Men’s College Basketball Top 10, Bubble Team NET Rankings: Michigan Remains No. 1

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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 Dec. 15, according to NET.

The Top 10

10. Michigan State (previous: 10)

The Spartans hold steady at 10, as Michigan State played a light schedule in the last week: they defeated Penn State 76-72 on the road on Saturday, and will host Toledo on Tuesday. 

9. Purdue (previous: 9)

No back-and-forth for Purdue after tumbling down the top 10 in both the poll and in NET. It’s worth keeping in mind that Purdue hasn’t had an easy schedule by any means, but their average opponent NET ranking is 134, 41st in D-I. Teams like Michigan State, BYU and more have faced stiffer competition on average to this point — there’s been a lot of competitive ball early in the season.

8. UConn (previous: 7)

Despite defeating No. 23 Florida and then Texas in the past week, UConn slipped back a spot — defeating a struggling Florida team by just 4 points plays a likely role in that.

7. Vanderbilt (previous: 5)

Vanderbilt is another team to play just once in the past week, and it was against SMU — Vandy won, 88-69, but fell back in part due to not being scheduled much compared to others around them.

6. BYU (previous: 8)

Like BYU, which played and won twice in the past week, and against a tough Clemson team, to boot. The Cougars are now 3-1 in games designated as Quad 1, so even though Vanderbilt is undefeated, BYU gets extra credit for facing tougher opponents.

5. Iowa State (previous: 3)

Iowa State went 2-0 since the last check-in, including a close-fought defeat of rival Iowa. That’s not enough to keep them closer to the top, though, as everyone ahead of them has played in at least four Quad 1 games to their three.

4. Arizona (previous: 6)

Arizona tightened up their lead in the poll in the past week, picking up scattered first-place votes that had previously gone to Michigan and Duke, and simultaneously saw a jump in NET, too, thanks to defeating No. 16 Alabama — 14th by NET — by 21 points on Saturday.

3. Gonzaga (previous: 4)

Gonzaga jumped from the 67th-highest average opponent NET rank to 39th thanks to facing UCLA, which ranks 42nd in NET through Monday’s games. Gonzaga is now 4-1 in Quad 1 games, and 4-1 in neutral site matchups, as well.

2. Duke (previous: 2)

Duke is undefeated at 10-0, and they have faced and won against four Quad 1 opponents, but there is one thing separating them from the top spot right now.

1. Michigan (previous: 1)

Michigan’s early schedule has been absurd: their opponents have, on average, the second-highest NET ranking in Division I men’s basketball, behind only Boise State. The Wolverines are 2-0 on the road and 10-0 overall despite playing in just one lower-rung, Quad 4 contest so far.

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: Oregon, 174 to 127: A dominant 104-62 victory over UC Davis shot Oregon up the rankings.

T5: Appalachian State, 290 to 243: Wins against D-I East Carolina and High Point gave App State a bump following a D-II game.

T3: DePaul, 198 to 149: DePaul crushed Morgan State before taking down Wichita State — the Shockers were 74th by NET before that happened, so, a huge W for the Blue Demons.

T3: Cal State Northridge, 275 to 225: Dubs against Fresno State and Delaware, both ranked better than CSUN, led to this bump.

T1: Fordham, 269 to 218: Taking care of business against teams that you should beat — here, FDU and Manhattan — can count for a lot.

T1: Cal State Fullerton, 240 to 189: Upsetting Denver in a convincing 105-86 win bumped Cal State Fullerton 51 spots, tied for biggest single-week bump with Fordham.

…and the five that fell the furthest.

5. Denver, 213 to 256: That was a bad loss to Cal State Fullerton.

4. UT Martin, 135 to 179: The Skyhawks lost 83-54 to Southern IL, then picked up a win against a D-II team.

3. UC Davis, 123 to 171: The result of a 104-62 defeat at the hands of Oregon.

2. Boston University, 239 to 294: Losing to then-winless Maine and following that up with a defeat against Dartmouth hurts.

1. UMBC, 219 to 281: Two close defeats, but two defeats nonetheless to Army and Buffalo. 

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. Missouri (previous: 78): Missouri enters the bubble conversation after being just outside of it a week ago. They are 0-2 in Quad 1 games, but 10-2 overall with both defeats coming on the road. 

72. Oklahoma State (previous: 52): Oklahoma State tumbled to get to this point, as they lost to Oklahoma, 85-76, on Saturday: the Sooners were 71st in NET before the game, and the two have basically swapped places now.

71. William & Mary (previous: 65): William & Mary didn’t do anything wrong, besides not schedule a game between the previous check-in and now.

70. TCU (previous: 67): TCU nearly lost to Incarnate Word, which did not reflect well on them here.

69. Wisconsin (previous: 55): The Badgers’ lone game on the schedule was a 90-60 defeat at the hands of now-No. 15 Nebraska.

68. Texas (previous: 77): Texas lost to UConn, but by 8 just points — that’s the kind of thing where even taking the L can help.

67. Notre Dame (previous: 69): Notre Dame took out Idaho and Evansville in the last week, but didn’t climb more because those two teams dropped the quality of their opponents by quite a bit.

66. Kansas State (previous: 82): Kansas State is just 7-4, but they have faced a difficult schedule to this point: a pair of Quad 1 losses, but 3-1 in Quad 2 games all averaging out to the 35th-highest average opponent NET ranking.

65. VCU (previous: 48): VCU lost to New Mexico in an upset before rebounding against Niagara, but you can only rebound so much against one of NET’s bottom-tier teams.

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