Didn't we just have the worst season in school history with the same players? Can't understand how we are DEFINETLY making the tournament.
Most losses, not worst season. The schedule has crept up over the years, and is more than double what is was in the earliest days. Despite that, and with a team loaded with freshman and not enough bigs, we finished 84 in Kenpom nationally after a terrible start. On top of that we had a fantastic stretch in the BIG season where no one wanted to play us, we knocked off a couple ranked teams & a tourney team on the road. So despite the bad record, we were able to have a sustained stretch of playing what was probably top-25 bball nationally.
Normally I'd call that cherry-picking, but when you're evaluating a young team that returns everyone of note, any analyst would look at that when projecting next season. I expect us to struggle with consistency, but we have enough talent to be relevant.