First college basketball NET rankings released by NCAA: Tennessee is No. 1 ahead of Auburn, Gonzaga, Duke

The NCAA on Monday released its 2024-25 season debut of the college basketball NET rankings — a tool used by the NCAA Tournament’s selection committee as part of its criteria to evaluate a team’s résumé — with Tennessee at No. 1 and AP-ranked No. 1 Kansas at No. 9. The Vols ranked No. 7 in the latest AP Top 25 last week but have a perfect 7-0 record and a scoring margin that ranks No. 7 in all of college hoops.

Auburn, Gonzaga, Duke and Pitt are Nos. 2-5 in the NET rankings in a mix of teams that rank highly in analytics but have largely been dinged for early-season slips. Of those, Auburn is the only team yet to take a loss on the season. Duke has two losses on the season — both of which came to teams ranked inside the top 10 of the NET in Kentucky (No. 8) and Kansas (No. 9). 

Among the factors the NET takes into account include strength of schedule, scoring margin, net efficiency on offense and defense, and quality of both wins and losses, per the NCAA. The number of factors included makes predicting the NET, which updates daily, something of a guessing game. Case in point: Unranked Illinois is up at No. 10, while undefeated Oklahoma sits at No. 37.

This year’s NET rankings also includes a metric called “WAB” — an acronym that stands for Wins Above Bubble — which is a metric formulated by analytics website BartTorvik.com that now goes on the Team Sheets for consideration by the selection committee. Auburn is No. 1 in WAB to start the season followed by Oregon, Marquette, Kansas and Memphis.

The first run of NET rankings can be found here. The top 10 is as follows:

NET Rankings Top 10

– Full NET rankings via NCAA

Why Tennessee is No. 1

Kansas will retain its spot at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll on Monday. Somewhere down those rankings — probably between No. 3 and No. 5 — will be Tennessee. So why does the NET have the Vols so high?

Several factors help answer that. The first is scoring margin, where Tennessee is seventh behind only Cincinnati, Kentucky, Maryland, Illinois, UCLA and Missouri. It has won all seven of its games on the season and by an average margin of 26.9 points. which includes 22 point and 15 point wins over Louisville and Baylor. 

Another explanation, and perhaps most importantly, is how Tennessee has fared against Quad 1 competition. While it has not played the toughest schedule, it has dominated in games against top-end opponents, with 22 and 15 point wins over Louisville and Baylor, respectively, far and away its most important performances to factor into its ranking.

NET not the end-all, be-all

One thing to consider with the NET rankings is that, while it is a tool the NCAA Tournament selection committee will use to consider team resumes, it is not the only tool they will use. The 12-member committee also has three predictive ratings in BartTorvik.com, KenPom.com and BPI as well as three results-based metrics in WAB, Strength of Record and KPI. Together they’re all considered as data points on the NCAA’s official team sheets, and no one metric is weighted more than the other.

Early surprises

Two-loss Duke sitting at No. 4, ahead of undefeated (and preseason/current AP-No. 1 Kansas at No. 9) is perhaps the biggest whoa. Not just because Kansas has zero losses and Duke has two, but because one notable result: Kansas beat Duke just last week! 

Teams that were higher than expected include, but are not limited to the following:

• No. 6 Florida (No. 21 in Monday’s Top 25 And 1)
• No. 10 Illinois (No. 17)
• No. 12 Ohio State (No. 19)

A few teams that were lower than expected include:

• No. 9 Kansas (No. 1)
• No. 17 Wisconsin (No. 9)
• No. 19 Iowa State (No. 3)
• No. 21 Purdue (No. 7)
• No. 22 Baylor (No. 13)
• No. 31 Memphis (No. 14)
• No. 51 Arkansas (NR)
• No. 65 Arizona (NR)
• No. 86 Rutgers (NR)