I think the "old" ways of thinking about what used to be the cutoffs, no longer exist
We have 4 distinctly different conferences this year and because of that, 13 losses in the regular season is now 15 regular season losses.
It is literally impossible to eliminate any team from the NCAA tournament with 15 losses with these 4 giant conferences.
The days of Arizona, UCLA, Oregon cruising to NCAA bids is over.....the Pac 12 used to offer built in wins vs some opponents that were solid but just a cut below these 3 schools most seasons.
The days of Kansas and Baylor cruising to Too 2 to 4 seeds is over.....adding Houston, BYU, Cincinnati, UCF and Arizona to this league, has made Kansas and Baylor look normal when an injury takes a piece out of their lineups.
The days of Michigan State, Michigan, Illinois and Purdue, being able to coast home in comfort with a high seed or double bye in B1G tournament ended the day Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington entered the league. Adding in the variables of the bottom 3 dynamic for schools not qualifying for the B1G tournament, makes NW play much harder at Ohio State this year, vs prior years.
Ohio State is no worse or better than Oklahoma in the SEC or another bubble team in Wake Forest or any Big 12 team.
15 losses is now the NEW cutoff, when 13 used to be that regular season cutoff.
I don't know what the committee will do in this new age.....but I don't think ANY credible NCAA selection committee, can ignore conference tournament games any longer. The teams are too balanced in the middle of these 4 leagues and teams like Baylor and RU have had huge players miss chunks of the conference slate. Both would be locks if healthy during conference seasons.
I can only say that if any team wins 5 out of their last 7 games, in the regular season or combined with a conference tournament, it has to be considered. The margins between resume is so blurred and similar that it's going to lead to the bigger conferences eventually forming their own tournament, if too many quality schools and rosters, get left out. I will maintain that while Ohio State, RU and some others may not dance, they're miles better than certain Mountain West or West Coast conference schools. Gonzaga as a #10 in the NET, is comedy, they'd struggle to win 8 games in the B1G and feel fairly certain they'd have around 5 in the SEC.
For RU, Baylor, Ohio State and a handful of others, just keep playing the games and see what happens. All I can see for RU is a drastically different team, lineup and upside....on the other hand, how do you account for Illinois losing a Top 75 100 2024 big man last Saturday night to a broken wrist and then ask them to go play at Wisconsin snd Duke at MSG?? Even at full strength, those are likely losses.
