2023-24 NET ratings thread

[Styre]

The first 2023-24 NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings have been released. NET is the primary formula used by the committee to determine tournament participation and seeding. All games are divided into quadrants, and the number of wins and losses in each quadrant is important, with Quad 1 wins being particularly helpful and Quad 3 and 4 losses being particularly harmful. I'll update this every week with NU's status.

NU has debuted at #48 in the NET ratings. That's bubble territory, but our current resume would definitely have us in the tournament, just probably on a lower seed than last year.

QUAD 1 (1-1)
H #5 Purdue - W
N #40 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
H #42 Dayton - W

QUAD 3 (2-0)
H #77 Northern Illinois - W
N #192 Rhode Island - W

QUAD 4 (2-0)
H #240 Binghamton - W
H #265 Western Michigan - W

Obviously the Purdue win is going to be a huge part of our resume going forward, and we have no bad losses in these first 7 games. This week features a Quad 4 home game against a dreadful Detroit Mercy team.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

Thanks Styre.

 

[elgatoloco]

I think these are the quad breakdowns:

Quad 1
Home 1-30
Neutral 1-50
Away 1-75

Quad 2
Home 31-75
Neutral 51-100
Away 76-135

Quad 3
Home 76-160
Neutral 101-200
Away 135-240

Quad 4
Home 161-362
Neutral 201-362
Away 241-362

 

[EagerFan]

Thanks Styre, this stuff interests me and I appreciate your doing the work over the seasons.

 

[CoralSpringsCat]

The first 2023-24 NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings have been released. NET is the primary formula used by the committee to determine tournament participation and seeding. All games are divided into quadrants, and the number of wins and losses in each quadrant is important, with Quad 1 wins being particularly helpful and Quad 3 and 4 losses being particularly harmful. I'll update this every week with NU's status.

NU has debuted at #48 in the NET ratings. That's bubble territory, but our current resume would definitely have us in the tournament, just probably on a lower seed than last year.

QUAD 1 (1-1)
H #5 Purdue - W
N #40 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
H #42 Dayton - W

QUAD 3 (2-0)
H #77 Northern Illinois - W
N #192 Rhode Island - W

QUAD 4 (2-0)
H #240 Binghamton - W
H #265 Western Michigan - W

Obviously the Purdue win is going to be a huge part of our resume going forward, and we have no bad losses in these first 7 games. This week features a Quad 4 home game against a dreadful Detroit Mercy team.

Go Flyers!

 

[Styre]

Very little change after a week, with NU up to #47. Several non-conference opponents dropped significantly.

QUAD 1 (1-1)
H #4 Purdue - W
N #30 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
H #44 Dayton - W

QUAD 3 (1-0)
H #130 Northern Illinois - W

QUAD 4 (4-0)
H #237 Binghamton - W
N #240 Rhode Island - W
H #294 Western Michigan - W
H #349 Detroit Mercy - W

The upcoming week features a Quad 4 home game against Chicago State and a Quad 4 road game against DePaul.

 

[NUThump]

In the too-soon-but-fun-to-look-at-anyway category, Bracket Matrix was updated yesterday. NU a projected 7 seed. http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

 

[Styre]

The news is not good. Thanks to the awful Quad 4 loss to Chicago State, NU has dropped all the way to #77 in the NET rankings, which means they'll be making NIT plans if things don't improve. On the plus side, Dayton jumped up to #30, giving NU another Quad 1 win for now.

QUAD 1 (2-1)
H #3 Purdue - W
H #30 Dayton - W
N #35 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
H #137 Northern Illinois - W

QUAD 4 (5-1)
H #231 Binghamton - W
N #239 Rhode Island - W
A #270 DePaul - W
H #294 Western Michigan - W
H #304 Chicago State - L
H #350 Detroit Mercy - W

This week features a Quad 3 neutral site game against Arizona State.

 

[timbfischer]

The news is not good. Thanks to the awful Quad 4 loss to Chicago State, NU has dropped all the way to #77 in the NET rankings, which means they'll be making NIT plans if things don't improve. On the plus side, Dayton jumped up to #30, giving NU another Quad 1 win for now.

