If you’re new to college hoops or simply don’t fancy yourself as a fan of statistics, the NCAA’s quadrant system may be a foreign concept to you. However, it’s one of the most frequently used criteria discussed by the talking heads come Selection Sunday. Today, we’ll examine how this system works, and take a look at Michigan’s schedule to determine how things could shake out.
The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) is a ranking structure designed to reward teams for beating good opponents while factoring in game location heavily. It replaced the RPI prior to the 2018-19 season and has been used ever since.
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Starting in the 2020-21 season, the NCAA implemented the quadrant system. This helps bucket out results to make it easier to interpret how teams perform relative to competition. Here’s how the quadrants are broken down:
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Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
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Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
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Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
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Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
Like KenPom and the AP Poll, the NET rankings currently have Michigan sitting at No. 2 in the country. Other Big Ten teams of note include No. 6 Illinois, No. 8 Purdue, No. 10 Nebraska and No. 11 Michigan State.
With that in mind, Michigan currently sits at 20-1 overall on the season. The Wolverines are 7-0 in Quad 1 games, with a home win against Nebraska (10), neutral site wins against San Diego State (45), Auburn (29), and Gonzaga (5), and road wins against TCU (54), Washington (48) and Michigan State (11). San Diego State is close to falling into Q2 territory, but the rest should easily remain as Quad 1 wins.
The Wolverines are 8-1 in Quad 2 games. This includes home wins vs Villanova (33), McNeese (61), USC (47), Indiana (32), and Ohio State (41), a neutral site win vs Wake Forest (72), and road wins over Penn State (133) and Oregon (115). There’s a real possibility both the Villanova and Indiana wins end up being Quad 1 wins by the end of the season, but the Penn State win could slip down to Quad 3. In fact, as recently as yesterday the Indiana win was a Quad 1 win, but the Hoosiers slipped out of the top-30 in the most recent rankings update.
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In Quad 3 and Quad 4 games, Michigan is 3-0 and 2-0, respectively, with La Salle (242) and Rutgers (169) being the only Quad 4 games Michigan has played all season.
With just 10 games remaining in the regular season, let’s take a look at how difficult Michigan’s path is. The Wolverines have two Quad 3 games left in home matchups against Penn State (133) and Minnesota (84). We should be rooting for Minnesota to turn things around a bit so it can climb into Quad 2 territory. Somewhat surprisingly, Michigan has just one Quad 2 game on the docket in a home matchup vs UCLA (40).
The remainder of the schedule is a gauntlet of seven Quad 1 games. Only one of those games is even close to falling down to the Quad 2 level, as Michigan travels to Northwestern (69). The other six are solidly in the Quad 1 bucket:
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vs. Duke (3) at a neutral site
Should Michigan run the table, Northwestern stay in the top-75, Indiana climb two or more spots, and Villanova climb three spots or more into the top-30, the Wolverines would be 16-0 in Quad 1 games.
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As of right now, there are just two teams in the country who are undefeated in Quad 1 games (minimum three games played): Arizona at 9-0 and Michigan at 7-0. When combining Quads 1 and 2, Michigan has the most wins in the country with 15. Despite the NET currently having Michigan ranked lower than Arizona, the quadrant system will likely treat the Wolverines quite well come Selection Sunday.
