Arizona is 3-5 versus quadrant one opponents this season after an 81-70 win over Baylor on Tuesday night. The win was the seventh in a row for Arizona and improved their overall record to 11-5. Arizona is 5-0 and alone in first place in the Big XII and moving up the metric rankings.
Arizona moved up to 13th from 15th in the NCAA Net Ratings with the win over Baylor. The Wildcats have been accumulating quadrant one wins in the Big XII. Arizona won at Cincinnati and West Virginia earlier this month before beating Baylor on Tuesday night. All of Arizona's losses this season were to quad-one teams.
Arizona is the fourth-highest-ranked team in the Net Ratings from a loaded Big XII. Houston is third in the Net Ratings, followed by fifth-ranked Iowa State and sixth-ranked Kansas among Big XII teams. Houston is third in the Net Ratings on the strength of its 5-0 record versus quad two teams, despite being 0-3 versus quad one.
The ESPN Basketball Power Index ranks Arizona seventh nationally. Arizona is eighth nationally offensively and 12th defensively in the BPI. The updated projected Arizona record this season is 21.1 wins and 9.9 losses. That would put Arizona at 10-5 for the remainder of the season, nearly matching its current record.
Arizona is now No. 13 in NET and No. 15 in KenPom.
— Shane Dale (@ShaneDaleAZ) January 15, 2025
Three Quad 1 wins, all vs. Big 12 teams.
Saturday's opponent, Texas Tech, is No. 21 in NET (1-2 vs. Quad 1) and No. 19 in KenPom. Their home losses are to Iowa State and Texas A&M, currently ranked No. 2 and 11, respectively.
The BPI projects Arizona to finish with a 15.1-4.9 Big XII record. That would put Arizona third behind Houston who is projected to finish 17.2-2.8 and Iowa State at 15.7-4.3. Kansas is projected to finish fifth with a 14.1-5.9 record. The race to win the Big XII regular season will be the most competitive of any conference nationally.
Arizona currently has the 37th best strength of record, a 10th SOR seed in the NCAA Tournament, is 37th on the SOR S-curve, is 3-4 versus teams in the BPI top 50 and has the 14th toughest strength of schedule overall and 29th most difficult non-conference schedule.
Arizona is 15th in the KenPom net ratings, 15th in offensive efficiency, 23rd in defensive efficiency, 21st in strength of schedule and 46th in non-conference strength of schedule. Arizona will have multiple opportunities to increase its metrics across the board no matter what the site is.
Arizona gets another opportunity for a quad one win on Saturday at Texas Tech, The Red Raiders fell from 19th to 21st in the updated Net Ratings on Wednesday. By the time the NCAA Tournament Brackets are announced in March, Arizona will have one of the best resumes nationally.