QUAD 1 (2-1)
H #3 Purdue - W
H #30 Dayton - W
N #35 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
H #137 Northern Illinois - W

QUAD 4 (5-1)
H #231 Binghamton - W
N #239 Rhode Island - W
A #270 DePaul - W
H #294 Western Michigan - W
H #304 Chicago State - L
H #350 Detroit Mercy - W

This week features a Quad 3 neutral site game against Arizona State.

Won't matter when we finish 20-0 in the Big Ten.

 

[SmellyCat]

There are still plenty of opportunities for NU to beat good teams. Obviously Purdue, but also Illinois, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin should be decently rated when NU plays them, and others like Indiana, Michigan, Maryland and Iowa are names even if they're down a little this year. Obviously, NU has to win most of those games, but it's not over yet.

 

[Styre]

A dominant win over ASU helped NU a bit, putting them at #71 in the current NET rankings, but unfortunately ASU is so bad it won't help the resume. The Dayton win is looking better and better. Just need to keep playing well and winning games.

QUAD 1 (2-1)
H #4 Purdue - W
H #22 Dayton - W
N #32 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
N #144 Arizona State - W

QUAD 4 (6-1)
H #191 Northern Illinois - W
H #250 Binghamton - W
N #252 Rhode Island - W
A #284 DePaul - W
H #293 Western Michigan - W
H #295 Chicago State - L
H #352 Detroit Mercy - W

This week wraps up non-conference play with a Quad 4 home game against Jackson State.

 

[Styre]

Not much change this week as expected. NU sitting at #72.

QUAD 1 (2-1)
H #3 Purdue - W
H #25 Dayton - W
N #34 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
N #124 Arizona State - W

QUAD 4 (7-1)
H #199 Northern Illinois - W
N #235 Rhode Island - W
H #253 Jackson State - W
H #256 Binghamton - W
A #276 DePaul - W
H #295 Chicago State - L
H #296 Western Michigan - W
H #358 Detroit Mercy - W

Conference play resumes this week in a big way, with a Quad 1 road game at Illinois and a Quad 1 home game against Michigan State.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Not much change this week as expected. NU sitting at #72.

QUAD 1 (2-1)
H #3 Purdue - W
H #25 Dayton - W
N #34 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
N #124 Arizona State - W

QUAD 4 (7-1)
H #199 Northern Illinois - W
N #235 Rhode Island - W
H #253 Jackson State - W
H #256 Binghamton - W
A #276 DePaul - W
H #295 Chicago State - L
H #296 Western Michigan - W
H #358 Detroit Mercy - W

Conference play resumes this week in a big way, with a Quad 1 road game at Illinois and a Quad 1 home game against Michigan State.

The whole "Quad" thing bugs me. It injects imprecision into a ratings process for no reason.

Team #49 is just as good as team #51 and neither of them is anywhere close to team #5. So using an arbitrary "Top 50" is detrimental.

In other words, the computer ratings are better (or should be) than the same ratings with "quads" superimposed on top of them.

 

[Catreporter]

That Arizona State win is looking better. They won at Stanford which just demolished Arizona and they won another roadie at Cal. May have caught them at the right time. Meanwhile, Chicago State played at Cal Baptist two days before a listless loss at DePaul Saturday. They play back-to-back nights next week against two Big 8 teams, but they were more rested for the Cats. No excuse that, but it's part of it.

 

[Styre]

A big win and a big loss have NU pretty much in the same place at #71. If they keep stacking Quad 1 wins they'll be fine. ASU has moved up in the ratings but is still a Quad 3 win.

QUAD 1 (3-2)
H #2 Purdue - W
A #9 Illinois - L
H #20 Dayton - W
H #28 Michigan State - W
N #32 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (0-0)

QUAD 3 (1-0)
N #102 Arizona State - W

QUAD 4 (7-1)
N #215 Rhode Island - W
H #238 Northern Illinois - W
H #251 Jackson State - W
H #254 Binghamton - W
H #276 Western Michigan - W
A #287 DePaul - W
H #300 Chicago State - L
H #360 Detroit Mercy - W

This week sees a Quad 2 road game at Penn State and a Quad 1 road game at Wisconsin.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

Would ASU still be quad 3 if it were rightly considered a road game?

