The race to the NCAA postseason becomes a lot of fun this time of year, and yesterday, we released the latest postseason field of 64 projections. But that's not all there is to the postseason landscape.
There also are those teams that narrowly missed this week's field, including Dallas Baptist, Illinois State, Maryland, Auburn, Kansas, Virginia Commonwealth, East Carolina, San Diego State, Southern Mississippi, Wake Forest and Arkansas State.
To give players, coaches and fans alike a better idea of where these teams stand in the pecking order, the pluses and minuses of their resumes, and what needs to happen moving forward, we breakdown the postseason situations for all of those programs.
Dallas Baptist
RPI: 30
Records: 29-15 overall, 1-6 vs. RPI Top 25, 4-9 vs. RPI Top 50, 8-12 vs. RPI Top 100
Pluses: Overall record, conference standing in the MVC, winning road record
Minuses: Losing record vs. RPI Top 100, SOS of just 87, Illinois State is its “marquee” series win
Overall: The Patriots have a talented club, and would have a very formidable weekend rotation in the postseason, but getting there is the obstacle at this point. DBU doesn't have a particularly impressive resume, but it has some opportunities to improve things down the stretch. For instance, the Patriots have a midweek bout against Texas Tech (11 in RPI) next week, along with a road series against Wichita State, which has an RPI of 99. But again, anything done to improve a road resume is a plus for a postseason resume.
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