Why Houston Isn’t Currently Projected to Play in the Houston Regional of March Madness

Houston has the chance to play in front of hometown fans in March Madness, but will need to move up the rankings to do it.

Players on the Houston Cougars bench react after a play against the Utah Utes. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

The college basketball selection committee released its initial ranking for 2026, giving us the first glimpse at what a potential bracket might look like.

There weren’t a ton of surprises at the top, but fans who had been heading into the weekend knowing that the top four teams in the country were set to face off against each other might have been a bit confused as to why one of those schools dropped down a slot.

Houston, currently ranked No. 2 in the AP poll, came in at No. 5 on the committee’s first ranking, getting jumped by fellow Big 12 school Iowa State, who moved all the way up to No. 4.

Keith Gill, who is chair of the selection committee in addition to his role as commissioner of the Sun Belt conference, joined CBS’s broadcast of the initial ranking and addressed the top four.

Why Houston dropped out of the top four

The most obvious reason Houston’s ranking with the selection committee doesn’t match up with their ranking in the AP poll is that the rankings were released at different times. When the most recent AP poll was released, Houston had yet to suffer its second loss of the season, which it did on Monday on a road trip to Iowa State.

While it was a tight matchup—the Cougars played the Cyclones to a three-point loss on the road in a game they were actually underdogs in—Gill made clear that the head-to-head matchup was a key factor in the committee’s decision to put Iowa State ahead of Houston for the No. 4 spot.

"The head-to-head on Monday between Iowa State and Houston and then UConn's loss to Creighton made Iowa State [the last No. 1 overall seed]."

Keith Gill explained how IOWA STATE ended up as the last No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament as of today. @CycloneMBB pic.twitter.com/aobHN3lGyh

— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) February 21, 2026

As the rankings would go on to reveal, Houston had actually dropped down to No. 6 on the committee’s list, with UConn also jumping the Cougars. It’s possible their loss to Arizona on Saturday will drop them a bit further. But with three weeks to go until Selection Sunday, including a Big 12 tournament that could see the Cougars get a shot at revenge against the Cyclones, there’s still plenty of time for Houston to get back to the top line of their March Madness region.

 Why Houston isn’t projected to play in the Houston regional

One other aspect of Saturday’s rankings reveal that may have puzzled viewers was the fact that Houston was set to play as the No. 2 seed in the Midwest region, hosted in Chicago, rather than the South region, which will play its final games in Houston.

TOP 16 SEEDS REVEALED.

The biggest shocker is Texas Tech being the best 4-seed in spite of no longer having JT Toppin for the remainder of the season.

Alabama and Arkansas were the first tow cuts, per chair Keith Gill. pic.twitter.com/ktGTclNiYJ

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) February 21, 2026

Why would the NCAA make Houston fly all the way to Chicago when there were March Madness games to be played in its hometown?

The answer goes back to the fact that Iowa State jumped Houston in the committee’s ranking.

According to the principles that the selection committee uses to build the bracket, the top four teams in the same conference are placed in different regions when they are among the top four seed lines in the tournament.

The four No. 1 seeds are given their choice of which region they’d like to play in, starting with the top-ranked team in the country, with schools opting to play as close to home as possible for the purposes of bringing out their own fans. As the final No. 1 seed in the field, Iowa State would get the last region remaining, and thus placed in the South region set to play in Houston.

Because Houston (the school) is also playing on the top four seed lines, and because Houston (the city) is already hosting Big 12 rival Iowa State on one of those top four seed lines, the Cougars must play in a different region.

In an ironic turn, it’s likely that Iowa State would like to swap locations with Houston as much as Houston would like to swap with Iowa State—the Cyclones’ campus is just a five-hour drive from Chicago, but a 15-hour trek to Houston.

Lucky for both sides, nothing is set in stone yet, as we still have three weeks before the committee builds the bracket that really counts. Iowa State could play its way to the top of the national rankings and earn their preferred pick of destination, or Houston could jump back into the top four and hope that the other three teams (and their presumed preferred regions) stay the same.

No matter where the teams play their regionals, the goal is the same—a trip to Indianapolis for the Final Four.  

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