Texas Basketball: Horns projected as 3-seed after Big 12 Tournament win

It feels like head coach Shaka Smart and No. 13 ranked Texas basketball should be ranked at least a little bit higher than a three seed for the NCAA Tournament. But according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi following their Big 12 Tournament final round win on March 13, Bracketology still has Texas projected as a three-seed as an automatic qualifier for the NCAA Tournament.

Selection Sunday is almost here around the college hoops landscape, and Longhorns fans await the fate of their team. Texas is almost assured to have a floor as a three seed for the “Big Dance”. But there is a good possibility that they could slide up to a higher two seed come the time for the selection committee to make their seeding announcements to round out the weekend.

We still have to wait for the other conference tournaments to wrap up on March 14. But it won’t be all that long before the festivities of Selection Sunday take place. In just a few hours from now, the Longhorns will figure out their fate for the Round of 64 in the Big Dance, that will be held solely in Indianapolis, IN, this year.

Texas capped their postseason up to this point with a nice run through the Big 12 Tournament, including a final round win over the No. 12 ranked and five-seed Oklahoma State Cowboys to claim the conference crown. That was the first Big 12 Tournament win in program history for the Longhorns.

Texas basketball’s quest to the Big Dance

To get the Big 12 Tournament crown, Texas beat the No. 20 ranked and six-seed Texas Tech Red Raiders in the quarterfinals back on March 11. Then they got a free pass through the semifinals after the Kansas Jayhawks came down with a positive COVID-19 test.

And that amounted to Texas downing the Pokes and head coach Mike Boynton on the night of March 13 by a five-point margin to win it all at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, MO.

Smart and the Longhorns do have a very good argument to be a two seed in the NCAA Tournament. If a team like the Baylor Bears or Oklahoma State is in contention for a two seed, it should be a no brainer that Texas is too.

Texas carries a record of 19-7 (20 wins if you include the one over Kansas by COVID-19-induced disqualification) into Selection Sunday. They would be one of the teams with a greater amount of losses if they were to land a two seed, but it would still be well deserved after taking the Big 12 crown.

In the latest round of ESPN’s Bracketology, the Longhorns were projected to face the 14-seed Colgate in the Round of 64. That would slot them in the Midwest region, with the Illinois Fighting Illini as the projected one-seed and the Houston Cougars as the two-seed.

The Big 12 is likely to have six or seven teams that make the NCAA Tournament field. Teams like Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Baylor, and West Virginia all look to make the field as at least four seeds on Selection Sunday too. Texas Tech and Oklahoma are two names to watch as potential high-to-mid seeds in the mix.