BIG 12 OUTLOOK: 01.29.11

Texas continued to fend off Kansas by winning an obvious trap game in Stillwater.

The Cowboys were extremely emotional on a night designated to honor "The Ten," but that emotion wasn't sufficient enough to propel their team — which looks increasingly NIT-ish with each game it plays — to a win over what clearly is the best defensive team in the conference.

Also coming back to earth were Colorado, which has lost three straight, and Iowa State, which has lost four straight. In fact, the Cyclones' current residency seems to validate the coaches' preseason prediction for them of 12th place.

What this means is that K-State has a golden opportunity — after tonight's scheduled demolition, of course — to make hay in February against a bunch of 2-3 and 2-4 teams that the Wildcats should beat if they continue to improve.

Why play for the NIT if fifth place is still available?

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

Despite losing two wins in the projections, Oklahoma State actually gained a seed due to Iowa State's freefall, while K-State gained two seeds.

Iowa State lost a game it wasn't supposed to and now is projected to lose at home to Missouri, knocking it down from 7-9 to 5-11 in the predictions.

Nebraska also suffered a minor drop. Of course, exchanging seeds this far down is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I mean, who really cares?

For the time being, I'm upgrading Baylor to bubble status and downgrading Oklahoma State to the NIT.

Both teams are raging dumpster fires, but Baylor annihilated OSU at home, is projected to win in Stillwater and at least has a few Big 12 wins to its name. Oklahoma State has been trending downward ever since the calendar flipped to 2011 and that doesn't appear likely to stop any time soon.

On a side note, K-State really needs to pick up a legitimate win soon. Gonzaga's third consecutive loss left James Madison as our best win, and all five of our "quality" wins are over teams rated 70 or higher in the RPI. Not an NCAA Tournament team in the whole bunch, in other words.

GAMER: Now has Colorado losing at Texas Tech and Missouri winning at Iowa State.

Pomeroy: Now has Baylor winning at Oklahoma State and Missouri winning at Nebraska.

Sagarin: Now has Missouri winning at Iowa State.

Self-Evaluation

Who would have thought K-State would be the only home team to win this week?

In a league such as the Big 12, home court advantage usually is king, unless you're facing an elite team such as Kansas or Texas.

So why would anyone in their right mind pick Texas Tech — which still has a losing record — to win any road game, especially against a team that's been as impressive as Iowa State?

Unfortunately, computers can't see the ways in which the Cyclones are wearing down, so none of the predictive systems saw that one coming.

But now that Tech is starting to play up to its preseason expectations more, the Red Raiders probably will garner a little more statistical respect in the near future.

Cumulative pick record: 26-7 (.788)

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