So, it's not a perfect comparison, but here was our 2009 resume that the committee deemed worthy of a 5-seed (there was no NET then, and I know they don't consider conference record ... but I'm including rankings and conference record to provide SOME type of comparison metric):
Record: 24-9 (11-7)
AP Rank: RV (was #23 to end the regular season)
RPI Rank: 23
SOS Ranking: 23
BTT Record: 1-1 (W vs. Michigan, L vs. #24 Purdue)
Ranked Wins: vs. #25 Missouri (St. Louis), at #9 Purdue, vs. #25 Michigan, vs. #12 Purdue
Record vs. NCAAT Teams: 9-6
Bad Losses: None, really ... possibly vs. PSU at home?
Now, this year's team (replacing Ranked with Quad 1?), as of today:
Record: 20-9 (12-6)
AP Rank: 23
NET Rank: 36
SOS Ranking: 24
BTT Record: N/A
Quad 1 Wins: vs. #24 Michigan, at #30 Wisconsin, at #35 Purdue, at #24 Michigan, at #26 Penn State
Record vs. Probable NCAAT Teams: 6-7
Bad Losses: vs. #108 Miami (FL), vs. #92 Missouri (St. Louis)
So, I'd say for this point in the season, we have a pretty darn high ceiling, and a 5-seed or 6-seed is totally attainable. Add a split with OSU and Iowa, and that resume looks a LOT better, IMO. Add a sweep of the two, and we are definitely knocking on the door of protected seed territory. At that point, the BTT would just be icing on the cake, with us playing for even better seeding. I would say at WORST, we are looking at an 8-seed or a 9-seed ... Lunardi is just lazy and doesn't care about us and clearly hasn't updated our spot, haha. I know that sounds conspiracy-theory like, but if we are an 8-seed now - as of TODAY - then we should have been out before the PSU win, let alone a four-game winning streak on top of that.
We control our destiny, and we can practically erase those early season losses in the next two weeks. Let's go do it.