Analysis: How TCU’s NCAA Tournament resume stacks with March Madness one month away
March Madness is officially just a month away and No. 25 TCU has put itself in a good position for the NCAA Tournament after a strong close to January.
With ranked wins over Baylor and Texas Tech in the last week, the Horned Frogs played their way off the bubble to comfortably within the field.
The job isn’t finished, though. TCU’s February slate projects to be easier to manage than January with no matchups against Kansas or Houston, but there are still plenty of potential pitfalls in the the final stretch including road games at Iowa State, Texas Tech and BYU.
Those games also represent opportunities for the Horned Frogs to improve their seeding and potential matchup for the tournament. Ahead of TCU’s clash with Texas on Saturday, here’s a look at where the experts have TCU projected to land.
TCU’s resume
Record: 16-5, 5-3 Big 12
NET Ranking: No. 30
KenPom: No. 22
Best wins: vs. No. 4 Houston, vs. No. 15 Texas Tech, at No. 18 Baylor, vs. No. 23 Oklahoma
Bad losses: vs. Nevada at a neutral site
Key upcoming games: vs. Texas, at No. 12 Iowa State, at No. 15 Texas Tech, vs. No. 18 Baylor, at No. 22 BYU, Big 12 Tournament
Breakdown: The Horned Frogs have a strong resume with four Quad 1 victories and no Quad 3 or 4 losses. TCU would like to have the game against Nevada back as the Wolf Pack are currently projected to miss the field, but a Q2 loss won’t be seen as a deterrent.
The beauty of the Big 12 is the conference presents plenty of opportunities for quality wins, but only a few for a bad loss. TCU avoided one of those with a comeback win against Oklahoma State on Jan. 23. Right now the only team that is currently a Quad 3 or worse opponent is West Virginia, who travels to Fort Worth on Feb. 12. Avoiding a loss there will be crucial, but the Horned Frogs can give themselves more cushion if they can win two of the four remaining games against ranked competition.
Home games against Texas and Cincinnati could also be helpful with the Longhorns being a Quad 2 game, while the Bearcats could be a Q1 opponent by the time the two teams play on Feb. 24. As long as TCU avoids a collapse of epic proportions it’s hard to see the Horned Frogs not making the NCAA Tournament.
ESPN
Joe Lunardi is the most prominent expert when it comes to bracketology and the ESPN insider currently has TCU projected as a No. 8 seed in his latest projections released on Wednesday. Prior the win over Texas Tech, Lunardi had the Horned Frogs slated as the No. 9 seed in the East Region with a matchup against No. 8 South Carolina in Brooklyn.
The winner would advance to likely face No. 1 seed UConn. This is an example of why it’s important for TCU to continue to stack wins in February. Matchups are key to advancing in March and ideally you want to avoid a team like UConn or Purdue until the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight.
CBS Sports
Jerry Palm currently has TCU projected as a No. 10 seed facing No. 7 Colorado State in Omaha in the West Region. The winner would likely face No. 2 Wisconsin It should be noted the projections haven’t been updated since Jan. 29 and don’t account for TCU’s win over Texas Tech.
Being a 10 seed wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world as historically that’s a place where a mid-major conference champion could land. Palm also has Boise State projected as a No. 7 seed in a different region.
USA Today
Paul Myerburg leads a trio of experts that come out with projections for USA Today and Myerburg currently has TCU projected as a No. 7 seed in the West Region with a matchup against No. 10 Providence. Like Palm, USA Today also had Wisconsin projected as the No. 2 seed in the region.
This projection also didn’t account for the Horned Frogs’ win over Texas Tech as it was updated Tuesday morning. USA Today has four mid-majors on the six seed line with Dayton, Utah State, New Mexico and San Diego State. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see TCU move up a seeding line in the next updated projections.
Bracket Matrix
Bracket Matrix is a website that tracks the bracketology projections from nearly every major outlet. Not only does it list where every outlet has a team projected, it also weighs up all the numbers for average seed rating. For TCU, the Horned Frogs’ average came out to the second highest No. 8 seed behind South Carolina and ahead of St. John’s and Northwestern.
It should be noted most of the outlets hadn’t updated their projections to include TCU’s win over Texas Tech. Inccstats.com was the one of the few sites that has been updated with the win over the Red Raiders and the Horned Frogs are currently a No. 5 seed in this publication’s projections with a 94.6 percent chance of making the tournament.
SB Nation had TCU with the lowest projection with the Horned Frogs as a No. 11 seed in the Midwest Region. Taking out the two outliers, the Horned Frogs are currently in the range between a No. 6 and No. 9 seed.
With the way TCU played to close the month of January the projections could look a lot different come March if the Horned Frogs can keep up their winning ways.
