before this W — was a problem. 4. NIU, 299 to 320: Bowling Green was nearly a top-150 team, making a loss to them par for the course here, Central Michigan started the week 305th in NET and defeated Northern Illinois by 42 points in a game in which every player that took the floor for the Chippewas scored. 3. Bethune-Cookman, 235 to 260: Bethune-Cookman isn’t a powerhouse by any means, but losses against two bottom-15 teams in back-to-back games is going to look bad for anyone, never mind a team that wasn’t close to the bottom-100. 2. Charlotte, 163 to 189: The 49ers played and lost just the one time in the past week, but it was, like with Bethune-Cookman, against one of the worst teams in Division I men’s basketball. UTSA won, 88-79, and Charlotte sank. 1. Princeton, 224 to 254: Princeton lost to Cornell by 24 points and followed it up with an L against Columbia. Both were better teams than Princeton in NET, but the loss to the Big Red stun because of the margin of defeat. On the Bubble Of the 68 March Madness teams in the tournament, 31 of them are conference champions who receive automatic entry into the tournament. The other 37 spots are at-large bids. With that in mind, we will look at the teams ranked between 64-to-73 in NET each week, as those are the ones who are the most on the bubble for the tourney. 73. Colorado (previous: 72): A funny week for the Buffaloes, as Texas Tech obliterated them by 34 points while Colorado scored just 44, but then the Buffs played BYU uncomfortably close for the Cougars, 90-86. Two losses but still running in place. 72. Oklahoma State (previous: 65): The Cowboys, however, lost twice and slipped from one end of the bubble to the other. The difference being that Colorado took its Ls against ranked teams that were also top-20 in NET. 71. Arizona State (previous: 80): While Oklahoma State lost to, in one of those games, Arizona State, which is now in the bubble because of it. 70. Syracuse (previous: 71): Syracuse got wrecked by Duke, giving up 102 points to the Blue Devils in a 47-point loss, but before that the Orange beat California in an exciting overtime game, then bested SMU, which is unranked at this point but still a top-40 team. 69. Stanford (previous: 68): A win against Boston College followed by a loss against Wake Forest is why there was very little movement here for the Cardinal. 68. Oklahoma (previous: 74): The Sooners played just one game this week, but it was a good one for them, as O-U bested 35th-ranked Georgia 94-78. 67. LSU (previous: 57): Not a great showing by LSU in the past week, but part of that was also opponent-based. The Tigers took on ranked Arkansas and got blown out by 29, then lost by 10 to Tennessee, which is unranked but 22nd in NET at the moment. 66. Missouri (previous: 61): An 86-85 win against Texas A&M could only stop the slide from an 85-68 L against Texas by so much. Texas is a tourney-caliber team, but Missouri is trying to prove it is, too. 65. Wake Forest (previous: 67): Wins against Georgia Tech and Stanford didn’t move the Demon Deacons as far ahead as expected, but some of that is also teams around Wake Forest moving, too — it slipped back to 65 during its inactivity. 64. Yale (previous: 66): Two wins for Yale is a positive, but Dartmouth and Harvard aren’t top-tier competition, so only so much progress out of the bubble in the right direction could come of it.