BIG 12 OUTLOOK: 01.24.11

What a wacky weekend. The only home team that didn't win was Kansas, snapping a 69-game home win streak.

It's still early, but the Big 12 appears to be segregating itself into four tiers.

There's the Contenders (Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M), the Dark Horses (Baylor, Colorado, Missouri), the Punching Bags (Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State) and the Cannon Fodder (Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Tech).

Saturday's topsy-turvy chaos sets up at least one compelling midweek match-up: Kansas at Colorado.

With a win, the Buffaloes actually would be a half-game ahead of the Jayhawks in the conference standings, despite an embarrassing loss in Norman on Saturday.

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

There's the shakeup I've been waiting for! This feature has been way too static this year. I like a little turmoil, and we certainly have it after Saturday's games.

The big winners were Texas and Missouri. As I explained in the comments below, Texas is in an extremely favorable position now, as long as the Longhorns don't stub their toe more than once or twice. They also hold the most important tiebreaker in the league. The road to the Big 12 championship now goes through Austin.

Missouri shot upward from the No. 7 seed to the No. 4, not so much because of anything it did, but because Colorado's unexpected loss dropped the Buffaloes out of a projected tie in which they had the upper hand. That moves accords with reality. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Mizzou is at least the fourth-best Big 12 team.

Computer numbers largely followed results, except in the cases of Texas Tech, which inexplicably saw its Sagarin ranking drop despite its best win of the season, and Kansas State, which received a numbers boost due to the strong resume of its most recent opponent. That, at least, was a quality loss, unlike some others we've had.

I'm downgrading Colorado and Iowa State back to NIT status. Colorado simply has too many ugly losses to overcome, while Iowa State simply has too many losses, period. On the plus side for the Cyclones, they get OU and Tech at home this week, so it's a chance to get some confidence back after a tough road stretch.

K-State and Oklahoma State both stay on the bubble for now, but they're both falling toward the wrong side quickly.

OSU desperately needs a quality win of some kind, preferably one on the road, and also needs to stop losing games by double-digit margins. K-State just needs any kind of win to stop the bleeding.

And now for a few housekeeping items. First, please note that the writeup is complete for the prior installment of BIG 12 OUTLOOK, if you haven't had a chance to read it yet. I apologize for the incomplete upload the other day.

Also, a slight aesthetic adjustment is that unless a team's "best win" in the chart above was added in the most recent round of games, it will be color-coded red instead of green.

My reasoning is that a new team, such as Virginia Tech, only moves into that spot because the previous occupant (in this case, Gonzaga) fell on its face and saw its RPI drop as a result. Clearly, that's not a positive thing, so green seems an inappropriate color. I should have started doing that two years ago, really.

GAMER: Now has Baylor losing at Oklahoma, Kansas losing at Missouri, and Texas winning at Nebraska and Oklahoma State.

Pomeroy: Now has Missouri winning at Iowa State and Nebraska losing at Colorado.

Sagarin: Now has Missouri winning at Nebraska.

Self-Evaluation

My first really bad pick day of the season came as a result of three somewhat surprising upsets. I joked earlier in the year that BIG 12 OUTLOOK's strategy was to pick the home team, unless it was Oklahoma or Texas Tech, or unless the road team was Kansas. That strategy backfired every which way Saturday.

Colorado and Nebraska both proved not to be ready for prime time by losing in Norman and Lubbock, respectively.

Colorado hasn't won in Norman since 1980, but if not now, when?

And Nebraska was lucky to be in a position to win after being fouled on a 3-pointer with 11 seconds left, converting all three free throws to take a one-point lead. But the Huskers allowed D'walyn Roberts to tip in a missed shot with just three seconds left in the game for the win.

In hindsight, both outcomes were a bit predictable. But KU's loss at home was nothing short of shocking.

Yes, Texas is a very good team, but the Longhorns never had won in Lawrence before. And KU always wins these kinds of games, right? Well, not on Saturday. Rick Barnes netted the signature win of his career, snapped a historic streak and seized control of the Big 12 race with a result that sent shock waves through the BIG 12 OUTLOOK.

Cumulative pick record: 23-6 (.793)

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