Maybe the NET is right about Clemson Men’s Basketball

Clemson Men’s Basketball has hit a bump in the road of an otherwise solid season. The Tigers have lost two games in a row for the first time this year. Their home winning streak was broken by Miami following a loss at Boston College.

While Clemson still leads the ACC standings, they have fallen from the AP Top 25 poll and continue to languish in the NET metric. The Tigers are 64th in the NET, the eighth team from the ACC.

Clemson fans, including yours truly, have been critical of the way the NET has gauged the Tigers this season. They have routinely ranked closer to the middle of the pack in the ACC than towards the top where they have stood in the standings.

Most of the bracketology experts have been including Clemson in the last few weeks, but they temper their expectations for the Tigers based on a low NET score because they know the NCAA Tournament committee uses the NET to select and seed teams. Most predictions have had Clemson between a 7 seed and a 9 seed.

It remains to be seen if the Tigers will drop out of those bracket predictions between now and when they return to the court against North Carolina in Chapel Hill next Saturday.

I am not throwing in the towel for the Tigers. They still lead the ACC. When they are in the zone, they are a very good team. It is not unusual for teams to hit a low spot during the season. The college basketball calendar is longer than it might seem sometimes.

What I am backing off from right now is my previous opinion that the NET metric was broken. I am starting to understand a little bit more why the Tigers aren’t appreciated by the NET system.

As Marty explained a couple of weeks ago, the win/loss record isn’t important to the NET. It primarily looks at offensive efficiency vs defensive efficiency, tempered by the strength of the opponent and the location of the game.

While I was blown away that the Tigers had the tenacity to come back to win in Tallahassee, the NET wasn’t impressed that Clemson struggled that much against a Seminole team that isn’t good this season.

While I enjoyed watching a comfortable win in Littlejohn over Georgia Tech, the NET shrugged its shoulders, because that is what a good team should do to a team in the bottom half of all college basketball.

While I applauded the Tigers for holding on to defeat Virginia Tech, the NET thought 51 points of offense in your own house was underachieving.

Clemson Men’s Basketball has flaws, and the NET was seeing those flaws

Am I conceding that the NET is right and Clemson should be happy if they just get seeded in the top half of the conference tournament and maybe get a First Four game in Dayton? No, I am not saying that at all. Clemson is one of the better teams in the league and they can play with anyone on any given night, home or away. The Tigers have a good shot at winning in Chapel Hill on Saturday.

I also think the removal of the win-loss record from the metric was a mistake. Winning and losing is the reason the games are played.

What I am admitting is that the NET isn’t broken. It’s a metric, and like any metric, it isn’t always spot on, but good metrics are used for a reason. They usually provide insight many people aren’t seeing by just watching the games.

The NET has been trying to warn us that Clemson had flaws, and we are seeing that now.