The following conferences will only be getting one bid for the NCAA tournament, below is the conference and team:

Big Sky: northern colorado
maac: Farfield
meac: hampton
ohio valley: murray state
patriot: bucknell
swac: texas southern
southland: mcneese state
SUNBELT: FAU
west coast: st. marys
wac: utah state
summit: oakland
southern:charleston
northeast: long island
missouri valley: wichita state
mac: kent state
ivy: princeton
big west: Long beach
big south: coastal carolina
a-sun: belmont
american east: vermont


that's 20 teams for 18 spots (two -four of these teams will get a 12 seed). when was the last time twenty teams all won their confernce tournament. There will be upsets and probably a few. If a couple of subpar teams go on the run that will easily fill up the two play in games and the 16 seeds which will force us down.

If FAU can manage to win out the rest of the season, starting tonight in Denver, plus the entire sunbelt tournament that would leave them with about 26 wins, being 20-1 in there last 21 games. That would more than likely put them about a 80 RPI. There's no way this team will be a 15 seed, 13 easily.

Exit39 said

The following conferences will only be getting one bid for the NCAA tournament, below is the conference and team:

SUNBELT: FAU

I like your optimism!

;D

Barring a series of highly improbable upsets by very bad teams in many lower-tier conference tournaments… The only hope the Sun Belt has for even a 14 seed is for either North Texas or FAU to win out, get some RPI help from OOC opponents, and get a break on regional seeding (i.e.: Tulsa or Tampa hosting a 14 seed)

Odds are, either school is going to get the most favorable 2 vs. 15 game instead. Anyone other than FAU or UNT is all but certain to be on the 16 line, and potentially (either Arkansas team, ULL, Denver, and a in one of the two 16 line play-in games.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, and I definitely don't mean any disrespect to your team this year… But FAU is sitting at 97 in the RPI right now, with all four games remaining against teams that will probably cause that to drop even with a win. Lose to any of them, and you'll plummet like we did from the high 80's to our current 131.

ULL is 269, Troy is 275, FIU is 287, and USA is 309. Even a sweep is likely to see you guys drop down into the 100+ RPI range.

And it doesn't stop there… I've mentioned this before, but last year our RPI went DOWN after each game we played in the SBC tournament, even the final against the regular season co-champs. If (really, it's 'when') you guys lock in the 1 seed in the East, you'll open the tournament against East 5 (USA/FIU/Troy, whoever sucks 2nd least) or West 4 (ULL or, "best" case, 204 RPI UALR).

Honestly… The only team you guys are likely to face through the rest of the year that is likely to move the RPI needle back in the right direction is North Texas, and that's only one out of (ideally, from your perspective) 7 games. The rest are all likely to hurt potential NCAA seeding, even if you win them all.

Again… I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything. But if you can find the last time a team with an RPI around 105-115 got any better than a 14 seed, even in a year with a ton of upsets in single-bid tournaments… I'm very curious to know when it happened.

EDIT: It happened last year with Houston, which was over 100 in RPI even after sweeping through the CUSA tournament. But conference strength isn't going to help the Sun Belt rep like it did a team that won a tournament with Memphis, UTEP, and UAB in it.

On the plus side, this crappy situation that screwed us this year and may screw you guys this year, where playing conference games actually hurts more than it helps even with a win... It should start turning around next year with the 150 rule.