games overall or in conference you are a loser team by definition. This isn’t a “well what about the metrics” discussion. The most important metric, W-L, says you can’t win, you have proven you can’t over the course of either ~30 games overall or ~20 games in conference. What makes anyone think that things will be different in the ncaa tournament? If there are extenuating circumstances in a season that caused a team issues, then they can prove that they are worthy of the tournament at the end of the season by winning their conference championship. There is a way in for every team, even the losers.