NCAA basketball has often produced exciting plots and subplots, but the 2022-23 season could be the most entertaining in years. Familiar faces on the sidelines– Mike Krzyzewski, Jay Wright, and Roy Williams– are all retiring after decades of coaching. The rosters are also pretty much set, which gave way to pretty accurate pre-season team rankings, which of course, will undergo changes once the season rolls around. 

That said, have you ever asked yourself, “How often do NCAA basketball rankings change?” If you haven’t found the answer, this article will do so for you.

How Do NCAA Basketball Rankings Work?

The NCAA basketball rankings are done by the Associated Press. AP changes the rankings weekly. A total of 62 sports journalists and broadcasters from throughout the country are surveyed to determine the rankings. Each voter ranks the top 25 teams, and those rankings are averaged to create the national ranking, with a team receiving 25 points for a first-place vote, 24 points for a second-place vote, and so on. All AP Poll voters had their ballots made public.

What do the NCAA basketball rankings have to do with anything? Well, the rankings have no bearing whatsoever in the tournament, so its purpose was simply to spark discussions or to ascertain how the teams are looking out there on the court. In general, the top 25 teams in the poll are invited to the NCAA basketball tournament, often known as March Madness, for both men’s and women’s teams. When do NCAA basketball rankings come out? The poll is typically released on a Monday.

The Associated Press began doing the rankings in 1948. At first, they only ranked 20 teams but have since expanded the list to 25 beginning in 1989. Unsurprisingly, the Kentucky Wildcats have topped the rankings more than any other team.

When Do NCAA Basketball Rankings Come Out?

The AP releases their weekly rankings every Monday at about 1PM Eastern. While the Associated Press’s 62-person voting panel is the largest of its kind, other news outlets also publish NCAA college basketball rankings.

For example, the USA Today rankings, based on the opinions of 31 experts, are published shortly after the Associated Press. The ESPN power rankings are compiled by a small group of ESPN voters and released midweek. ESPN also do pre-season NCAA basketball rankings, which they call “Way Too Early Top 25.”

On the other hand, the NCAA women’s basketball rankings began in 1976-77. It was first done by Mel Greenberg of The Philadelphia Inquirer and started out in a pretty informal manner. The poll was performed over the phone, with coaches identifying the best teams, from which a list of the top 20 teams was generated. The system stayed that way until 1994, when AP took over the poll. Instead of coaches, the AP now uses a panel of journalists to create the rankings.

Does NET Ranking Matter?

The quick answer is NO. It is not a determining factor and will not influence whether a team is in or out of the tournament bracket. So, what is the NET ranking in NCAA basketball?

NET means NCAA Evaluation Tool. Back in 2018, the NCAA turned to NET, replacing RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) to assess teams throughout the season, but primarily for the NCAA tournament. 

The NET algorithm is composed of team value index (TVI) and an adjusted net efficiency rating. TVI is a performance-based statistic that favors teams that have shown success against tough competition on the road. And then there’s adjusted net efficiency, which factors in not just the quality of the opponent but also the venue where the game was played.

All games have the same value, so don’t let that fool you. A match played in the month of November has the same significance as one played in March.

No one exactly knows the exact algorithm, and it’s unclear how much of a role the NET plays in deciding the field and seeds. At the very least, it is an essential factor for the committee making the final choice.

However, it’s worth noting that the NET system plays a significant role in the NCAA’s quadrant system. The quadrant system organizes the quality of wins and losses based on game location and the opponent’s NET ranking. 

Difference Between RPI and NET

The Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) includes three main components, which revolve mainly around winning percentages. The NET, however, involves more than that. It considers things such as win-loss records, opponent strength, venue, the margin of victory, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the caliber of victories and defeats.

Following discussions with the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, leading basketball analytics experts, and Google Cloud Professional Services, the NET rankings system was upgraded in the summer of 2018.

Machine learning was used to create a ranking model, and the final games of the 2017–18 season served as test sets. The model was then optimized to predict the outcomes of games in test sets with the highest possible accuracy.

When Did NET Ranking Start?

The NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings was already in place before the 2018-19 season. The season prior was sort of a test set to develop the system. Since then, NET is now used to determine how teams will be seeded in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament called March Madness. 

