blueblood wrote:I thought I was
Yeah, but the numbers, blueblood. The numbers.
RPI is only one metric, and it'll change a ton over the next month. But it's also starting to settle in as conferences wrap up, and it's the most useful measuring stick available until Selection Day.
There are 33 At Large spots. Ore St has one of them locked up. They need an AL because they're an independent this year. So, 32 up for grabs.
In the RPI, there are 14 SEC teams ahead of us. 13 of them would need an AL to keep playing.
There are 14 ACC teams above us. So, another 13 would probably go to those guys, before us.
7 ahead of us in the B12, and 4 in the B10. So, at least nine of them would have to have an AL to play tournament ball.
In the Big East, we sit 3rd in RPI. The BE is no better than a two-bid conference, and even that's pretty unlikely.
Add all that up, and we sit maybe 38th in the at-large pecking order. Again, just 33 chairs available for the Dance.
Now, maybe the committee does decide to give Ed a nice retirement gift. But it's zero-sum. To put us in, somebody probably more deserving, and from a power conference, has to be left out and the committee has to justify it. Well, good luck with that.
According to Warren Nolan, our schedule strength is 156, with hardly any chances left to improve it. Sure, we could handle Xavier and move ahead of them in line, possibly, but then, at best, we move up to 37th. Meanwhile, all those power teams ahead of us are playing each other. Losing some, sure, but not hurting their RPI one bit, mostly. Oh, and the Big East, acc. to Nolan, is the 11th best conference in the land. And all of this assumes that the handful of non-power conf. teams ahead of us all win their league tournaments and don't need an AL themselves.
I think Ed might have to settle for a power boat and an Augusta membership as retirement presents. It's really, really hard to see an NCAA at-large coming to us gift-wrapped. OTOH, we do lead the whole damn conference, and no reason we can't a) get to the BE tournament and 2) win it. That's the path. But probably the only path.