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(02-12-2018 09:28 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  

(02-12-2018 07:10 AM)Mr.BigBlue Wrote:  Unless we finish #2 in regular season and finish #2 in the CUSA tournament we will not get an NIT Bid. That is CUSA's history with NIT. very rarely does the NIT award CUSA with 2 or more bids. Plus our SOS will be woefully lacking following this string of +150 RPI games. Last year everyone was saying the same thing and my analysis showed differently. Our issue is the NIT is bound to take #2 conference regular season finishers and #1 if they don't go to the NCAA's. So for us a #2 finish in mandatory which will be hard with a loss to WKU already and we have to play them at home. Right now we have a 34% chance of winning that game.

You keep saying this....who said last year we would be in the NIT? We had an RPI that was barely 150.

Is your reasoning based on CUSA not having a history of teams below second place getting NIT bids? If so, how often has the NIT had 3 top 75 teams? (I haven't looked, but don't expect that it would have happened much)

The NIT has the following automatic bids:
Regular Season Champs that lose in Tourney
First 4 teams out of NCAA Tourney

There are several teams that got into the NIT last year with lesser resumes than we have. 4 of them got at large bids from leser conferences.

In terms of our RPI this year, we still have Marshall (107) and Western Kentucky (58) out of the 6 remaining regular season games and are likley to have another game against a high RPI team in the tourney. Barring a collapse, I'm not sure how the RPI will drop dramatically.

Its too early to make an NIT prediction, we are clearly a bubble type team, but we would solidly be in at the moment assuming several lesser conferences don't have regular season winners that lose in tourney.

Many on this board last year said that. I like our chances if we can beat WKU on their home floor. A loss to WKU and a loss to Marshall and wins against the rest will seal our fate. We have to win out to secure a #2 seed and a #2 CUSA finish. That will be a tough to do. More and more it is looking like .... Win the CUSA tournament or bust!