What is the Quadrant System?

As previously mentioned, the NET rankings look at several factors to determine the NCAA seeds. The most crucial factor that they look at is the quality of wins. Thus, the NCAA uses what they call the Quadrant system to comprehensively look at the caliber of such victories.

What exactly is the quadrant system? It is an attempt to measure the quality of wins based on where the game is played and the NET ranking of the opponent. The quadrant system is divided into four sections, with the top two quadrants, Quadrants 1 and 2, having the most value.

In a nutshell, here’s what the quadrant system looks like:

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

In essence, this simply means that any team that beats another squad ranked anywhere between 1 to 30 at home gets a quadrant 1 win. If it’s played in a neutral location, any team that defeats another team ranked between 1 to 50 receives a quadrant 1 win. A road win against any of the top 75 teams also secures a quadrant 1 win.

Regarding NCAA tournament selection and seeding, the number of quadrant 1 wins and quadrant 3 and 4 losses will be extremely important. 

How Often Do They Update NCAA Basketball Rankings?

The NCAA men’s and NCAA women’s basketball rankings are updated every week on Monday afternoon. That means the Associated Press will submit new rankings each week for seven months, or for how long an NCAA basketball season. However, the NET rankings will be updated daily and continue to be that way throughout the end of the college basketball season.

7 Most Interesting Facts About NCAA Basketball Rankings

1. Louisiana State University (LSU) earned first seed twice in its history, but the school was never ranked No. 1. The highest they have gone is No. 2 in the 1981 and 1990 seasons, even with the presence of Shaquille O’Neal.

2. The last team to have been ranked No. 1 every week for a whole season was the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils.

3. Four UCLA teams have gone wire to wire like the Blue Devils did in 1991-92. The 1967 and 1969 Bruins were ranked No. 1 all year, led by the one and only Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). The 1972 and 1973 teams also went wire to wire, thanks to the eccentric Bill Walton.

4. Only nine eventual NCAA champions were unranked at the start of the season. The last one was Cincinnati in 2011.

5. Twenty schools have been ranked No. 1 in 14 weeks or more.

6. Probably the unlikeliest NCAA champion ever is the 1985 Villanova Wildcats. They had a 25-10 record over the campaign and were seeded No. 8 going into the tournament. Villanova that year beat No. 2 Michigan, No. 7 North Carolina, No. 5 Memphis, and No. 1 Georgetown all the way to the title.

7. The Maryland Terrapins have over 400 appearances in the AP Top 25 and won a national title in 2002. That said, they were never ranked No. 1 and were actually No. 2 for eight straight weeks in 1976.

Wrapping Things Up: How Often Do NCAA Basketball Rankings Change?

The NCAA is a country-wide league and features over 60 teams each in men’s and women’s basketball. Of these squads, 32 enter the NCAA tournament, also known as March Madness. While having that many teams contribute to the excitement, ranking them is another story.

For that, the NCAA adopted a system called RPI or Ratings Power Index, used from 1981 to 2018. The RPI was primarily based on winning percentages, which doesn’t necessarily give a whole picture of the best NCAA teams. 

The NCAA then replaced it at the beginning of the 2018-19 season with the NET or NCAA Evaluation Tool. NET has undergone changes to refine the system, but it is generally accepted as a better evaluation tool. For instance, it implements the quadrant system, a system that takes into consideration such things as the location of the game and the NET ranking of the opponent.

And then there are the Associated Press rankings. As its name suggests, this list is purely based on the eyes of 62 sports journalists. How do these sportswriters go about their voting procedure? Each voter ranks the top 25 teams, and the individual rankings are then added together to create the national ranking by awarding a team 25 points for first place, 24 points for second place, and so on, down to 1 point for the twenty-fifth place.

How often do NCAA basketball rankings change? The polls are submitted every Monday, so the rankings change weekly. Of course, there should be little movements, especially at the top of the list, unless there is a significant injury. However, if we’re talking about how often the rankings change, the answer is it changes weekly. The NET rating mentioned earlier is updated daily on the NCAA website.

We hope you enjoyed this post! If you did, be sure to check out our other basketball FAQ articles here.\

> When Do NCAA Basketball Rankings Come Out?

> How Many Division 1 Basketball Teams are in the NCAA?