BIG 12 OUTLOOK: 01.22.11

Clearly, today's Kansas-Texas game will decide who the front-runner for Big 12 championship is, but the loser isn't exactly going to fall out of the race for good.

Colorado's hopes for being a factor took a strong hit with the Buffaloes' loss in Lincoln, however, while Texas A&M still has a chance to get back into the chase with a revenge win over Texas in College Station later this month.

By beating us, Missouri propelled itself into the hopeful also-ran category at 2-2, deadlocked with three other teams.

Meanwhile, we slid into the basement with such honorable company as Iowa State and Oklahoma, and just one floor north of woeful Texas Tech.

Note: As any of these numbers change, I will bold and color-code them to indicate direction of change.
Team names that are colored indicate a change in seed.
(green = upward, red = downward)

*Predicted
**According to RealTimeRPI

Discussion

Only minor tweaks this week. Thanks to its overtime victory, Oklahoma State hopped Iowa State for the No. 8 seed.

Meanwhile, Texas picked up another projected win at Texas A&M's expense.

As usual, the computer numbers improved for the teams that won and declined for those who lost. None of the changes were strong enough for me to change any postseason projections, however.

Nebraska and Texas clearly picked up their best wins of the season, albeit at home, while Texas Tech suffered its most embarrassing loss yet.

GAMER: Now has Texas losing at Nebraska, but winning at Colorado.

Pomeroy: Now has Iowa State losing at Colorado, Missouri winning at Kansas State, Nebraska winning at Colorado and Texas winning at Texas A&M.

Sagarin: Now has Texas winning at Texas A&M.

Self-Evaluation

How close is the thin line between success and failure? Had I used Sagarin's composite rankings (as I did in the prior two seasons) instead of his pure predictor values, BIG 12 OUTLOOK would have projected an Oklahoma State victory over Iowa State by a 2-1 margin and been 6-0 for the week.

But Sagarin's PPV had Iowa State winning by a fraction of a point, which was enough to swing the pendulum in the Cyclones' direction and cost me a correct pick. That said, Iowa State had a three-score lead with two minutes remaining and really should have won.

Instead, they inexplicably left Keiton Page open twice for two crucial 3-pointers that forced overtime. Iowa State is way too thin a team this season to win an overtime game anywhere, much less in one of the most intimidating arenas in the entire conference. Game, set, match.

Cumulative pick record: 20-3 (.870)

Key

Results are plugged into this wonderful tool to generate the predicted records and seed order. Winners are predicted by a best-of-three system comprising three statistical prediction models:

• G — RealTimeRPI GAMER (advanced statistical prediction model claiming 76.8-percent accuracy)
• P — Ken Pomeroy's rankings (predicts a probability outcome for each game remaining)
• S — Sagarin predictor rankings (home-court advantage is taken into account)
  
  

Predicted Outcomes