It’s only November, but the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Committee continues to insist that non-conference games are just as important as conference games in February when it comes to selecting the 68-team field.

With that in mind, the Houston Cougars’ loss to Auburn clearly affects their projected seed in Joe Lunardi’s recent NCAA Tournament Bracketology predictions.

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

Previous iterations of Bracketology have featured Houston as a No. 1 seed — a spot they could quickly bounce back into with a win over No. 8 Alabama next week in Las Vegas.

One of the many challenges that comes with conference expansion is fewer non-conference games. The tournament committee has historically had a large out-of-conference sample size to compare Big 12 teams vs. SEC teams vs. ACC Teams Vs. Big Ten team.

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

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

No. 1 seeds: Kansas (Midwest)Gonzaga (West), Auburn (South), UConn (East)

No. 2 seeds: Purdue (Midwest), Tennessee (West), Iowa State (Southern)Alabama (East)

No. 3 seeds: Kentucky (Midwest), Baylor (West)Duke (South), Houston (East)

No. 4 seeds: Creighton (Midwest), Arizona (West)Marquette (South), North Carolina (East)

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