Making the NCAA tournament is about building a resume, and that's a work that starts from the opening tip of the season. Half of that is winning games, but the other half is scheduling, and Xavier has one of the best in the business heading up that department in Mario Mercurio.
The committee's pleasure is kind of a moving target, but they seem to generally favor wins in quadrant 1 and 2 games and value avoiding too many bad losses. Xavier shot themselves in the hind end in the non-conference last year, playing 3 Q1 games and losing them all and going 0-1 in Q2 games.