See where the Hawkeye men's and women's teams land in various bracket projections from national experts.
Super Bowl Sunday is just days away, but it hardly feels like football season anymore.
College basketball has been taken off the backburners and placed in the forefront of the sports landscape, as March is now officially under a month from now.
As Jon Rothstein and every coach in the country continues to grind for the remainder of the season, bracketology predictions become increasingly important. Sure, the coaches don't take much of that into account, but the bracket forecasts are important if a team is on the bubble.
Iowa's men's and women's basketball teams don't have to worry about being on the bubble, but before we can see where the Hawkeyes land in this week's bracket, let's take a look at their NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, rankings.
According to the official NCAA website, the NET ranking is defined as this: The NET includes more components than just winning percentage. It takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.
The NET ranking also determines the quality of wins a team can have to booster its NCAA tournament resume. The NCAA created a quadrant system to break this down. Quadrant 1 wins are considered the best, while a Quadrant 4 loss is considered to be detrimental to a team's tournament resume.
Using the quadrant system, which was in its fourth season in 2020-21, the quality of wins and losses will be organized based on game location and the opponent's NET ranking.
Using the quadrant system, which was in its fourth season in 2020-21, the quality of wins and losses will be organized based on game location and the opponent's NET ranking.
- 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
With all of that being taken into consideration, here's where both Iowa basketball teams rank in the NET:
Women: No. 14
Iowa's three-game losing streak has its fans stirred into a panic, but the Hawkeyes are still in a very good position to host a regional in the NCAA tournament. Iowa has a difficult stretch to close the season and doesn't play for a week, but its solid body of work is why it owns a high NET ranking.
Men: No. 19
The Hawkeyes didn't register a Quadrant 1 win until mid-January, but Ben McCollum's team now has two after an impressive comeback win at Washington on Wednesday. A loaded back-end of the schedule presents a plethora of opportunities to increase that number, but Iowa is firmly in position to end its three-year NCAA tournament drought.
Women's Bracketology:
Charlie Creme, ESPN: No. 3 seed
Bracket released on Feb. 6 Matthew Walter, The IX Basketball: No. 4 seed
Bracket released on Feb. 4 Men's Bracketology:
Joe Lunardi, ESPN: No. 7 seed (Midwest Region)
Bracket released on Feb. 6 Dave Ommen, Bracketville: No. 7 seed (South Region)
Bracket released on Feb. 6 CBS Sports: No. 7 seed (East Region)
Bracket released on Feb. 6 Erick Smith, Eddie Timanus, Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY: No. 8 seed (South Region)
Bracket released on Feb. 6 Looking for a FREE Hawkeyes community?
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