 

[CappyNU]

Would ASU still be quad 3 if it were rightly considered a road game?

No, but it looks like if ASU can get into the top 100 it'll become a quad 2 victory. Also, the crowd if anything was against ASU as it was dominated by Arizona fans, especially in the second half

 

[Styre]

Another 1-1 week and NU has ticked up slightly to #69.

QUAD 1 (3-3)
H #3 Purdue - W
A #11 Wisconsin - L
A #16 Illinois - L
H #17 Dayton - W
H #22 Michigan State - W
N #35 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
A #125 Penn State - W

QUAD 3 (2-0)
N #107 Arizona State - W
N #172 Rhode Island - W

QUAD 4 (6-1)
H #235 Jackson State - W
H #260 Northern Illinois - W
H #262 Western Michigan - W
H #265 Binghamton - W
A #288 DePaul - W
H #289 Chicago State - L
H #361 Detroit Mercy - W

This week features a Quad 3 home game against Maryland and a Quad 1 road game at Nebraska.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Another 1-1 week and NU has ticked up slightly to #69.

QUAD 1 (3-3)
H #3 Purdue - W
A #11 Wisconsin - L
A #16 Illinois - L
H #17 Dayton - W
H #22 Michigan State - W
N #35 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
A #125 Penn State - W

QUAD 3 (2-0)
N #107 Arizona State - W
N #172 Rhode Island - W

QUAD 4 (6-1)
H #235 Jackson State - W
H #260 Northern Illinois - W
H #262 Western Michigan - W
H #265 Binghamton - W
A #288 DePaul - W
H #289 Chicago State - L
H #361 Detroit Mercy - W

This week features a Quad 3 home game against Maryland and a Quad 1 road game at Nebraska.

Hey Styre, I found a website that has useful information about the NET. Perhaps you are already using it.

Bracketologists :: NCAA Tournament Resumes with NET Rankings.

bracketologists.com

It tells you the NET rankings, with the Quad breakdown for each team.
My goal is to figure out what the weights are for Quad 1-4 wins and losses by directly comparing the ratings with the records of each team.

For example: The NET has Alabama ranked #5 and UConn ranked #9. Here are their records...

Team	NET Rank	Record	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Alabama	5	12-5	2-4	2-1	3-0	5-0
UConn	9	15-2	4-2	2-0	1-0	8-0

Pretty bizarre, right? It looks just.... wrong.

If the NET people are being truthful about how the ratings are determined, there is no way Alabama should be rated higher than UConn. So what they are telling us is not correct. Or there is more to it than we have been told.

Here's more information...
Alabama has 2 Q1 wins. Home Win against #26 Indiana State. Road Win at #33 Mississippi State.
Alabama has 4 Q1 losses. Neutral Loss to #50 Ohio State. Neutral Loss to #3 Purdue. Road Loss at #11 Creighton. "Neutral" Loss (in Phoenix) to #2 Arizona.

UConn has 4 Q1 wins. Neutral Win vs #7 North Carolina. Neutral Win vs #47 Gonzaga. Road Win at #66 Butler. Road Win at #38 Xavier.
UConn has 2 Q1 losses. Road Loss at #12 Kansas. Road Loss at #58 Seton Hall.

So now it looks even more wrong. My assumption is that Road wins are more important than Home Wins - But that doesn't seem to be the case. No rational system will award points for a loss, unless they are awarding "participation points" for going on the road and getting your ass kicked.

However, if you completely ignore the Quad stuff and look only at KenPom, Bart Torvik and ESPN's BPI, you see something pretty interesting...

Team	KenPom	BPI	Torvik	Average
Alabama	7	4	5	5.33
UConn	8	10	10	9.33

So it would appear that the NET is primarily just a combination of the KenPoms of the world and has very little to do with the Quads. I'll look for anything to refute that.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

It looks as if quad 4 games are just considered losses by the NET whether you win them or not. Thus playing more of them is going to hurt you. That kind of explains our low rating and this Alabama-UConn weirdness.

