We are currently 16-7 with 8 regular season conference games remaining. If we go 5-3 and win a playoff game before bowing out, that brings us to 22-11.

I think 22-11 gives us a pretty good chance to be invited to the NIT. This record compares favorably the records of the at-large invitees from last year's NIT.
Https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Na ... Tournament

The one complication is whether the NIT tournament would invite two MVC teams, assuming we finish behind Wichita State and Illinois State at the conference tourney.

Not sure if this is still the case, but in past years how many NIT bids are available depended on how many regular season conference champions do not win their conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, due to the rule that those schools then automatically receive an NIT bid.

a bunch of the bracketologist have both Illinois State and Wichita State going to the NCAA. So we got that going for us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBWcRqPesws

Don't we keep forgetting that 2 of our wins do not count for RPI or tournament chances?

20 wins is still going to be a struggle.

Good point.

I'm starting to think that we may have to go 6-2 and reach the MVC tourney final to have a good shot at the NIT.

Might as well win it all at Arch Madness and make the Big Dance.

So the CBI/CIT are the most likely.

The chances of an invitation are probably pretty high. But would we take it? I'm not sure. I doubt we would pony up to host games.

I would give us about a 15% chance to win in STL and make the NCAAs.

The NIT is just too unpredictable, though it would be great for us!

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I know the non-D1 games are kind of a fad among a lot of D1 schools, but the fact that we schedule them honestly ticks me off beyond belief. From a postseason standpoint, money/budgetary standpoint, player development standpoint, and even a recruiting standpoint, it'd be better if we played 2 guarantee games versus Kentucky or the like and lost by 40 instead of 2 cheap non D1 wins that served little point except as glorified exhibitions that pad our record books' win total.

As an aside, I will be quite interested to see how March plays out for us. Barring an NCAA autobid, we'll be doing a lot of scoreboard watching all over the country in regards to conference tournaments for NIT/CBI/CIT implications. It'll also be interesting to see how Watson and Moser handle a contract extension and whether a postseason tournament affects that. Scoreboard watching might come into play there too.

Edit: I guess I'd rather not put up a double post and just leave this here: http://www.nycbuckets.com/current-nit-bracketology/

At the start of the season I actually spoke to Moser about scheduling the non D1 games. He said he does it because the MVC's 18-game schedule is crammed compared to, say, the Big Ten's 18-game schedule because Arch Madness is one week earlier than the Big Ten Tournament in March. So he said he schedules the non D1s basically as a way of battling long-term fatigue to get some easy games out of the way early in the season.

Right now our RPI is 112. The RPI cutoff for the NIT (the worst RPI of a team earning/accepting a bid) is usually somewhere between 75 and 90. We would have to go 7-1 in our remaining games-- that means getting a win at home over Wichita State or a win on the road over Illinois State-- and getting another win in the MVC Tournament to get the RPI into the high 80s. Even that might not do it.

If you look at some of the other metrics, we're doing better. In KenPom.com we're #86. In the ESPN BPI, we're #89. But those are performance-based indexes, which measure offensive and defensive efficiency primarily. Most of the reason we're not in the top 100 in the RPI is that loss to Drake. The Bulldogs have improved their RPI from the 310s to the 270s since we lost there, but they did it by knocking off other MVC teams and lowering their RPIs. I remember looking at our RPI before and after that loss, and we dropped 55 places in the RPI as soon as the final buzzer sounded. Several more games into the season, that loss in probably worth only 20-25 places in the RPI. We should have an RPI around 85-90 right now if we had won at Drake, which would be within striking distance for the NIT, and getting to 20 D1 wins would be much easier.