Toledo men's basketball MAC-best 74th in first NET rankings of 2021-22 season

Amanda Levine, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio
·2 min read

Dec. 7—University of Toledo men's basketball is the highest-ranked Mid-American Conference team in the initial NET rankings, which the NCAA released Monday.

The Rockets are 74th, sandwiched between No. 73 West Virginia and No. 75 Grand Canyon. Bowling Green is at No. 239.

The NET system, which replaced RPI before the 2019-20 season, gives weight to beating quality teams. The system breaks games into quadrants to determine quality of wins. In this system, a home win over a team in the top 30 of the NET rankings, a neutral win over a team in the top 50, and a road win over a team in the top 75 are considered Quadrant 1 victories.

The rest are broken down as follows:

—Quadrant 2: home 31-75; neutral 51-100; away 76-135.

—Quadrant 3: home 76-160; neutral 101-200; away 136-240.

—Quadrant 4: home 161-plus; neutral 201-plus; away 241-plus.

Toledo is 0-2 in Quad 1 contests with losses to Oakland University (No. 47) and Michigan State (No. 19). The Rockets are 3-0 in Quad 3 games and 2-0 in Quad 4 contests. They have not played a Quad 2 game yet.

The Rockets will host Bradley (Quad 4) on Tuesday, before a Quad 2 game at Richmond on Saturday.

Toledo ranked 77th in the first NET rankings last year and finished at 79th.

All three of Bowling Green's wins have come in Quad 4. The Falcons are 0-1 in Quad 1 with a loss at Ohio State, and 0-2 in Quad 3. BGSU's game Tuesday is a Quad 2 matchup with Oakland (No. 47) at the Stroh Center.

Ohio University is the only other MAC program inside the top 100 at No. 86.

Ohio State is 28th in the first rankings with a 2-2 record in Quad 1, while Michigan is 63rd after going 0-3 in Quad 1.

Purdue is at No. 1, followed by Louisiana State, Arizona, Houston, and Villanova.

First Published December 6, 2021, 11:56am