 

[ballerog711]

2024 NET Rankings and Quad Wins

2024 Quad wins for NCAA College Basketball. NET rankings and Quadrants are used to help select teams for the NCAA Tournament during March Madness.

bballnet.com

I use this one.

I read somewhere you get 1 point for a quad 4 win and a -4 for a quad 4 loss

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

“Then Mark Few brought up an idea of using a composite of all the various prominent indices, some of which have predictive qualities that could help identify the best teams. After consulting with many of the designers of these other metrics, the NCAA began to develop its own index that would incorporate the most current evaluation measures. With an improved sorting tool, and a tighter definition of a quality win, the hope is we now have a more accurate selection and seeding procedure.”

"NABC Executive Director Jim Haney said it made more sense for the NCAA to come up with its own metric rather than to just use five or six others. He said this was a great example of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee listening and working with the coaches."


I think this means they have a version of KenPom that they call the NET ratings.
The Quad stuff is just for show.
Something they can look at when selecting teams.

 

[CappyNU]

It's about measuring efficiency, i.e. point differential. You can't just go by records, if Bama blows out its 2 quad 1 wins and has 4 close quad 1 losses, while Uconn squeaks by its 4 quad 1 wins and gets blown out in its 2 quad 1 losses, then it would make perfect sense for Bama to be rated higher.

 

[NUCat320]

Another 1-1 week and NU has ticked up slightly to #69.

Nice.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

It's about measuring efficiency, i.e. point differential. You can't just go by records, if Bama blows out its 2 quad 1 wins and has 4 close quad 1 losses, while Uconn squeaks by its 4 quad 1 wins and gets blown out in its 2 quad 1 losses, then it would make perfect sense for Bama to be rated higher.

You are talking about KenPom and all the versions of that.
The difference between expected outcome and actual outcome is all that matters.
Doesn't matter who wins.
If you are supposed to win by 3 and lose by 3, thats the safe effect as if you are supposed to win by 10 but only win by 4.

NET is supposed to based on Quad 1,2,3,4 wins and losses.
A win is a win.
A loss is a loss.
They tell everybody that the NET rating is based on Quad 1-4 wins and losses.
They say things like "Quad 1 wins and Quad 4 losses are very important."

But that appears to have nothing to do with the actual rating.

 

[CappyNU]

You are talking about KenPom and all the versions of that.
The difference between expected outcome and actual outcome is all that matters.
Doesn't matter who wins.
If you are supposed to win by 3 and lose by 3, thats the safe effect as if you are supposed to win by 10 but only win by 4.

NET is supposed to based on Quad 1,2,3,4 wins and losses.
A win is a win.
A loss is a loss.
They tell everybody that the NET rating is based on Quad 1-4 wins and losses.
They say things like "Quad 1 wins and Quad 4 losses are very important."

But that appears to have nothing to do with the actual rating.

"The remaining factors include the Team Value Index (TVI), which is a result-based feature that rewards teams for beating quality opponents, particularly away from home, as well as an adjusted net efficiency rating. The adjusted efficiency is a team’s net efficiency, adjusted for strength of opponent and location (home/away/neutral) across all games played. For example, a given efficiency value (net points per 100 possessions) against stronger opposition rates higher than the same efficiency against lesser opponents and having a certain efficiency on the road rates higher than the same efficiency at home.

In addition, the overall and non-conference strength of schedule has been modernized to reflect a truer measure for how hard it is to defeat opponents. The strength of schedule is based on rating every game on a team's schedule for how hard it would be for an NCAA tournament-caliber team to win. It considers opponent strength and site of each game, assigning each game a difficulty score. Aggregating these across all games results in an overall expected win percentage versus a team's schedule, which can be ranked to get a better measure of the strength of schedule."

