Texas basketball projects as top-four seed in early 2023 Bracketology
As head coach Chris Beard and the Texas basketball program look to continue to move in the right direction early in the 2022 offseason, the “way-too-early” projections for the upcoming season are already pouring in. One of the latest notable projections for next season that surfaced this week came from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, who updated his Bracketology for 2023 on May 17.
In his latest update to Bracketology early this offseason for the 2022-23 NCAA Tournament, Lunardi gave a pretty favorable seeding to Beard and the Longhorns. This edition of Bracketology from Lunardi projected the Longhorns as a four-seed in the East Region, which would slot them against the 13-seed Towson Tigers (who made it to the Big Dance by way of an automatic qualifier).
This Bracketology projection slots the Longhorns two seeds higher than this past NCAA Tournament. Beard and the Longhorns were a six-seed in the NCAA Tournament in the season that was, where they downed the 11-seed Virginia Tech Hokies in the Round of 64.
Chris Beard and Texas basketball projected as a four-seed in the latest ESPN Bracketology for next season
Texas would then fall short to the three-seed Purdue Boilermakers in the Round of 32 to end their 2021-22 season.
Moreover, with Texas projected as a four-seed in this round of Bracketology, that places them in a tie with the TCU Horned Frogs for the third-highest seed in the Big 12. The two higher seeds in this round of Bracketology are the Kansas Jayhawks and Baylor Bears (both one-seeds).
There were a few other Big 12 schools that made this projection for the NCAA Tournament next season. Those were the 10-seed Oklahoma Sooners, eight-seed Oklahoma State Cowboys, and six-seed Texas Tech Red Raiders.
That left the Iowa State Cyclones, West Virginia Mountaineers, and Kansas State Wildcats as the three Big 12 teams on the outside looking in. But Iowa State was mentioned as one of the “First Four Out” and West Virginia was one of the “Next Four Out”.
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If this round of Bracketology is any indication of the type of season Beard and the Longhorns are destined to have in 2022-23, we’re in for a treat on the Forty Acres. Texas finished up last season with a record of 22-12 (10-8 Big 12) following the Round of 32 loss to Purdue.