We're in a tough spot. We really need to return to the tournament, but all our hope next season is riding on unknown freshmen.
We aren't a tournament worthy team this season. Ever since it became clear that ASU isn't good, we've been hanging our hat on our win over Missouri. Our RPI was enough to keep us on the bubble despite a complete lack of quality wins. So, in that sense, our OCC schedule helped with March Madness. Or, to put it another way, our OCC schedule kept us in the game. It set us up to where all we would need to do is beat Arizona or USC to get in.
We did lose to a lower seed in Vegas, but only 1 game separated Utah and Oregon in the final conference standings.