2. USC Trojans
Record: 23-11
RPI Ranking: 34
Conference (Pac-12) RPI ranking: 5
SOS: 39
Non-Conference SOS: 57
Top 100 RPI/Quality wins:
- Middle Tennessee (33)
- New Mexico State (35)
- Colorado/ at Colorado — twice (82)
- Oregon/ at Oregon — twice (72)
Once again, the Pac-12 gets no respect. How in the world does the SEC and ACC get so much more love than the conference out west? Two words. East coast bias. USC finished alone in second place in the fifth best conference in the nation. Leaving them out of the field is absurd. On the other hand, the ninth-place team in the Pac-12 made the field. Yes, the ninth “best” made it in over the second best.
As down as I was on the USC basketball team all season, when you go 23-11 and finish second in the Pac-12 and make the Pac-12 title, you make the NCAA Tournament. That’s not complicated.
— Daniel Fienberg (@d_fienberg) March 11, 2018
USC also made the Pac-12 conference finals, competing with Arizona for most of the game. No doubt two losses to both UCLA and Arizona did in the Trojans, but still, they were deserving of a shot to joining the March Madness festivities.