The Michigan Wolverines men’s AND women’s basketball programs debuted in the Top-5 of the debut of this season’s NCAA NET Rankings, the analytic tool to evaluate a team’s strength of schedule, efficiency and quality wins. The men’s program is at No. 1, to go along with the top rankings by KenPom and Bart Torvik.
The Wolverines had a huge week, beating San Diego State by 40, Auburn by 30 and Gonzaga by 40 at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. Now, they hold three Quad 1 victories in the first month of the season – Gonzaga (fifth), Auburn (30th) and TCU (54th) – with Wake Forest (56th) close to becoming one as well.
The women’s team, meanwhile, checks in at No. 5 in the NET rankings. The Wolverines’ currently have a Quad 1 victory over Notre Dame (32nd), and came up just short by three points to the No. 2 team in the country, UConn.
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Despite that loss, Michigan put together a quality of play in the fourth quarter that would have taken down the nation’s top team if not for a very slow first quarter start, giving national voters and analytic tools a lot of confidence in the future of Michigan women’s basketball.
More than three months remain until Selection Sunday, but if the programs continue on their trajectory, Michigan could be looking at two No. 1-seeds come March.
