If we were playing Wake Forest, I'd agree. But playing BC offers only downside to the resume.
I think even with a loss, I would put us at least at 90-95% at making the field. A lot would have to be working against us in other tournaments. But going off of
Bracket Matrix, we are an 11 seed, 7 spots from the cut line. Here are the listed 10 seeds, 11 seeds, 12 seeds, and first few teams out of the tournament:
10: Creighton, Memphis, Michigan, Davidson
11: Loyola (locked), Miami, Wake Forest, Notre Dame
12: Xavier, Wyoming, Rutgers, SMU, North Texas (current AQ), South Dakota St. (locked)
Bubble: VCU, Indiana, BYU, Dayton
Hypothetically, lets say the conference results are as follows:
- ACC: Miami loses to BC, Duke beats Notre Dame in the finals with ND beating UNC in the semis. Notre Dame likely jumps us in this scenario, and losing to BC makes it more of a debate between whether Miami or Wake should be ahead in the pecking order (I think it should be Miami, but I've seen others hold the Wake over Miami position coming into the conference tournament)
- Big Ten: Indiana goes on a run, beats Michigan, Illinois, and Rutgers (who beat Iowa). Doesn't matter what they do in the championship game, Indiana likely jumps into the field. Rutgers with the Iowa win puts themselves in better position, and while Michigan doesn't get any wins, they only add a Quad 1 loss to their resume.
- American: SMU beats Memphis and Houston on the path to winning the conference tournament. The AAC becomes a 3 bid league.
- Atlantic 10: Dayton defeats Davidson in the championship game. Dayton steals a bid, and Davidson likely holds on to their bid. The A10 becomes a 2 bid league.
- Mountain West: Wyoming beats UNLV and Boise State to advance to the MWC championship game, and faces either Colorado St./San Diego St. That should be enough to solidify the MWC as a 4 bid league.
- CUSA: UAB defeats North Texas in the championship game. I think the CUSA is a 1-bid league regardless, but UNT is at least in striking distance of being on the bubble were they to lose. It's tough to rationalize taking them over Miami, though, especially with the neutral court win.
I don't see Memphis, Michigan, or Davidson falling behind us in that scenario. SMU and Dayton lock in bids, so that drops us to 5 spots ahead of the cut line. Notre Dame, Rutgers, Indiana, and Wyoming could theoretically jump us with these results. If all of those teams do, that puts us 1 spot away from the cut line, with debates against Wake Forest, Xavier, and maybe North Texas for the final spot. I think Miami still gets that final spot even if all that happens, but I certainly wouldn't be feeling comfortable.
Clearly, though, it would take a lot of unfortunate results all lining up perfectly to get to that position.