I was just saying that the other day UL is up to 40 but SOS takes a noise dive and little room to go up from here besides sweeping South ALI alluded to some of the below in this post late last week.
A few things to consider as the RPI will struggle more than ever to be a useful tool in helping to evaluate the tournament field in 2021. The reason it will struggle is that the RPI is quite dependent on non-conference and cross-regional play to be worth anything (as an evaluative tool). The absence of this results in separate universes of play that cannot be compared.
#1 The Ivy League is not playing baseball. That will be one additional at-large bid available.
#2 Because the Big Ten is only playing conference games, how on earth can/will this league be evaluated? Could the NCAA simply decide to grant the conference five bids on gut feel and eye test? Well, maybe. But it would he hugely unpopular as the committee would not have the metrics to support such a decision. There is not a single team in the conference, at the moment, that is worthy of an at-large bid based on past selection criteria. It will take teams breaking away from the pack with very healthy conference W-L records to even have a shot to be in the RPI Top 50. Why?
If you are a conference playing only conference games, each team will be weighted down by .500 OWP and .500 OOWPs. That is, 75% of the formula of every team will be .500, only to be offset by WP to some degree. A team with a .667 winning percentage (quite solid) would presently have an RPI ranking of about 70 (using current RPIs) at the end of the season once the full conference slate is complete (OWP and OOWP converging to .500).
In summary, conferences playing only conference games will have their RPIs converge to .500. Teams finishing .500 in conference will have an RPI of .500, which will be well into the triple digit RPI rankings.
#3 The MAAC is only playing conference games. This is going to provide the opportunity for one or possibly two teams to be in the range of an at-large RPI, simply because they are playing in another universe. What is the NCAA going to do here? Does anyone feel Fairfield is worthy of a Top 5 RPI? If someone wins 80% of their games, good chance they will be in the RPI Top 30.
#4 Based on past metrics, the ACC does not get 10. I am not saying they will not get ten, but something will need to significantly change in the selection process for that to happen.
#5 Same for Big 12? Right now they only get four ... with the fifth and sixth teams not even close ... and frankly unworthy.
#0 It seems that all of the postseason will be at neutral sites.
All of this to say ... I think there are going to be some real challenges in the selection process and I am not about to say the Sun Belt will be a one bid league yet. But for certain, it will be challenging for the Cajuns with such a weak remaining schedule. And scheduling UNA at home is a killer.
Brian