Hanmudog said:
The selection committee has got to look at who you actually beat. The bottom line with Ole Miss is that they have only beaten one team in the entire RPI top 50. They have beaten none of the top half of the SEC. By the end of the year our only bad losses will probably be WKU and Rider. Alabama and Arkansas will probably continue to climb in the RPI.
We get our opportunity next week with Vandy and Florida coming to Tad Smith. I have no faith in our ability to go 2-0, but that's our chance to add some quality wins. We've still avoided the bad losses to this point though, which means we can get by with fewer quality wins. We need to get both of them next week on our home floor though. If we do that and beat Auburn at home following that, we're 8-5 in SEC play, and we're in good shape going into the final 3. If we split with Vandy and Florida, we pretty much will have to win out going into the SEC tourney.
To this point, the Top 50 teams we've played are KSU (No. 8 RPI on neutral site), Villanova (No. 3 RPI on neutral site), @WVU (No. 5 RPI), @UK (No. 6 RPI), and @UT (No. 22 RPI). We'd probably have more Top 50 wins if some of those games would've been at home against teams ranked in the 30-50 range. That's why we need to get both Vandy and Florida at home. I think we go 1-1 at best though, and I think we finish 8-8, NIT bound. Still, it's mid-February before we are going to have our first shot at a Top 50 team on our home floor. South Carolina and UTEP both have a chance to move up to the Top 50 though, which would help our quality win total. I'm just scared of what Vandy and Florida will do to us, since they're both well coached and fairly disciplined.
ETA: UTEP is actually 54 on RealtimeRPI, but your point still stands.