Following their win over the Texas A&M Aggies, the Texas Longhorns looked to be firmly in the NCAA Tournament field, potentially with a first-round bye. After dropping their last two games, Texas saw its postseason prospects drop.
The pair of losses — a 20-point drubbing at the hands of Arkansas in Fayetteville and an overtime loss to Oklahoma — saw the Longhorns’ odds drop from more than 90 percent to 69 percent heading into the SEC Tournament, according to Bart Torvik. Despite that, Texas hasn’t
fallen out of the Last Four Byes according to Joe Lunardi, one of the premiere Bracketologists for ESPN.
“I think they’re going to make it. I think they have too many good wins,“ Lunardi told KVUE’s Cory Mose. ”Their profile is considerably better than it was this time a year ago.”
The Horns are listed in all 121 brackets tracked by BracketMatrix.com with an average seed of 11.7 with the help of six Quad 1 wins.
According to most sources, the Texas resume is bolstered by a five-game winning streak in six games, which preceded the disastrous run that ended the season. Prior to their shocking upset win over Georgia, Texas had just a 38.6-percent chance to make the tournament, according to Torvik’s analytics, a number that jumped to 88.1 percent after the Bulldogs’ revenge game a month later. The win over the Aggies seemingly guaranteed the Horns a spot in the tournament, seeing their odds jump to 91.6 percent before plummeting.
A win over No. 15 seed Ole Miss in Nashville on Wednesday would go a long way to making Texas fans feel like they had less to worry about heading into Selection Sunday. The Longhorns currently sit as 5.5-point favorites over the Rebels, according to FanDuel, with a double-digit win over Chris Beard’s squad already under its belt.
