Oklahoma lost to #10 WVU tonight to go 19-13. Bet they are still in.
The old days when there were no at-large bids suddenly seem to make a lot more sense. No formulas; no algorithms. Decide it on the court. It's really simple: if you don't win your conference, then you're not in. In Furman's case, if you can't beat UNCG and Wofford, then you don't deserve to play for a national championship. Think of the conference tournaments as the first round of the national championship tournament. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
You wouldn't have 13 loss teams or .500 teams playing in late March, unless they won their conference tournament.
And if you think that the recipient of a conference's auto-bid should not be left up to the vicissitudes of a 72-hour tournament, then give the conference bid to the regular season champion.