Pac-12 Basketball Fares Well in NET Rankings, Not So Well in AP Poll

The Pac-12 has only one team in this week’s AP top-25 men’s basketball rankings, but four teams from the conference are among the nation’s top 26 teams in the first NET rankings released Monday.

Oregon, which beat Cal and Stanford this past week, moved up four spots to No. 17 in the AP poll. However, no other Pac-12 team is among the top 30 in terms of voting points in this week’s AP rankings.

The conference looks much better in the NET Rankings, and that is more significant than the AP poll because the NET Rankings are the primary reference point for selecting the 68-team NCAA tournament field. All those NCAA tournament games will be held in a bubble-like environment in the state of Indiana, but the Pac-12 is just concerned about getting a representative number of teams into that event.

Surprisingly, Oregon is not the highest-rated Pac-12 team in the NET Rankings. That honor belongs to Colorado, which is No. 14 on the NET.

The Ducks are next at No. 19, with Arizona third among Pac-12 schools at No. 21. USC barely missed making the top 25, coming in at No. 26, which would easily be high enough to get a berth in the NCAA tournament.

UCLA, the preseason Pac-12 favorite, is only 54th in the NET Rankings, and Arizona State, picked to finish second is not among the top 100..

Of course, this is early in the season and a lot of things could change.

Cal did not fair so well in the NET Rankings, earning a ranking of 193, which puts the Bears 10th among Pac-12 teams, ahead of Oregon State, which has defeated Cal twice this season, and Washington.

The NET Rankings are based on five factors — team value index, net efficiency, winning percentage, adjusted win percentage and scoring margin.

Click here to get more detailed information about how the NET Rankings are calculated. Suffice to say, it is more complex than the RPI ratings that had been used in the past as a tool for determining NCAA tournament berths and seeding.

NET Rankings of Pac-12 teams:

Colorado -- 14

Oregon -- 19

Arizona -- 21

USC -- 26

UCLA -- 54

Stanford -- 55 (before Monday's win over Oregon State)

Washington State -- 101

Arizona State -- 105

Utah -- 120

Cal -- 193

Oregon State -- 198 (before Monday's loss to Stanford)

Washington -- 237

Cover photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

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