The neutral site tournament is crucial IMO because you can goose your road/neutral record. If all your non-home games are road games against high majors then your record is going to look bad. But if you get three games on a neutral court against Virginia Tech, Charleston, and Furman (a potential scenario for Penn State) you give it a chance to look better.
It's easy to say the losses at Fordham, UMass, and in Toronto to St. Bonaventure have Pikiell a bit spooked but it doesn't seem like the home loss to Lafayette has changed anything so I dunno.
Yes, obviously, you've got to win the games. You're better off going 3-0 against Bucknell, Columbia, and Sacred Heart than going 1-2 against VT, Charleston, and Furman. Any bad OOC can be overcome but we're talking degree of difficulty. Hell, Dayton lost THREE Q4 games and almost made it in last season. You know why? Because they followed those three Q4 losses with neutral site wins over Miami, Kansas, and Belmont.