I took a look at the schedules of all non-SEC teams with an RPI better than VT's 21 (current RPI) to see what their SOS was and how they achieved it. I did not analyze the schedules of Nebraska, Duke, FSU, UCF, UCLA, Okie State, and Texas Tech because their SOS was bolstered by participating in the Clearwater tournament. TT was the real anomaly in this group as they participated in CW but still had an out of conference SOS of 154. Oregon - RPI 15/SOS 12/out of conference SOS 5 - they participated in the Mary Nutter tournament (played Clemson, Tenn, Stanford, Auburn, Texas A&M, USC-e, and Duke) Stanford - RPI 20/SOS 20/OOC SOS 9 - hosted several tournaments and played Okie State, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Wash (two games) Arizona State - RPI 17/SOS 29/OOC SOS 83 - OU and GCU but their OOC SOS was so. They were never threatening to host because of their SOS. They made a move late because they beat Arizona, TT, and OSU in the Big12T Arizona - RPI 19/SOS 9/OOC SOS 3 - Hosted numerous tournaments in February and played Okla 3 times, Texas 2 times, and Stanford. They also took a late season trip to LSU for 3 games (won 1 of 3). VT - RPI 21/SOS 58/OOC SOS 117 - Played Ga (2 games), USC-e (2 games), and Auburn (2 games) which isn't too bad but lost to some bad teams and maybe their overall OOC schedule was poor. Not many teams you can compare VT to on the above lists. There are 11 teams (non-SEC) above VT in current RPI and 7 played in Clearwater, 1 played in Mary Nutter, and the other 3 (Ariz, Stanford, and ASU) hosted early season tournaments. ASU didn't really have much of a non-conference early schedule against high ranking teams. I get from this (and maybe already knew this) that if you don't play in Clearwater or Mary Nutter tournaments and you are not in a warm weather climate area, you have a limited opportunity to get your team into a hosting position short of winning a ton of games like Texas Tech. VT possibly could have gotten there this year IMHO by sweeping GT and beating Liberty but there was no margin for error. VT was 46-10 and was I guess 17th best team in the seeding discussions. Makes it very difficult. So how does VT better their SOS: - Play in Clearwater or Mary Nutter - Win a ton of games (48+) if not in above tournaments - Host tougher teams in the Salem tournament - Travel to those Arizona tournaments ($$$$) - Drop some of the weaker teams you normally play - Figure out how to play home/away against teams like Tennessee - Take a mid to late season trip to a Top 20 likes like Ariz @ LSU this year ** Edited by hokietony at 5/18/2026, 2:31:40 PM