The Baylor and Oregon Dilemma

   As we approach the end of the conference season and tournament time hundreds of people are trying to get inside of the selection committee's heads and figure out who will ultimately be selected for the tournament.  While the tournament itself is austere the selection process is difficult to grasp because of the continuous changing of the guard within the committee.  In particular this season we may be stuck with two teams, in Baylor and Oregon, who have sub .500 conference records but a strong case for the tournament.  Currently each sit at 4-8 in their respective conferences but lets imagine a couple of scenarios for each team.  First of all the reason both, at this point in the mock selection process, receive strong consideration for the tournament is because of their outstanding non-conference strength.  In Baylor's case they have three strong wins against Kentucky(Rpi 13), Colorado(Rpi 27), and Dayton (Rpi 59).  As an added bonus for Baylor all three of those wins were recorded in neutral sites.  In Oregon's case they recorded wins over Georgetown(Rpi 58), @Mississippi(Rpi 68),  and BYU (Rpi 40).  They also added lesser, but still contributing, non-conference wins over Illinois, San Francisco, Pacific, and UC Irvine.   I will skip a scenario where they go 8-10 in conference and receive a bid because that is not hard to imagine especially with teams like Illinois and Minnesota last year receiving bids with 8-10 conference records and similar strong non-conference records.  The question is could either receive a bid with a 7-11 conference record?  It's all fairly relative to who they beat down the stretch, what bids are stolen, and how the rest of the field pans out but could they do it?  The biggest issue I struggle with is will the committee truly only pay attention to the entire body of work or will a teams overall conference record have a determining factor?   While I can't say if a 7-11 conference record could provide the body of work necessary for a tournament bid I just have a hard time imagining despite what the resume may say that the committee would leave out a team from another power conference who went 10-8 with a lesser non-conference resume.  Ultimately despite the selection committee's rules I believe the overall body of work, on selection Sunday, would only go far if you ultimately don't finish at least near .500 in conference no matter what the entire body of work says.  We will see how this plays out in the coming weeks.