‘It means nothing.’ Here’s why you should ignore NCAA rating Kentucky 61st.

Free advice: Don’t read this story. It’s a waste of time.

The topic is meaningless. The following report is based on authentic basketball gibberish provided by the NCAA on Monday.

On Selection Sunday next March, the subject of this story will be all important: the new formula for accessing and ultimately seeding teams for the NCAA Tournament. But Nov. 26 is not the time to take seriously team ratings compiled with what the NCAA calls the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET).

“It really means nothing,” ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg said. “Everything is going to change for (the next) 17 weeks every single day.”

Another ESPN analyst, Fran Fraschilla, likened the initial NET ratings announced Monday to “the top of the first inning” of a baseball game.

“We don’t really know how good all of these teams are until they play serious competition over the next month or so,” he said.

Mike Tranghese, a consultant for Southeastern Conference basketball and a former commissioner of the Big East, said he never looked at the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) until the conference season began. The NCAA also released its first RPI numbers this time of year.

Beginning with the 2019 NCAA Tournament, the NET replaces the RPI. The newness creates interest in the unveiling, which to the eyes of Gary Parrish makes Monday’s announcement worse than meaningless.

“They create this thing that is supposed to be a smarter way to grade basketball teams,” said Parrish, who writes for the CBS Sports website. “And it debuts in a way that just looks ridiculous.”

For evidence to support this view, Parrish cited Kentucky’s place at No. 61.

An unveiling of the NET four days after Thanksgiving means there’s “just not enough information to make it look the way it ought to look,” Parrish said. “Which is how you get Loyola Marymount 10th, you get Kentucky way down at 61, you get Ohio State No. 1. You get Kansas No. 11.

“None of that makes sense to anybody.”

Fraschilla pointed to another oddity: At No. 61, Kentucky is one spot lower than No. 60 Liberty and two spots lower than No. 59 Florida Atlantic.

“You’d be better off asking bookies in Vegas who would be favored in a Kentucky game against Liberty or Florida Atlantic,” he said. “That would give you a more reasonable idea of where these rankings are right now. ... Is anybody going to pick Florida Atlantic or Liberty against Kentucky on a neutral floor right now? Of course not.

“It’s much to do about nothing.”

Even an NCAA spokesman wrote off Monday’s release of the NET ratings as “nothing special.” It’s way too early to assess teams.

“The fact of the matter is numbers will change after tonight’s games are considered,” said David Worlock, the NCAA’s Director of Media Coordination and Statistics. “And will change again after Tuesday night’s games are considered. There’s nothing to read into it.”

The NCAA has touted the NET as a significant upgrade of the RPI that included modern analytics. The RPI was based on a team’s won-loss record, the won-loss records of its opponents and the won-loss records of the teams the opponents played.

In devising the NET, the NCAA consulted an entity known as Google Cloud Professional Services. In addition to won-loss records, the NET also factors in margin of victory and offensive/defensive efficiencies, the NCAA said.

Jerry Palm, who crunches numbers for the CBS Sports website, said the efficiencies meant that Kentucky’s rating suffered in the 34-point loss to Duke even though the NCAA originally said the margin-of-victory factor would be capped at 10 points in an attempt to discourage teams from pouring it on outclassed opponents. The efficiencies will fully reflect a 34-point blowout, Palm said.

And subsequent home victories against Southern Illinois, Winthrop, North Dakota, VMI and Tennessee State did not help Kentucky’s ratings. None of those teams had a NET rating better than Southern Illinois’ No. 145. Plus, winning home games carries less weight with the NET.

But, of course, Kentucky has plenty of time and future quality opponents to greatly improve its NET rating.

“If I were a Kentucky fan, I would just relax,” Parrish said. “It doesn’t mean that there are 60 teams better than Kentucky right now. It just means the way the formula is constructed, this is what it spits out. But it will spit out something different in January and February, and also on Selection Sunday.”

So why did the NCAA announce its NET ratings on Nov. 26?

“It gets clicks,” Greenberg said. “It creates a conversation.”

Palm agreed, saying “these numbers are for entertainment purposes only.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2018 at 6:51 PM.