Houston Cougars' remaining schedule: NET, quadrants, and seeds

POSTED: January 22, 2019 -- 5:35 p.m. CST

The Houston Cougars (18-1) next game is Wednesday, January 23, vs ECU, at 7 p.m., on ESPN3. As of January 20th, ECU is ranked 226 in the NCAA's Net Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings. Houston's NET ranking is 7.

The NET rankings replaced the RPI as the primary sorting tool the NCAA Men's Basketball Committee uses to evaluate teams. The NET is a system relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and qualities of wins and losses.

It was approved in July after consultation with the Division I Men's Basketball committee, National Association of Basketball Coaches, top basketball analytics and Google Cloud Professional Services.

Since Houston's NET ranking is currently 7, Houston is listed in Quadrant 1; however, ECU, with a NET ranking of 226, is listed in Quadrants 3 and Quadrants 4. How is ECU in two quadrants?

Here's an explanation:

The men's basketball committee divides all 350 plus Division 1 men's basketball teams into 4 quadrants: Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Each quadrant consists of rankings which also depend on whether the game is at home, on the road, or at a neutral site.

Quadrant 1 (Q1) rankings:

• Home: 1 to 30 (Q1a: 1-15, Q1b: 16-30)
• Neutral: 1 to 50 (Q1a: 1-25, Q1b: 26-50)
• Away: 1 to 75 (Q1a: 1-40; Q1b: 41-75)

Quadrant 2 (Q2) rankings:

• Home: 31 to 75 (Q2a: 31-55, Q2b: 56-75)
• Neutral: 51 to 100 (Q2a: 51-75, Q2b: 76-100)
• Away: 76 to 135 (Q2a: 76-100, Q2b: 101-135)

Quadrant 3 (Q3) rankings:

• Home: 76 to 160
• Neutral: 101 to 200
• Away: 136 to 240

Quadrant 4 (Q4) rankings:

• Home: 161+
• Neutral: 201+
• Away: 241+

Therefore, since Wednesday's game is a home game for Houston as well as ECU's ranking of 226, ECU is a Quadrant 4 opponent (Home: 161+) for the Coogs.

Based on Houston's January 20th Team Sheet, here is a listing of which of Houston's remaining games are in which quadrant:

Coogs have 2 Q1 games remaining:

• at Cincinnati - 32 (March 10)
• at UCF - 37 (February 7)

Coogs have 5 Q2 games remaining:

• home vs Cincinnati - 32 (February 10
• home vs UCF - 37 (March 2)
• home vs Temple - 61 (January 31)
• at UConn - 89 (February 14)
• at Tulsa - 100 (January 27)

Coogs have 3 Q3 games remaining:

• home vs USF - 107 (February 23)
• home vs SMU - 125 (March 7)
• at ECU - 226 (February 27)

and, last but not least, Coogs have 2 Q4 games remaining:

• home vs ECU - 226 (January 23)
• at Tulane - 308 (February 17)

Currently, two noted "bracketoglogists" have Houston as a 3-seed (Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com) or a 4-seed (Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com).

Plenty of games remain and plenty of work still needs to be done.

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