That's a good question, and that's where I disagree with Brennan when he says Monson's squad "probably" would have received an at-large bid if they hadn't won the Big West tournament. Perhaps they would have, but I think it was 50-50 at best.
Like you said, coaches like Monson deserve credit for that kind of nonconfernce schedule, but it doesn't do you any good (in terms of receiving an at-large) if you don't win any/many of the toughest games on your schedule. And as it turned out, only Xavier (#46) ended up being a top-quality win for LBSU, as beating Pitt (#96) ended up being rather ho-hum. As Brennan pointed out, Xavier and Pitt were LBSU's only top-100 wins all season. Generally speaking that's not a winning recipe for an at-large hopeful. Having the #1 nonconference SOS is a nice carrot to have, but you have to do something with it.
That said, if I'm a mid-major coach and I think I have a really good team, I'd take Monson's route 100% of the time. Would rather challenge my team against some of the very best -- expecting to win at least 2/3 of the top-shelf games -- as opposed to playing a bunch of soft pastry (high-RPI teams) and piling up a lot of meaningless wins. One thing recent selection committees have really noticed is teams that beat up on a lot of hideous opponents.
