The first NET rankings are out, and they are grim.
The hits just keep on coming for Xavier fans. First, there was getting obliterated by Michigan the day before Thanksgiving. No matter, there as a chance to get right last night. Instead, Xavier came within a bad pass and a missed three of suffering the worst loss of any high major this year. Still, they are 7-1 and the NET was coming out this morning. Hopefully, that would bring good news.
It did not. Xavier is 103rd in the NET. That is, in case you were wondering and haven’t seen our tweet, really bad. That puts them just below ETSU and Radford and just above a pretty pathetic Providence team. Being in the top 50 of the NET at this point gives you a roughly 72% chance of making the tournament. Xavier is 53 spots below even that pretty tame cut off.
That’s all the bad news. The good news is that this isn’t a death knell for the Musketeers. For one, their schedule right now is awful. 336th, in fact. It will get much better from here on out. There is a buy game against Morgan St left. Beyond that it’s all high major games and the brutal Big East schedule. The NET will go up with essentially any win from here on out.
We’re also roughly a quarter of the way into the season. The NET at this point is a sorting tool, but a pretty limited one. There just really hasn’t been enough data in so far to make this a really good system yet. Liberty isn’t the 53rd best anything in the nation. Arizona is a lot better than St. Bonaventure, but is eight spots below them in this ranking right now. In short, chill a little bit. The sample is way too small to make any judgments.
Finally, there’s plenty of precedent for teams jumping up from these depths. At the first NET last year, Saint Mary’s was 155th. They would have been an easy at large bid had they not won their auto bid. Boise State was 126th in the first NET last season, lost six more times including a Q3 loss, and still gathered an at large bid. This ranking is by no means a death knell. Being in the top 20, by the way, is by no means a guarantee. Princeton, Ohio State, UC, and Oklahoma all were and didn’t make the tournament.
So don’t despair (too much). The news over the last week has been all bad. There’s no sugar coating the way Xavier has been playing recently. They’re bad. But that doesn’t mean the end is near or it’s time to throw in the towel. There are three quarters of the season left. There’s only one way to go from here.
I hope.