For some reason Southwest Missouri State (now just "Missouri State") sticks in my mind as a #24 RPI who got passed over. This owuld have been circa 2001.....
I seem to recall that Missouri State (Southwest Missouri State) and Oklahoma getting screwed over twice each in the last ten years with RPI's in the 30s and not getting in.
It was #21 Missouri State (formerly Southwest Missouri State) in 2005-06.
The RPI has been used as a measuring tool by the Selection Committee since at least 1993-94. Here are the best RPI's to get left out of the field for each of those seasons:
They must have their own wing in the "Shaft Hall-of-Fame". I think my memory was combining a couple of those years!
The sports talk radio morning guy here in DSM frequently mentions the lack of respect the Missouri Valley conference tends to get. He also does the Drake Univ. radio play-by-play, so he's not entirely impartial, but he does tend to know what he is talking about....