Tennessee climbs to No. 4 in the NET Rankings

After adding two more Quadrant 1 wins to their resume this past week, the Tennessee Volunteers moved from No. 7 to No. 4 in the all-important NET Rankings.

Here’s the summary version of the team sheets for the Top 8 teams in the most current NET Rankings (games through Saturday, March 2, 2019)

Comparing to last week, Tennessee’s Q1 record changed from 5-3 to 7-3. The only other team in the current Top 8 to improve its Q1 record was UNC, which went from 7-5 to 8-5 by beating Clemson.

Meanwhile, Kentucky took another Q1 loss and went from 9-3 to 9-4 (hi!). Duke and Houston also each took another Q1 loss, the Blue Devils going from 8-2 to 8-3 and Houston going from 4-1 to 4-2. Michigan State took a double hit, going from 11-3 to 10-4, meaning they not only lost to Indiana, they lost a Q1 win to Q2 due to Iowa losing the NET Ranking that used to qualify it as a Q1 team.

Gonzaga and Virginia both kept the same Q1 record they had last week.

That’s a pretty good week for Tennessee. They can’t be that far behind Duke, which has one more Q1 win but also one Q2 loss to the Vols’ none. Blame the efficiency numbers and the computers that love them there.

Opportunities moving forward

Tennessee still has two additional Q1 opportunities to go in the remainder of the regular season. They host Mississippi State tomorrow and travel to Auburn Saturday.

Virginia is the only other team in the current Top 8 that has two more regular-season Q1 opportunities (Louisville and at Syracuse). Go Cards and Orange.

Kentucky has one left (at Ole Miss), Houston has one left (at Cincinnati), and Duke and North Carolina play each other. Go Heels.

Gonzaga is done for the regular season already, and the Bulldogs just have to hope that everyone else blows their opportunities this week. The only thing that can explain them being ahead of Virginia right now is that they’ve played more games, and now that they’re done, their hold on the No. 1 spot is in jeopardy.

Virginia could finish with an 11-2 (or 11-4) Q1 record. Duke and Tennessee could both finish 9-3. You still have the conference tournaments, of course, but you would have to think that all three of those records would beat out Gonzaga’s regular-season 4-2.

Meanwhile, the Bracket Matrix still has Tennessee as the first No. 2 seed, behind Kentucky. I expect that to change once everybody updates.

The Vols still need to take care of business this week against Mississippi State and Auburn, but they have a real opportunity in front of them. And if Virginia stumbles and UNC beats Duke, things could get really interesting in the conference tournaments.