That's the fallacy of RPI. You can lose, a lot, but as long as you play good teams you can still prop up your RPI.
There are only 3 teams with a worse conference record than 13-17 in the SEC.
And having neither #1 regular season champion or the #1 tournament team host a regional should be telling for us. It will be good to have Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington join us to prop up the conference a bit.