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Originally Posted by Rick Scaia This probably isn't the year to be putting a lot of stock into bracketologists, either individually or collectively (on a site like bracketmatrix)... this is the second year of quadrants replacing SOS and the first year of NET's existence. I think it's possible to have a basic grasp on the quadrants thing, but it's a huge improbability that anyone's gonna figure out a metric that didn't exist last year and which is now the primary driving consideration for the selection committee. Your most diligent pundits are going to be guessing at exactly how things shake out given all these changes. And it seems pretty clear to me that there are many less diligent ones who are either unaware of the changes, or who have not sufficiently changed their own methodology to reflect how significant they are. My money's on the NCAA leaning on the committee to make sure the final field reflects the NET ratings, if only to justify its creation and instant rise to supremacy. If there are issues where committee members don't agree, all the NCAA has to do is change the NET formula (it's a closed box, they haven't told us what it is, and they won't have to tell us if it changes) to make the results better match the desired outcome in the future. With that in mind, I'm quite certain the ship has sailed on the Flyers' chances of an at-large bid. RPI no longer matters. Simple achieving a certain number of wins is irrelevant. Regular season conference title, meaningless. If there's a way to "game the NET," it doesn't involve just winning, it'll be HOW you win games.... specifically, NET includes offensive and defensive efficiency and claims to account for margin of victory, too. I've been using this site as my replacement for RPIForecast all year: http://barttorvik.com/teamcast.php?&...yton&year=2019 Even if you hit the "Win Out" option, UD only makes the dance as the presumptive tourney champ, and only has a 0.2% chance of an at-large (and #72 in final NET, despite being a top 25 team in ELO, which is closer to what the RPI was designed to be). But maybe if there was an option for "Bludgeon Out," with all flawlessly played wins by 20 points, the NET would take notice (NET actually caps the bonus for margin of victory once you win by 10, but I'm assuming flawless play will result in even larger margins).... I don't think that's forthcoming, so yeah... We don't have to like it as Flyer fans. As basketball fans, we sure as hell don't have to like the NCAA moving the goal posts in such a shady and mysterious way. But I think it's safe to say it's Auto Bid or Bust this year.

Your point is well taken for the Flyers. Even if we win out, we most likely will still be squeaking by and those kind of wins don't move the needle on NET. We also will not be picking up any big time quad wins.

I'm with Beatty Town Coach that the committee has to look at some other metrics whether it is RPI or KenPom or something else to make sure the end result passes the sniff test. If NET is the thing then the committee better reward the low/mid majors with low NET rankings the same as the P5 with similar rankings.