College basketball rankings: How UCLA picked up two Quadrant 1 victories in the same day

UCLA entered Thursday with just four Quadrant 1 wins. By Friday morning, the Bruins had increased that number by 50%, which highlights just how fluid the NET rankings and quadrant system can be from one day to the next.

So how did UCLA add two Q1 wins in one day?

The Bruins did it by first beating a Utah team that’s 56th in the NET on the road late Thursday, which is a Q1 win because road wins over teams in the top 75 of the NET fall inside Q1. The other good thing that happened for the Bruins is that while they were winning 78-71 at Utah, Washington State was winning 67-63 at Stanford. That four-point victory pushed Washington State from 79th in the NET to 73rd in the NET, which flipped UCLA’s 67-66 win at Washington State in late December from a Q2 win into a Q1 win because, again, road wins over teams in the Top 75 of the NET fall inside Q1.

That’s how UCLA added two Q1 wins in one day.

So now the Bruins are 6-4 in Quadrant 1 with zero losses outside of the first quadrant. Combine that resume with strong computer numbers — UCLA is now No. 2 at KenPom.com and No. 3 in the NET — and there’s no denying the Bruins are legitimate candidates to be a No. 1 seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. They own at least a two-game lead in the Pac-12 standings over everybody else with just three games left in the regular season, meaning UCLA can secure a share of the Pac-12 title with an Arizona loss to Arizona State on Saturday, or with a win at Colorado on Sunday.

UCLA remains No. 5 in Friday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. The Bruins are on a seven-game winning streak. They haven’t lost in nearly a month.