“Who’s the 8-9 in our bracket? Birmingham, right,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said when asked Sunday about Houston’s tournament draw. “So Auburn gets to play in Birmingham? Maybe we should have been a 9-seed.”
Houston went 31-3 this season and finished second in the final AP poll before the NCAA Tournament gets underway this week. The Cougars were the top-rated team in adjusted efficiency margin this season, according to KenPom, with the nation’s No. 11 adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 4 defensive efficiency.
About half an hour after that game went final, Houston learned it officially earned one of the top seeds in this year’s field, drawing the No. 1 spot in the Midwest Region and would face 16th-seeded Northern Kentucky in the opening round of action Thursday night in Birmingham. While facing a 16-seed in the opening round all but assures Houston will advance to the Round of 32, Sampson seemed less than thrilled about the Cougars’ potential second-round matchup with the Tigers.
While Auburn is the lower-seeded team in its opening-round matchup with Iowa, the Tigers get the benefit of playing just a couple hours from their campus and in their home state by drawing Birmingham as their opening-weekend site. If Auburn can get by Iowa on Thursday, it would likely have a homecourt advantage against Houston in the second round, with an undoubtedly pro-Tigers crowd at Legacy Arena with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.
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