Women’s College Basketball Top 10, Bubble Team NET Rankings: A Top-15 Shakeup

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 women’s college basketball teams through Feb. 16, according to NET. The Top 10 10. Duke (previous: 9) There wasn’t all that much movement in the top 10 itself this week, as much of what did go down occurred just outside of it. Michigan State went from 11th to 15th. TCU moved up from 13th to 11th. Iowa climbed from 15th to 12th. Duke did slip to 10th, however, owing to two things: the Blue Devils played just one game in the past week, a 72-68 win over North Carolina, while the team that overtook them in the rankings played two games that were not close. 9. Minnesota (previous: 10) Minnesota is finally ranked, at No. 23, but NET is much more into the Golden Gophers than the voters. Minnesota defeated a top-30 Nebraska team, 84-67, before knocking around bubble-hopeful Wisconsin by 23 points. The Gophers have won eight in a row and find themselves with a chance at a Big Ten tournament double-bye. 8. Louisville (previous: 7) Louisville beat both Wake Forest and Florida State by a combined 42 points, so this slight dip back isn’t because the Cardinals did anything wrong in the past week. That’s exactly how those games should have gone, considering the difference in quality between Louisville and each of those opponents, but what the Cardinals were missing was a win against a top-5 opponent, and on the road. 7. Vanderbilt (previous: 8) Which is exactly what Vanderbilt pulled off against Texas on Thursday, in an impressive 86-70 win over the Longhorns that never felt as close as the final score suggests. The reason this win didn’t carry the Commodores even further, though, is at least partly because they were then upset by Georgia over the weekend. 6. Michigan (previous: 6) Michigan beat Michigan State by 21 points in the second matchup between the two this season, which explains much of the Spartans’ fall in NET. The Wolverines also defeated Northwestern by 22 points in the game before that one, which helped keep Vanderbilt from climbing any further, as well. The Wolverines are great, but a little susceptible to movement given their 6-4 record in Quad 1 matchups: four Quad 1 losses is tied for the most of anyone from the 8th through 1st spots. 5. LSU (previous: 5) LSU also has four Quad 1 losses, but unlike Michigan, it’s just 4-4 overall. The reason the Tigers are ahead, though, has a lot do with their Net Rating, which feeds into the NET calculations: LSU’s is 56.55 thanks to a stronger Offensive Rating of 125.38 points per 100 possessions, while Michigan is at 52.12 and 119.82. The gap is closer than that makes it appear, however, as Michigan has the 10th-toughest schedule of anyone in Division I women’s basketball, while LSU’s is 76th despite the extremely difficult SEC, thanks to racking up 12 Quad 4 wins in 12 tries. 4. Texas (previous: 4) Losing to Vanderbilt would have hurt more if Texas wasn’t a mile ahead of LSU in terms of Quad 1 matchups: the Longhorns are 10-3 in those games after facing Vandy and Tennessee in the past week, and have a better Net Rating than LSU, to boot. 3. South Carolina (previous: 3) Moving South Carolina from the 3rd spot is going to be tough for Texas after the loss to Vanderbilt, given the two won’t have another head-to-head matchup unless it occurs in the SEC tournament in March. The Gamecocks will also have a chance to make up some of the gap in their Quad 1 win totals, as they take on No. 25 Alabama, No. 17 Ole Miss, Missouri and No. 16 Kentucky in their final four games of the regular season. 2. UCLA (previous: 2) While we’re on the subject, UCLA’s 14 Quad 1 wins keep being brought up as an argument for the Bruins overtaking UConn as the No. 1 team in the nation, or the top seed in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in March — UConn has half as many, but does have a 6-0 record in Quad 2 games to point to, as well as a superior Net Rating that is just shy of 70. To understand the context there, recognize that 4th-ranked Texas hasn’t cracked 60, and UCLA is the only other team over 65. 1. UConn (previous: 1) That all being said, UConn is not invincible. While the Huskies defeated Marquette on Saturday, 71-56, they also scored a season-low 13 points in the first quarter, resulting in its smallest margin of victory over a Big East opponent all season. UConn has been getting by perfectly fine without freshman forward Blanca Quinonez coming off the bench with a shoulder injury for some time now, but that’s a primary reserve the Huskies will want back by the time March Madness rolls around, lest its few weaknesses be exploited by a tourney-caliber opponent. 