Remember how we used to joke in the style of "worst four loss team in the country". Well, it's actually kinda true. We're the lowest rated four-loss team on KenPom. We also have the same record as Houston yet Houston's NET is 5 and we're 83.

Three loss Wagner is beneath us in nearly all systems. But the statement still could technically be true. There are not many teams with 4 losses or less though.
Murray State is pretty clearly the worst two loss team. That list is very, very small. Gonzaga was also technically the worst undefeated team in the country for most of last year.

That list of 4 loss teams
Baylor
Davidson
Duke
Houston
Kansas
Kentucky
New Mexico St.
North Texas
Ohio
Purdue
South Dakota St.
Southern California

I have a spreadsheet containing all D1 games going back to 1996. I can positively state that there were 305 D1 teams in 1996. I looked on Massey's site for 1986. That was Nee's last year. There were 283.

Computer rankings

I don't have all of the stats to share, but there are a lot of strong teams in what are traditionally 1 bid leagues this year.

With the NCAA's preference for P5 teams, if any of the Murray States of the world were to tumble in their conference tournaments, the chance of the MAC getting two teams is just about nil (and it's pretty much at that point anyways with the home stretch of the regular season upon us).

The WCC could likely send 3 teams this year with Gonzaga, BYU, and San Francisco.

Had the Cats been able to beat LSU or Kentucky, their resume would be a bit more attractive. Belmont, while good, won't be enough to garner an at large.

This is always the case with the OVC. But conferences don't earn bids. Teams do. If conferences earned bids the MAC would have close to as may bids over the last 20 years as the WCC and MVC. But it doesn't. Individual MAC teams rarely step up and when they have they usually win the tournament. The OVC DID get both Belmont and Murray State in the 2019 tournament in spite of being just this weak at the bottom. The overall record of these teams was just that good like Murray State is so far this year.

We see the MAC being the 11th or 12 rated conference most years although compared to the other conferences rated 10-13 (often the WCC, MVC, CUSA) it is relatively pathetic at getting teams in the at-large bid discussion. This is because parity reigns in the MAC. The bottom of the MAC is relatively better than those conferences most of the time. It often looks more like the bottom of a 7-9 ranked league where we often find the American, MWC, and A10. Keep in mind that the MAC is still 17th or 18th ranked conference in most systems. That puts it pretty much right in the middle of Division 1. But it is also now in the company of conferences often deemed "low-major".

The top 5 MAC rankings look pretty normal. The MAC has 2 top 100 teams with no bubble teams and three more in the top 140. This is actually the way it usually looks because this is not the relative strength oh the conference. The bottom 6 teams are all ranked over 200 in just about every system with 2 or 3 usually found over 300. By MAC standards this is historically awful. I mean, compared to the normal, high parity MAC, it has just jumped off of a bridge. But when those of us who pay close attention to these things say that the bottom of the MAC is historically awful we don't mean that it is among the worst in the nation there. We mean compared to the way it usually is. Yes, Murray State and Belmont still have even more freebie wins than Ohio and Toledo do.

We finished 5th in the MAC last year and still got a #13 seed (the highest ranked 13 in their overall ranking so it was close to a 12) . One of the few times the MAC got a 14 seed was when Ohio finished ninth in 2010 and won the tournament. But a 9th place team getting a seed that high from a non-high-major conference still indicates strength there and we, of course, still picked up a first round win. We have become accustomed to this. The MAC is usually high parity and of half-way decent quality so it doesn't matter much who wins the tournament. The MAC gets one team and it is a 12 or 13 seed. If you recall I said during non-conference play that this wouldn't be the case. The winner of the conference was likely to put up one of better records in that school's history and it would, in fact, take that kind of record to be in the 12 or 13 seed discussion. That is what is happening. There are just more wins available to be had compared to what we are used to.