I understand, but here's the question we have to evaluate.
Of the teams rated higher than us in the RPI (of which there are 49--we're 50), how many of them will have a serious shot at an at-large bid if they don't win their conference tourney? I'd say most of them would, but here are the ones that don't IMO:
Georgia (playing UK will boost their SOS, but realistically they'd have to beat UK in one of the two games to make it matter)
Wofford (SOS will kill them, SoCon traditionally a one-bid league)
Tulsa (loss to Oral Roberts, 8 of their last 13 against sub-100 teams, 5 of the 8 against sub-200 teams)
Alabama (see Georgia)
Temple (two sub-100 losses [UNLV/St. Joseph's], American 8th in conference RPI)
Buffalo (not enough quality wins)
Our resume compares favorably to most teams--yes, the SOS isn't ideal, but two top-25 RPI wins (one away from the Hall) is a little difficult to ignore. When your worst loss is to a team ranked 61, that's actually not bad.
As it stands, RealTimeRPI.com projects us to win our remaining home games and lose our remaining road games to finish 7-7 (which would give us 20). At that point, then we're on the bubble (since achieving that record would mean two sub-100 losses), but how soft the bubble is depends on what other conferences do. To me, the conference to watch is the SEC--while they're 4 in the RPI (the B1G is 5), I see only three likely teams (UK/ARK/LSU) getting in--maybe a fourth out of the UGA/ALA/TENN grouping. They're really only 4 because of UK (otherwise, they'd be 5 or even battling with the Pac 12 for 6).
This post was edited on 1/15 1:20 PM by SRIV94