The committee is going to put a lot more weight on how the team was playing without him, for better or worse. Those early losses would be discounted somewhat if the team was clearly better without him, but that's for the committee to decide.
Some of you Gopher fans are doing your best Wisconsin fan impression with the lack of respect mantra. A key player for OSU was in his second game back from serious injury and your team had the services of a player who later became ineligible - those are both logical reasons to discount that win, like it or not. Sure, the national media commonly makes an obvious error when mentioning this game, but they also don't mention Nolen playing in it, and the loss of him could be an excuse to discount every single win you had while he played if the committee felt your team was better with him. The media could be out there saying at every opportunity "they do have that Butler win and the OSU win, but it was with Al Nolen, and without Nolen the Gophers are 9-6 and only have four good wins, one at home against UW with Leuer in his first game back from injury, one at Illinois who might not make the tourney, one vs. a shorthanded MSU team in the BTT and one vs. a shorthanded PU team in the BTT" but instead they tend to ignore all that and say your team will make the NCAA tourney. Your team gets a chance tomorrow to show that the first win wasn't a fluke, so there's a great opportunity to earn the respect & the NCAA bid that you think you should have.
