Rarely hear of Sagarin cited for college basketball these days. Maybe it’s just me. RPI, KenPom frequently are brought up. Massey to some extent too.
In those Loyola is 22,30, and 8 respectively. So Sagarin is a major outlier.
Michigan certainly hasn’t faced murderers row this year. But by most computer metrics Houston was a 4/5 seed that was underseeded. The Houston game was ugly in style, but Michigan beat a top notch team. FSU wasn’t a world class opponent, especially for the Elite Eight. But they were a unique matchup problem type team, and Michigan advanced with supreme domination on one end of the court. .7PPP on defense was lower by some margin than any FSU opponent all year.
RPI is probably the most useless metric out there.
Since you brought up the "most computer metrics," we can go to my favorite metric, Massey's composite rankings.
Houston was #20 entering the tournament, Loyola was #40. So, based on a composite of computer rankings, Houston should have been the final 5 seed, and Loyola should have been the final 10 seed. Instead they were a 6 and an 11, it's not like that's crazy out of whack with what the computer metrics said.
As I've said multiple times before, with solely the info that Texas A&M was going to beat UNC, I would have picked Michigan to reach the national title game. Even if that meant going through Xavier and Virginia, instead of Florida State and Loyola. But what facing the #38 and #40 teams (after facing #27), instead of #8, #9 and #2, like if the seeds had held, is a margin for error. Michigan can get away with a meh performance. Loyola is only ranked 3 spots above a Penn State team that didn't even get selected. Getting Penn State in the Big Ten semifinals was seen as a break for Purdue, Michigan is essentially getting an equivalent team in the NATIONAL semifinals.
Like I said, breaks are breaks, and nobody should apologize for them. You have to be both lucky and good. I think Purdue was the Big Ten's best team this year. But MSU had a cake conference schedule, and won the Big Ten title, so they get a banner. Michigan had to beat #79, #20, #27, #38, #40 to reach a national championship game. Purdue would have had to beat #152, #28, #14, #1, #7 to reach the same point. MSU was both lucky and good. UM was both lucky and good. Purdue was good, but not lucky.