Monday night’s home win over Iowa State was another feather in the cap for the Houston Cougars, who moved into sole possession of first place of what’s been the best conference in college basketball this year, the Big 12.
At this point, it would take a lot of bad things to happen for Houston not to at least get the No. 1 seed in the South Region for the NCAA tournament.
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But can the Cougars get the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA tournament? Here’s a breakdown of their chances and why the No. 1 overall seed can be beneficial.
Where do the Cougars stand at the moment?
Houston might be ranked No. 2 in both the Associated Press and coaches polls, but the Cougars are No. 1 in the NET rankings, the metric the NCAA tournament committee will rely on the most for seed selections.
Houston is tied with Purdue and UConn for the most Quad 1 wins in the country with nine. A Quad 1 win is beating an opponent ranked in the top-30 in the NET at home, in the top-50 at a neutral site and in the top-75 on the road.
Remaining schedule is brutal, but offers opportunity
If the season ended now, it would likely come down to Houston or Purdue for that No. 1 overall seed, with UConn not too far behind. Houston has five regular season games left, and it might be the hardest schedule remaining in the entire country.
Of those five games remaining before the conference tournament, four of them will be Quad 1 games. Those are at Baylor (No. 11) on Saturday, at Oklahoma (No. 39) on March 2, at Central Florida (No. 68) on March 6 and home against Kansas (No. 16) on March 9. The only game left that won’t be a Quad 1 game is on Feb. 27 when Houston hosts Cincinnati, which isn’t chopped liver by any means. The Bearcats are ranked No. 37 in the NET.
You can look at it from two points of view. One is that it’s a brutally hard schedule that could result in multiple losses and not only knock the Cougars from the top of the conference, but out of the talk for the No. 1 overall seed.
In fact, a complete implosion could prevent Houston from getting one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament. Right now, Houston is in line for the No. 1 seed in the South Region, with the semifinal and final games of that region conveniently being held roughly three hours away in Dallas if Houston wins its first two NCAA tournament games.
On the other hand, playing such a difficult schedule is a positive because it should fortify Houston’s NET ranking further just based on the strength of schedule metric alone. Throw in some more wins in those games that would add to the Quad 1 victory total, and Houston would be hard to bypass for the No. 1 overall seed.
How much would obtaining the No. 1 overall seed matter?
Truthfully, it wouldn’t make a huge difference. But it also wouldn’t hurt, either. By being the No. 1 overall seed, you in theory would get to play the worst teams in their seeding groups throughout the tournament.
In the first round, Houston would play one of the two worst No. 16 seeds, depending on which of those No. 16 seeds prevails in a First Four matchup in Dayton, Ohio, referred to by some as play-in games.
If the opponent is a No. 8 seed in the second round, it would be the worst-ranked of the four No. 8 seeds in the tournament. The worst No. 4 and No. 2 seeds of their groups would also be in Houston’s region, and so forth.
Getting the No. 1 overall seed would also ensure playing at the sites closest to Houston’s campus. Granted, the closest first and second round site to Houston this year is more than an eight-hour drive away in Memphis. But it would be better from a traveling distance perspective than going to other first and second round sites in say, Spokane, Salt Lake City or Brooklyn.
As mentioned above, the regional semifinal and final games would be much closer in Dallas, so locking in the No. 1 overall seed would guarantee the Cougars are there if they reach the Sweet 16.