NCAA or NIT? The Gamecocks have work to do heading into SEC tournament
South Carolina senior guard Erik Stevenson is one of those players who can’t help but look at rankings this time of year. He’s a college basketball junkie.
For the past few weeks, Stevenson’s been keeping a close eye on the NET rankings and the projected postseason brackets and trying to figure if or where USC (18-12, 9-9 SEC) might slot into the NCAA tournament.
Not all of the Gamecocks are like Stevenson, though. Veteran teammate James Reese doesn’t like to dwell on those sorts of things. But as Stevenson’s roommate, he can’t get away from it.
“I have no choice, man,” Reese said, laughing. “Erik comes and talks to me about stuff like that all the time, but I honestly don’t really understand the NET rankings and stuff.”
The NET rankings — short for NCAA Evaluation Tool — remain somewhat of a mystery to many people in and around the game. Adopted before the 2018-19 season as the NCAA’s “primary sorting tool” for evaluating teams, the NET is a complex algorithm that includes weighted winning percentages, strength of schedule, offensive and defensive efficiency and scoring margin.
And, as Stevenson put it himself in late February, “the NET hates South Carolina.”
With the SEC tournament slated to begin this week in Tampa, the Gamecocks sit outside of the most recent NCAA tournament bracketology despite tying for fifth place in a stacked SEC conference. The team’s No. 90 NET ranking and 2-8 record against Quadrant I teams are the most glaring resume points holding the Gamecocks back.
USC will have an opportunity to improve that resume starting 6 p.m. Thursday when the No. 7-seed Gamecocks play the No. 10-seed Mississippi State Bulldogs in Tampa. But it appears the Gamecocks will need a deep tournament run — and perhaps will need to win the tournament outright — to have a shot at the Big Dance.
The NIT is a more realistic outcome at this stage. John Templon, an NIT bracketologist who has compiled brackets for more than a decade, told The State that the Gamecocks should be safe for the NIT, and he’s included the Gamecocks as a No. 4 seed in his most recent bracket.
“Even if they were to go one and done in the SEC tournament, I think they’d be in decent shape,” Templon said. “(The NCAA tournament) seems unlikely to me. It would require a big run. At this point, my guess is no — unless they’re going to win the SEC tournament, and that’s a tall task.
“South Carolina has a lot of wins over teams that are going to be in the NIT field, but it doesn’t have a lot of wins over teams that are going to be in the NCAA, and I think that will hold them back in terms of being in a bubble conversation for that tournament.”
Nothing but NET
Frank Martin hates the NET rankings. The South Carolina head coach has made his position clear over the last few weeks — even if at one point he was in favor of the NET.
“I was part of the board that argued that we should bring this into the conversation,” Martin said Monday. “And I share that because I was part of those conversations and we thought it was a good idea. After seeing it for three years, it’s a bad idea.”
The part of the NET system that irks Martin most is the weight the algorithm places on net efficiency (offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency) and scoring margin. Those plot points favor teams that play a more modern, NBA style of basketball while penalizing teams like USC and Virginia that play with more of a grind-it-out approach. Though it is not known exactly how much those factors impact the NET formula, the Gamecocks rank 194th nationally in scoring margin, according to WarrenNolan.com. And on KenPom.com, the Gamecocks rank 187th in adjusted offensive efficiency.
The emphasis on scoring margin and efficiency has had on-court implications, with many coaches around the country refusing to let up on the gas pedal even in blowouts.
“Watching coaches call timeouts when they’re up seven so they could score a basket late so they can win by nine instead of seven — it’s embarrassing, man,” Martin said. “What are we doing? It makes no sense. Win or lose. This is about winning and losing. It’s not about style.
“Point differential, efficiency — that stuff is for people that live their life on a computer or gymnastics and diving where the guy or the lady that does three somersaults gets a higher degree of difficulty compared to the one that does two somersaults. (Not) in team sports.”
Martin said that from his time in the selection committee room, he believes the three most important factors on a team’s resume should be:
- Who did you play?
- Where did you play?
- Did you win or lose?
Kentucky head coach John Calipari would appear to be in Martin’s corner, tweeting Sunday that, “Any team in the SEC that’s 9-9 should be in the NCAA Tournament. The top four teams in our league went 35-1 at home. Crazy! We are the best league and our teams deserve that respect!!”
Tied with four other teams at 9-9 in league play, the Gamecocks boast conference wins over LSU, Texas A&M, Mississippi State and two wins against Vanderbilt. Of those teams, only LSU is projected to go to the NCAA tournament, with the Aggies sitting in ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s “Next Four Out.” The team’s non-conference wins over UAB and Florida State are solid, but both those teams are projected for the NIT and not the NCAA.
“It’s real simple,” Martin said. “It’s who you play. We have a top 30 strength of schedule (No. 37) in the country. Where you play: We played non-conference road games. A lot of people don’t do that. And did you win or lose? We won 18. We won nine non-league games; we won nine conference games. Is that great? Is that good? Is that bad? I’ll let other people make those determinations.
“I know I’m proud of my team. And at the end of the day, the people in the committee are going to select who they feel belong at the tournament, and if you win enough, you get in.”
Next USC men’s basketball game
Who: No. 7 South Carolina vs. No. 10 Mississippi State (SEC tournament)
When: 6 p.m. Thursday
Where: Amalie Arena in Tampa
Watch: SEC Network
This story was originally published March 7, 2022 at 2:18 PM with the headline "NCAA or NIT? The Gamecocks have work to do heading into SEC tournament."
