It absolutely IS that simple. If we keep playing the way we have so far, and end up at the end of the season with a NET ranking in line with our current Pomeroy and Torvik rankings, say somewhere around 20-ish, we will be in the NCAA tournament no matter what the exact final number of wins and losses ends up being.
Someone mentioned Michigan State the other day, and it's exactly the same reason why they made it last year, and in fact weren't even close to the bubble. If your metrics are good enough, meaning if you play good enough, the exact record really doesn't make much difference as to whether you make the tournament or not. Because you will.
The funny thing is that you keep talking about what a team can do to "craft" the perfect resume, and yet you still can't come up with one thing that makes any sense at all that tells a team how exactly to do that. And the reason for that, of course, is because there is no magic bullet out there that will allow you to game the NET. You absolutely could game the RPI. You cannot game the NET.
Unless you play better.
