Been looking through the field for the past couple of days and talking with fans from several other conferences and discussing how many teams we think will get in from each conference, and the thing we are all noticing is how there are not a lot of high quality teams out there coming from the small and mid-major conferences. I tried figuring out who my field of 68 would be on Saturday, before the games were played that day, and I was struggling to find 68 worthy teams, and I included a few that I later came to think differently about, such as Wichita St and Illinois St I think it is, their only Top 100 wins are against each other. Ill St has an RPI of around 33, but has just 2 Top 100 wins and 3 bad losses. Wichita St has an RPI of around 50, but has just 1 Top 100 win, but no bad losses. One of those 2 teams probably won't get into the tourney. A couple Major Conf bubble teams lost on Saturday, too.
So basically, there is so much parity out there, that even as weak as the B1G seems to be this year, several bracket projections out there have 7 and even 8 B1G teams among their fields of 68. Granted that was before Indiana lost to Michigan, that probably knocked Indy out for now. And Minnesota is a consensus #7 seed right now, although NW's win over UW probably bumped UMn down to an #8 seed. So if our RPI drops down about 10 spots to the mid-30s, that would probably only drop them down to a 10 or 11 seed, so they would be considered in, but also on the bubble, so an opening round loss in the B1G conf tourney could drop them out. If they finish 8-10 and lose their opening round conf tourney game, I'd say they might still get in, on the strength of their 4-5 Top 50 wins, their 10-11 Top 100 wins, their 4 true road wins, and their lack of bad losses. The win over Mt St Mary's could also come into consideration if they were being compared to another team for consideration as the one of the last teams in.
But an opening round win in the BTT, might be enough to ensure they get in if they go 8-10. I mean, there just are not a lot of teams out there this year that are doing much to impress the selection committee. Wisconsin not making their initial Top 16 wasn't a mark against the B1G, it was a mark against Wisconsin, as their best win on the season is their win over our Gophers, and well, that realistically doesn't impress anyone out there in the cbb world, including among Gopher fans, as we know how close we were to beating Wisconsin and we know it was our giving them the game as much as it was their beating us.
