For the third consecutive season, Xavier has 20 victories but is on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

        How much its schedule is responsible is debatable. But fans will wonder why teams with more losses rank higher in the Ratings Percentage Index.

        “We try to play as many good teams as we can,” XU athletic director Mike Bobinski said. “But people aren't exactly calling us for games.”

        Xavier officials insist they're in a Catch-22: They would upgrade their schedule but can't get higher-rated teams to play them. They often can't fill the schedule, period, as evidenced by the 3 1/2 months it took to fill their last home date this season.

        “Nobody will play them,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said. “If you beat Xavier, the bang you get out of it is not worth the risk of losing to them.

        “People that know the game know they're a really good team. Unfortunately, it's not a marquee, sexy name. All you have to do is listen to how people still call it "Eggs-avier.'”

        The numbers say this season's schedule is upgraded. XU (20-5), which ranks 33rd in the RPI, has a strength-of-schedule RPI of 94th.

        Last season, XU's 20-11 record on Selection Sunday ranked it 88th in the RPI, largely because its SOS was 126th. The year prior, a 21-10 mark earned only a No.70 RPI because of a 121 SOS. Both those teams missed the NCAA Tournament.

        This season, XU's 11 nonconference opponents — the only part of the schedule XU can control — have an average RPI of 138.9. But their average RPI after last season, when XU scheduled them, was 102.2.

        The rest of the Atlantic 10, rated seventh in the conference RPI, also hasn't helped XU with its combined 66-59 nonconference mark.

        Even if 21 or 22 victories don't get XU in the NCAAs this year, the Muskies won't overcompensate next year when scheduling.

        When XU fell shy of the NCAAs two years ago, Bobinski asked George Washington AD Jack Kvancz — a member of the Selection Committee that year — what he should do.

        “There really is not a lot of sense chasing around the Top 25 teams, because the likelihood of you getting games with a lot of them is not great,” Kvancz told him. “If you play teams in the competitive part of your nonconference schedule that averaged in the 70s, 80s of the RPIs, that's all you need to do.”

        Subtract two gimmes, Eastern Kentucky and Louisiana-Monroe, and XU's other nine nonconference foes average a 108.7 RPI. But those nine averaged 74.5 last season.

        “I think our schedule from a strength perspective going in was right on target, and now some of it has blown up on us,” Bobinski said. “You can't know that's going to happen.”

        XU draws the line when it comes to home-and-home series. It won't bend to take an away game that won't be returned, or a three-year contract in which it gets just one home game.

        “Our expectations for ourselves — competing each year for the A-10 title and a spot in the NCAAs — are really high, and so are our expectations for scheduling,” said Chris Mack, XU's director of basketball operations. “Home-and-home is only fair.”

        Bilas thinks XU should hold that line but cautions fans not to expect big-name teams to budge.

        “When you're a big shot, you're going to be a little more choosy about who you play,” he said. “It's like if you're going to fight the heavyweight champion, he's going to pick where the fight is.

        “Tradition, exposure, TV — those are the things the big guys get to wield. It's not fair, but that's the way it is.”

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