With a shortened season and many cancellations every big game seems even more important. Before the season started, I think we were looking at 4 big games, Louisville and probably Mississippi State, and South Carolina and Baylor. We still have Depaul and Tennessee as more moderate challenges but basically lost half of the big ones due to the pandemic, and that is assuming nothing happens to the South Carolina or Baylor games due to more positive cases.
There are maybe 8 or 9 teams that can hope to get a number one seed for the tournament. With fewer games and major challenges it would not be surprising if a couple of teams went undefeated before the tournament. I suspect one loss is the most you can have and still get a number 1 seed.
If we win against Baylor and South Carolina it not only gets us a 1 (short of a Tennessee or Depaul upset), but also might knock those teams out of top seeds since they each already have one loss. On the other hand if we lost both of those games there may not be anything we could do to get a number 1 seed after that, even if the rest of the season was perfect. It may not be that extreme but I don't remember any season riding more on just two games.