Gophers making dramatic climb up the important NET rankings

Minnesota is closing in on the all-important top 70 in the NET. The women's team, meanwhile, is 15th in the NET rankings.

Dec 10, 2025; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach Niko Medved looks up at the video board during the first half against the Purdue Boilermakers at Mackey Arena. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

On the back of five straight wins, including an upset over No. 19 Iowa on Tuesday night, the Minnesota Gophers men's basketball team has made a significant jump in the NCAA NET rankings.

What are the NET rankings? It's the NCAA Evaluation Tool, which replaced the RPI in 2019.

It is arguably the most significant metric to determine a team's standing for an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament. From now until March Madness, you will hear the terms Quad 1, Quad 2, Quad 3, and Quad 4. It is a way to place each opponent into a quadrant, which can determine the significance of each result.

While the numbers are always changing, Minnesota is currently 2-2 in Quad 1, 1-2 in Quad 2, 0-1 in Quad 3, and 7-0 in Quad 4. That's good enough to have them up to No. 82 nationally in the NET, which is a huge rise from when they were No. 142 at the beginning of December.

Here's where Minnesota's 15 opponents currently rank in the NET:

• Purdue: 7 (Loss)
• Iowa: 18 (Win)
• Indiana: 30 (Win)
• Santa Clara: 57 (Loss)
• Missouri: 67 (Loss)
• Stanford: 69 (Loss)
• Northwestern: 77 (Win)
• San Francisco: 108 (Win)
• Campbell: 220 (Win)
• Green Bay: 226 (Win)
• Chicago State: 334 (Win)
• Fairleigh Dickinson: 348 (Win)
• Texas Southern: 350 (Win)
• Alcorn State: 352 (Win)
• Gardner-Webb: No. 360 (Win)

Here's how the quadrants are defined:

• Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
• Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
• Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
• Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

So, Minnesota's Quad 1 wins were against Iowa and Indiana, while their losses were at Purdue and at Missouri. The neutral site losses to Stanford and Santa Clara are Quad 2, but they could improve to Quad 1 if either team rises into the top 50 in the NET rankings.

Minnesota's win at Northwestern is currently a Quad 2 victory, but at No. 77, Northwestern is close to the top 75, which would boost it to a Quad 1 win.

Up next is a Gophers home game against Southern California (USC), which qualifies as a Quad 2 opponent since it's being played in Minneapolis and the Trojans are 47th in the NET. The same goes for Minnesota's following game, which is at home on January 13 against Wisconsin. The Badgers are 51st in the NET.

Those will be followed by four straight Quad 1 opponents: at Illinois (10), at Ohio State (38), versus Nebraska (11), and at Wisconsin (51).

Side note: The Gopher women are 15th in the NET despite being 0-3 against Quad 1 opponents (Maryland, Michigan, and Alabama). That said, the Gophers can easily make the argument that they could've, or perhaps should've, won all three of those games.