Its going to be extremely difficult to make the tournament in a down SEC with five non-conference losses.
Our NET ranking is 134, it went down 2 spots with a win last night. Memphis has a NET of 124 and Alabama State is 240. If we win both of those to end up 8-5 non-conference, the likely conference record we would need to be safely in the tournament (NET of 40) is 14-4. Possible, but goodness that is a big ask.
If we end up middle of the pack as you state - let's just say 9-9 - we have a 17-14 record. The SEC is down big from last year. 17-14 isn't sniffing the field and would barely be a top 100 NET.