Kansas State entered the NCAA Tournament last March with 22 victories and a fourth place finish in the Big 12, credentials that normally would have earned the Wildcats a favorable seed in March Madness.
But the Wildcats received a No. 9 seed and had to upset No. 8 seed Creighton to advance beyond the first round and set themselves up for an Elite Eight run.
The main reason they had to take the hard road: a weak nonconference schedule that ranked 334th (out of 351 teams) nationally. Playing games against some of the nation's worsts teams (American, Northern Arizona, South Carolina Upstate) dragged down K-State's RPI, which ended up at 55.