I agree with almost everything that you are saying except for the 10 deep team league part. I look at the Big12 like SEC football. There are 3 great teams at the top that could win it all, 3 middle teams that are good but could lose to anyone, and 4 teams that just aren’t that good.
The big ten doesn’t have a single team I would call great, there are 7 teams that are good, 1 that is bipolar (Michigan) 2 that are decent, and 4 that are trash this year.
The whole league is top 80 in every metric. Is an entire football conference typically top 45 or top 50 in every computer model at the end of the year? Vandy was 141 in sagarin, that'd be like if West Virginia as our last place team was net ranking 287 instead of 78.
Few watched Oklahoma State this year but they were a horrible matchup for us, they aren't even eligible for the tournament, they'd give every team in the tournament an annoying game and beat lots of the at large teams.
West Virginia is technically last and even with them being last @WVU is a top 10 hornets nest of a game in the nation. I doubt there are many years any major conference team has had its last place team #78 in RPI or Net or whatever the going metric is.
I'm just pointing out...there's no reward for it...in fact it's the opposite. You're going to get passed over for teams with a soft underbelly to feast on.
Last place Net Ranking:
BIg 12: 78
Big Ten: 141
SEC: 223
Big East: 193
ACC: 205
Pac12: 252
If that doesn't say 10 deep, 10 teams, what does? Do they all need to be top 10? 10 teams in the top 20?