I don't see anywhere where anyone said that they would rather not go to tournament over going and losing in the 1st round. At some point you have to hope for more unless you are perfectly content never winning an NCAA tournament game. I get that every year they make the tournament the deck is stacked against them as they are competing against a team round 1 that has more talent, but at some point you want to beat the odds.
If this was 2009 again and the Zips hadn't been to the tournament in 23 years, I'd be happy just going. Dambrot in his 11 years of winning 21+ straight games however has raised the bar of this program. This isn't to say that I'm going to demand some witch hunt if once again the Zips fall short. It's me saying if we look back in 5-10 or how many ever years when Dambrot retires and we have 0 tournament wins despite being a dominate presence in the MAC for ~20 years, that would be a shame.