Its like beating a girl in basketball or whatever. If you win, you get no credit because you were expected to win just because you are a guy. Justified or not, its how it is.
Same here. We are expected to beat all teams from smaller conferences, unless they are the few select ones like Butler/Davidson with Curry, etc.
We win and its not a big deal. Its expected and nothing is made of it. But if we lose, all hell breaks loose, the train is off the tracks, and we just F'd ourselves for March.
In a way, yeah this game only has meaning if we lose.