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 women’s college basketball in the last week… T5. Southern Illinois, 287 to 271: An upset over top-150 Illinois State was significant enough that Southern Illinois still made the risers list despite losing to Bradley in its second game of the week. T5. Providence, 167 to 151: Providence is nearly a top-150 team itself after wins against Butler and near-bubble team Georgetown, just in time for a Sunday game against UConn on the road. T2. ULM, 164 to 147: Louisiana-Monroe took down comparable Southern Mississippi and then lost to Troy, 82-80, a game that was a lot closer than it should have been for the Trojans. T2. Wright State, 312 to 295: Detroit Mercy and Oakland both fell to Wright State in the past week, which helped the Raiders escape being one of the 50 or so worst teams in Division I this season. 1. LMU (CA), 138 to 120: Loyola Marymount took advantage of Gonzaga’s lack of depth to defeat it, 72-63, avenging an overtime loss from December in the process. Both teams are now 11-3 in the West Coast Conference, and the Lions know that the Bulldogs can be beaten come tourney time. [Get to Know a Mid-Major: West Coast Conference] …and the five that fell the furthest. T5. Oakland, 255 to 272: Oakland was a bottom-100 team, and now it’s closer to a bottom-75 one after Wright State delivered the upset. To make matters worse, the Golden Grizzlies also lost to IU Indy earlier in the week. T5. Jacksonville State, 218 to 235: Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky both took down Jacksonville State in the last week. The first was expected, given that’s nearly a top-150 team, but Western Kentucky started the week ranked 310th in NET. 3. UC Santa Barbara, 125 to 143: The Gauchos couldn’t make up for a loss to UC Riverside despite winning against Cal Poly a couple of days later, because UC Riverside was ranked 249th in NET — that kind of upset doesn’t just go away one win later, especially not one against one of the 20 or so worst teams in D-I. 2. Denver, 288 to 307: “How bad could a 7-point loss to Omaha be, truly?” Well, the Mavericks are 4-23 and were ranked within a few spots of four different teams without a Division I win (or any win) this season. 1. Lamar University, 165 to 185: Real tough week for Lamar, which lost to UTRGV (212th in NET) by 22 points before defeating A&M-Corpus Christi (337th) by just 6 points. That is going to make securing one of the Southland tourney double-byes more difficult, already a game back of the Vaqueros and with five left in the regular season schedule. 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. UC Irvine (previous: 78): The Anteaters routed Cal Poly, 84-39, then defeated Cal State Fullerton 77-71. A bigger W would have moved the needle further, too. 72. San Diego State (previous: 77): Wins against Colorado State and Nevada moved San Diego State from uncomfortably outside of the bubble into The Conversation, at least. 71. South Florida (previous: 76): South Florida has now won three in a row — against Tulane, Tulsa and UTSA — but if it wants to move out of the bubble and prove it has a shot in the American conference tournament, the Bulls are going to have to defeat Rice this week. The Owls remain undefeated in conference play, just as they were during our look-in at the American. 70. Purdue (previous: 71): The Boilermakers played just one game in the past week, a Valentine’s Day contest against Rutgers, which it won 72-57. Rutgers is just top-150, so that didn’t bump Purdue up all that much. Anything is good at this point of the season, however. 69. Troy (previous: 65): Troy, as mentioned, should have won by much more than it did against the Warhawks, but the Trojans’ best shot at March Madness has always been through the Sun Belt tournament, anyway. 68. Santa Clara (previous: 74): Just one of Gonzaga or Santa Clara can get the automatic bid in the West Coast Conference, so shifting right into the thick of the bubble is significant for the Broncos, which got here by notching wins against Oregon State and Portland this past week. 67. Ball State (previous: 68): An 83-68 W against Eastern Michigan followed by a similarly scored dub against Bowling Green is better than losses, yes, but both opponents were merely top-200 teams, so this was taking care of business territory. 66. Montana State (previous: 67): A 72-55 win against Montana is a good thing, but it’s also the only game that Montana State played this past week. 65. Harvard (previous: 61): A rough week for the favorites in the Ivy League, between Princeton getting knocked out of the poll by losing to Columbia, and Harvard suffering a defeat against Brown. Better the Bears than Yale, though, which the Crimson took care of just fine. 64. Gonzaga (previous: 62): Gonzaga slipped back into bubble territory with a loss against LMU, but of more concern is how a possible showdown against the Lions will go in March.