The Quad 1-4 rankings are ways to sort a team's results into an easy to digest format. The way that teams beat or don't beat the teams they face has an impact on the NET rating, but the NET rating isn't going to be appreciably different if you beat #30 at home by 3 points or #31 at home by 3 points, even though one will be classified as a Quad 1 game and the other as a Quad 2.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

"The remaining factors include the Team Value Index (TVI), which is a result-based feature that rewards teams for beating quality opponents, particularly away from home, as well as an adjusted net efficiency rating. The adjusted efficiency is a team’s net efficiency, adjusted for strength of opponent and location (home/away/neutral) across all games played. For example, a given efficiency value (net points per 100 possessions) against stronger opposition rates higher than the same efficiency against lesser opponents and having a certain efficiency on the road rates higher than the same efficiency at home.

In addition, the overall and non-conference strength of schedule has been modernized to reflect a truer measure for how hard it is to defeat opponents. The strength of schedule is based on rating every game on a team's schedule for how hard it would be for an NCAA tournament-caliber team to win. It considers opponent strength and site of each game, assigning each game a difficulty score. Aggregating these across all games results in an overall expected win percentage versus a team's schedule, which can be ranked to get a better measure of the strength of schedule."

The Quad 1-4 rankings are ways to sort a team's results into an easy to digest format. The way that teams beat or don't beat the teams they face has an impact on the NET rating, but the NET rating isn't going to be appreciably different if you beat #30 at home by 3 points or #31 at home by 3 points, even though one will be classified as a Quad 1 game and the other as a Quad 2.

Right, the NET rating is apparently a modified Ken Pom.

The Quad thing is really just an arbitrary way to present the team's season in one line.

Therefore, saying NU has a "Quad 3 home game tonight" doesn't mean a hell of a lot.

NU has an opportunity to run up the score against the #97 NET team and should try to win by as much as possible if it wants to improve its NET rating. Oh, and winning by 1 and losing by 1 are practically the same thing as far as the NET is concerned.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

NU has an opportunity to run up the score against the #97 NET team and should try to win by as much as possible if it wants to improve its NET rating. Oh, and winning by 1 and losing by 1 are practically the same thing as far as the NET is concerned.

Does it make me an old fogey to say that these two sentences are the most depressing things I've read about modern college basketball?

 

[Styre]

Right, the NET rating is apparently a modified Ken Pom.

The Quad thing is really just an arbitrary way to present the team's season in one line.

Therefore, saying NU has a "Quad 3 home game tonight" doesn't mean a hell of a lot.

NU has an opportunity to run up the score against the #97 NET team and should try to win by as much as possible if it wants to improve its NET rating. Oh, and winning by 1 and losing by 1 are practically the same thing as far as the NET is concerned.

Yes, this is what I've been saying. The quads are arbitrarily assigned after the NET ratings are computed to give the selection committee a frame of reference when trying to distinguish between teams. Saying Maryland at home is a Quad 3 game right now is indeed largely meaningless, but whatever quad that game ends up in on Selection Sunday will be meaningful. I just do this to give occasional updates on our tournament resume.

 

[SmellyCat]

It almost seems like we need a committee to vote on who are the best teams and to pit them in a single-elimination tournament to see which team is the best. We can call that tournament "Basketball Bedlam" or "Hoops Hysteria" or "Spring Sickness."

 

[AdamOnFirst]

It almost seems like we need a committee to vote on who are the best teams and to pit them in a single-elimination tournament to see which team is the best. We can call that tournament "Basketball Bedlam" or "Hoops Hysteria" or "Spring Sickness."

Pre-Masters Pandemonium

 

[zbag51]

Pre-Masters Pandemonium

Late Winter Lunacy

 

[AdamOnFirst]

Late Winter Lunacy

Q1 Quackery

 

[curdog]

Hey Styre, I found a website that has useful information about the NET. Perhaps you are already using it.

Bracketologists :: NCAA Tournament Resumes with NET Rankings.

bracketologists.com

It tells you the NET rankings, with the Quad breakdown for each team.
My goal is to figure out what the weights are for Quad 1-4 wins and losses by directly comparing the ratings with the records of each team.

For example: The NET has Alabama ranked #5 and UConn ranked #9. Here are their records...

