It’s only November, but the NCAA men’s basketball tournament committee continues to insist that non-conference games are just as important as February conference games when it comes to to select the 68 teams.

With that in mind, the Houston Cougars’ loss to Auburn clearly impacts their projected seed in Joe Lunardi’s final NCAA Tournament. Bracketology Predictions.

Lunardi currently has Houston as the No. 3 seed in the East, a region that includes No. 1 UConn and No. 2 Alabama. That wouldn’t be a good landing spot for the Cougars, especially since the regional final will be played in Newark, New Jersey, a three-hour drive from the UConn campus.

Previous iterations of Bracketology have featured Houston as a No. 1 seed — a spot they can quickly return to with a win against No. 8 Alabama next week in Las Vegas.

One of the many challenges of conference expansion is the decrease in non-conference games. The tournament committee has always had a large non-conference sample to compare Big 12 teams to SEC teams, ACC teams and Big Ten teams.

With a 20-game Big 12 schedule this season, Houston only plays 11 non-conference games, two fewer than last season. The loss to Auburn places even greater importance on the Alabama game, in addition to the two other games the Cougars will play at the Players Era Tournament in Las Vegas.

Here are Bracketology’s latest NCAA Tournament predictions for the top four seed lines from Lunardi and ESPN, with the Big 12 teams in bold:

Seeds #1: Kansas (Midwest)Gonzaga (West), Auburn (South), UConn (East)

Seeds #2: Purdue (Midwest), Tennessee (West), State of Iowa (South)Alabama (East)

Seeds #3: Kentucky (Midwest), Baylor (West)Duke (South), Houston (East)

Seeds #4: Creighton (Midwest), Arizona (West)Marquette (South), North Carolina (East)

Lunardi has eight Big 12 teams in the field. The SEC and Big Ten lead the way with 10 teams each.