Florida basketball secured its biggest win of the season over North Carolina on Tuesday but perplexingly dropped out of the NCAA NET rankings top five.
The Gators opened the month at No. 6 on the rankings and dipped to No. 7 despite holding a perfect record, but the Orange and Blue held the No. 5 spot going into Tuesday’s matchup. A Quadrant 1 victory usually means improvement in these rankings, or at least holding steady, but the math didn’t work in Florida’s favor.
Iowa State swapped places with Florida, which means the Gators were ranked in the top 5 before the win over UNC. To make things even more confusing ISU didn’t play on Tuesday.
Trying to explain Florida’s dip in the NET
The most logical explanation is the disparity in Q1 wins, but all three of Iowa State’s victories that fall in the category would have qualified as Q1 matchups 24 hours ago. Both programs are 1-0 in Q2 matchups, and neither team has lost a Q3 or Q4 matchup. So, what’s up?
Well, the one state left to look at is Wins Above Bubble (WAB), in which Iowa State has one more win (6-0) than Florida (5-0). The metric, created by analytics website BartTorvik.com, is similar to WAR (wins above replacement) in baseball and was added to the NET rankings calculation this season.
Typically, WAB is calculated a plus-minus value, so the conversion to wins and losses is a bit of a mystery to us here at Gators Wire. For anyone familiar with these kinds of metrics, a lot of math is involved and can be a bit complicated. We’re not going to pretend we understand the nuances of a secret formula, but that’s the stat we’ll point to when explaining Florida’s slight dip in these rankings.
It’s important to remember that while they are called “rankings” the NET is an evaluation tool at heart — that’s what the E and T stand for. It’s not a hard list and the selection committee can sort things however they please. Still, it’s odd to see Florida go down on a rankings list after such a big win. That’s life, though.
“The 2024-25 men’s basketball season marks the seventh season of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings, which replaced the RPI prior to the 2018-19 season as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams,” according to the NCAA.
While Top 25 polls remain popular, it’s the NET rankings that are used by the NCAA Tournament committee to seed teams in March. The rankings rely on a quadrant system (below), where Quadrant 1 (Q1) wins and Q3/Q4 losses matter the most.
Breaking down Florida’s wins by Quadrant
Before going into Florida’s resume, it’s important to understand how the quadrants are divided. Where a game is played has as much to do with the quadrant as the quality of the opponent. As the rankings change, so do the quality of the wins.
For example, Florida’s win at Florida State was a Q1 win at the time but as since been downgraded to a Q2 victory based on the criteria below.
- Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
- Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
- Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
- Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
The good news is Florida has two fairly firm Q1 wins under its belt now, which will help come Selection Sunday.
Florida’s two Q1 victories are its most recent wins against No. 50 Arizona State and No. 37 North Carolina, both of which came at a neutral site.
The Gators won its lone Q2 matchup against Florida State (No. 76) on the road, but a neutral site win over Wichita State (No. 124) at the ESPN Events Invitational has been downgraded to a Q3 win since we last checked in.
In addition to the Wichita State win, Florida has defeated South Florida (No. 186), Virginia (No. 101) and Wake Forest (No. 104), giving UF a 4-0 record against Q3 opponents.
Wake Forest is the closest of those victories to moving into Q2 range being a neutral-site victory, where the cutoff is No. 100. Virginia is ranked higher than Wake Forest, but the win came on Florida’s home court. The South Florida win also came on a neutral court, but the Bulls are closer to Q4 than Q2 at this point.
Finally, Florida is 4-0 against Q4 opponents. All four wins have come at home: Florida A&M (No. 311), Grambling (No. 295), Jacksonville (No. 168) and Southern Illinois (No. 180). Odds are slim for any of these programs to crack the Q3 threshold, but ascending past No. 161 seems doable for the latter two teams mentioned.
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