I've always said it, but it also comes down to the rest of your league doing well in the non-league and not racking up D2, D3 Michigan schools, and lower-end D1's on the schedule (cough EMU and CMU). Also means winning a few games in the non-league that buy you apples to apples comparisons. I admit it, the league did a lot of good. As part of the grenade however also avoids losing to teams with bad RPI's in conference play (cough: BG against us, Toledo against Ball State). That's why the OVC got two in and almost why the SoCon got multiple teams in as well. If you look at the SoCon schedules of their top teams, their only losses were against each other and those schools did some things in the non-league, including Furman. Just saying here, but if you're gonna lose in the MAC, do so wisely.

Non-conference is important. Buffalo had the same record in conference that we did in 2013, but got in easily. They would have been in safely, even with a loss in the MAC tournament.

Same with Wofford. And Belmont got in despite not winning their conference.

The OSU ladies lost their opening round Big Ten Tournament game, finished with 14-14 and are in the WNIT.

Exactly. And the talking heads largely ignored this by talking up the OVC as more interesting than the MAC. But the OVC this year only had 2 really good teams, two mediocre teams, with the reat of the league being horrible. According to the metrics, the MAC only had one really bad team, Western.