Team	NET Rank	Record	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Alabama	5	12-5	2-4	2-1	3-0	5-0
UConn	9	15-2	4-2	2-0	1-0	8-0

Pretty bizarre, right? It looks just.... wrong.

If the NET people are being truthful about how the ratings are determined, there is no way Alabama should be rated higher than UConn. So what they are telling us is not correct. Or there is more to it than we have been told.

Here's more information...
Alabama has 2 Q1 wins. Home Win against #26 Indiana State. Road Win at #33 Mississippi State.
Alabama has 4 Q1 losses. Neutral Loss to #50 Ohio State. Neutral Loss to #3 Purdue. Road Loss at #11 Creighton. "Neutral" Loss (in Phoenix) to #2 Arizona.

UConn has 4 Q1 wins. Neutral Win vs #7 North Carolina. Neutral Win vs #47 Gonzaga. Road Win at #66 Butler. Road Win at #38 Xavier.
UConn has 2 Q1 losses. Road Loss at #12 Kansas. Road Loss at #58 Seton Hall.

So now it looks even more wrong. My assumption is that Road wins are more important than Home Wins - But that doesn't seem to be the case. No rational system will award points for a loss, unless they are awarding "participation points" for going on the road and getting your ass kicked.

However, if you completely ignore the Quad stuff and look only at KenPom, Bart Torvik and ESPN's BPI, you see something pretty interesting...

Team	KenPom	BPI	Torvik	Average
Alabama	7	4	5	5.33
UConn	8	10	10	9.33

So it would appear that the NET is primarily just a combination of the KenPoms of the world and has very little to do with the Quads. I'll look for anything to refute that.

Methinks we are over complicating this. Any metric that has UConn ranked below alabama is incredibly flawed. Who you beat and where and who you lost to and where should be the only thing that matters.

 

[phatcat]

It almost seems like we need a committee to vote on who are the best teams and to pit them in a single-elimination tournament to see which team is the best. We can call that tournament "Basketball Bedlam" or "Hoops Hysteria" or "Spring Sickness."

That's fine except for bubble teams.

 

[ThatkidfromHolland]

Im not taking any B1G wins for granted each one is a big one and NU builds this tournament resume. I’m glad we notched another one last night.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Methinks we are over complicating this. Any metric that has UConn ranked below alabama is incredibly flawed. Who you beat and where and who you lost to and where should be the only thing that matters.

Thats basically what I'm saying. There's winning and then there's the NET rating.

The NET (and KenPom and other derivations) reward teams for running up the score against weaker opponents.

Everybody knows that you can't be 1-5 against the Top 30 teams and reasonably think you're the 15th best team in the country.

In this scenario, which team is best...

Alabama beats Stony Brook by 30.
Northwestern beats Stony Brook by 10.
Northwestern beats Alabama by 6.

Ken Pom (and the NET) will tell you Alabama.

 

[Styre]

Thats basically what I'm saying. There's winning and then there's the NET rating.

The NET (and KenPom and other derivations) reward teams for running up the score against weaker opponents.

Everybody knows that you can't be 1-5 against the Top 30 teams and reasonably think you're the 15th best team in the country.

In this scenario, which team is best...

Alabama beats Stony Brook by 30.
Northwestern beats Stony Brook by 10.
Northwestern beats Alabama by 6.

Ken Pom (and the NET) will tell you Alabama.

The NET rating stopped using margin of victory in 2020. It uses "adjusted net efficiency" which is offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency, modified by an unknown formula that accounts for strength of opponent and location. So it's basically impossible to answer that question because we don't know the formula.

 

[Styre]

Methinks we are over complicating this. Any metric that has UConn ranked below alabama is incredibly flawed. Who you beat and where and who you lost to and where should be the only thing that matters.

You're basically describing RPI here, which is an even worse metric than NET.

(Better for NU, though, as we're currently RPI #43!)

 

[SmellyCat]

Right now it seems like "the computers don't like us," and that may continue for the rest of the year as NU ekes out three-point victories they should win by more or get beat by 30 against Illinois. All NU can do is keep winning those games where they have the computers say they have a 40-60% of winning, and it'll all take care of itself.