Give Golden credit, he created a schedule that manipulates the NET

our strength of schedule will only matter if we get some quad 1 wins. We still have games with Kentucky (2), Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and a road game at Kansas State.

 

I go with the simple formula: what is the makeup of the team? If it is young but athletic, it is wise to play a softish pre-conference schedule so that losses to top teams don't wound their psyche too much. But that means you have got to get what is necessary to win the tough games down the stretch.

But if you are experienced but needing to learn how to play together (like this year), you throw them in the deep end of the pool and let them figure it out. It should pay real dividends down the stretch and you aren't going to be dinged for playing it hard at the beginning.

 

No, that's not how NET works. I'm surprised so many fans are still confused about it and think it works similarly to RPI. The key metrics in NET are offensive and defensive efficiency (complicated math code words for MOV). Obviously if you play weaker teams, you are expected to win by more. For example, LSU's women are 2 in the NET despite playing one of the most pathetic non-conference schedules ever. But they beat most of those teams by 60+ points and are thusly rewarded (unlike in RPI, where they are 29). If you have a close Q1 loss, you may move up and a close Q4 win may drop you, but conversely in NET, you may move the opposite direction if you exceed the expected MOV.

Anyway, as others have mentioned, your own NET matters little to the committee anyways. The conference as a whole needs to do a good job manipulating the system to make it much matter.

 

Strength of schedule would still mean something as far as seed # assigned even for a solid Tournament team.

That loss to UConn may be a very valuable loss since we played in essence probably an Elite 8 (or better) team.

 

So what I am gathering from this thread is that no one actually knows how the NET works, and I am completely cool with that, lol

 

I know what it is, it swishes, when the ball passes, through the hoop.

 

BD used your approach. He'd put together a softer schedule if we would be freshman-reliant, and a tougher schedule if we would be fielding a team of proven veterans.

 

It's not explicitly. As I said and is clearly noted in that link, they use net offensive and defensive efficiency. Do you know how you improve your offensive efficiency? Score more points. Do you know how you improve your defensive efficiency? Hold opponent to less points. Net-Net, to improve your rating: Win by more points. It's not really rocket science, basically they back-doored scoring margin.

 

Isn’t efficiency primarily determined by points per possession?

 

Yes, though since both teams will have the basically the same number of possessions in a game, it is nearly 100% correlated with scoring margin. It is possible that using efficiency instead of true margin may slightly favor team who play slower compared to pure margin (i.e. a 20-point win in a 70-possession game would be evaluated more favorably than a 20-point win in a 80-possession game), but this would depend on the details of the calculation which are not made public.