First college basketball NET rankings released by NCAA: Michigan lands at No. 1 ahead of Duke in key metric

The first official release of the 2025-26 men's college basketball NET rankings, a ranking system utilized as a sorting tool for NCAA Tournament selection committee that factors in winning percentage, game results, strength of schedule, game location, wins and losses quality and team efficiency, debuted Monday with Michigan at No. 1 and Duke at No. 2. The release was good news in particular for the Big Ten, which had six teams inside the top-20 -- including Purdue at No. 3 and Michigan State at No. 10. 

The NET replaced the RPI as an official selection committee criteria prior to the 2018-19 season. It is a results-based metric.

Most of the top 10 in the NET rankings correlate to the most recent AP Top 25 poll but with a few notable exceptions. Vanderbilt, for example, ranked No. 24 in last week's AP poll but is No. 4 in the NET. Gonzaga, ranked No. 12 in last week's AP poll, is No. 5 in the NET.

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Efficiency and scoring margin are big reasons for both Vanderbilt and Gonzaga's early season success and unsurprisingly both landed higher by a wide margin in the NET than in the AP poll. Vanderbilt is 10th this season in scoring margin led by the No. 2 offense in adjusted efficiency metrics at BartTorvik.com. Gonzaga is top-20 in efficiency on both sides of the floor and 11th in scoring margin even accounting for its 40-point loss to Michigan last week in Vegas.

Because of the unusual NET metrics, there are some unusual suspects inside the top portion of the rankings. Indiana, for example, ranks No. 11 in the NET. LSU (No. 19), Butler (No. 21), Utah State (No. 22) and Yale (No. 25) are also higher in the NET than in human polls.

The full top 25 is below. You can find the full rankings for every team in the NET here.