Kind of what @bMORE607 said, eventually you just have to actually win games. Aside from Marquette and UL, their non conference was pretty meh. They count as wins but IU went through a stretch there of really struggling to beat poor mid majors convincingly @home which was really a warning sign looking back.You know, though...Now that I have seen SJU and Belmonts resume...I mean....Maybe more of an argument that I thought? I mean Belmont's nest wins are Murray State and Lipscomb. SOS is 196.
Look at St. Johns....SOS in the 300's. Best win vs Marquette. Went 8-10 in an OK Big East. They were 36 spots lower than IU in KenPom.
I mean, I don't see, aside from the 22 wins, where either of those teams present a better case.
Butler was way overrated at the time, lost to a bad Arkansas team, got clobbered at Duke (understandable), and had a piss poor conference year despite having 2 All big ten caliber players. Idk if those other teams deserved to be in but IU didn’t do a hell of a whole lot to help their own case overall.