Despite a dominant showing at home on Thursday night against Ohio State, the Iowa Hawkeyes dropped what would have been the marquee win of the season a week ago when they fell on the road to #1 Purdue. But that loss did little to impact Iowa’s NCAA Tournament resume. If anything, it may have helped the Hawkeyes as just playing (and losing to) the top-ranked Boilermakers pushed Iowa’s RPI up two spots.
Granted, the RPI is an antiquated, nearly useless metric that has diminishing impact on a team’s NCAA Tournament chances, but it does remain something the selection committee looks at on Selection Sunday.