Kstate's 2 negative things on our resume are the 1)the road record and 2)losses to NC/Charlotte. Gip played vs Char but didn't vs NC. Like FAN said, we wont be viewed as being a 20-7 team but the NC loss will be viewed as a "loss" and not a "bad loss" since we were not at full strength.
We did not play a true road game in the non con. We played 5 neutral court games. So most teams have more road games than we do. That said, 2-6 is not a good road record. Iowa is 4-5, Ohio St 5-5, Texas 5-5, UK is 5-4. Those are 4 teams in good conf who are between 6 and 8 on the seed line. It helps that we won 3 games on neutral courts. However this is still gonna cost us a few spots on the "S-curve ranking system" If we lose tonight, win on Sat we will be 21-10. If we were 21-10 and had a 4-5 road record..... I would guess our S-curve ranking would probably be 4-5 spots higher (So instead of being #28 we might be #23-24 in the pecking order)
Charlotte was a bad loss. Having 1 bad loss is not terrible. Of course 0 is better. Of the 11 other teams I have in the 5-7 seed line.... 9 of those 11 have a loss to a team 100 or higher in the RPI (Ohio St and Umass have 2 losses). Texas, Lville have no bad losses
The good news for us is, good wins are more important to the committee than a bad loss. Back in 2004, that was the case, but good wins are more valued today than they use to be. Being in the #1 conference also is a very good thing.
1) 2 wins in the Non-Con over top 30 teams, both of which will be in the NCAA touney
2) A 5-5 record vs top 50 teams in the conference. Would be 6-6 if we split these last 2 games
3) 10-6 current record in the #1 rated conf. Everyone knows Big 12 is good and 7 of the 10 are likely in the field as of today
4) So 12 of our 18 conf games appear to be against top 50 teams who are tourney bound. Big 10 is 2nd best conf. Iowa will play 10 of 18 and Ohio St will play 8 of 18 games vs conf teams who are top 50 (and in the tourney right now)
All 4 of those things are real postives for our resume. If we were in a battle for a 3 or 4 seed like last year, all but the 10-6 conf record would have been nice positives to have. But hey.... we are not fighting for a 3/4 seed. We are fighting to get to a 6/7 seed.