BIG 12 OUTLOOK: 01.21.12

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Step one in clawing back out of mediocrity has been accomplished: The Cats now are in a four-way tie for fifth place.

Step two is winning an eminently winnable road game in Stillwater against a massively subpar team that nonetheless should not be taken lightly. The Pokes pushed the Cyclones to their limit Wednesday in Ames.

That should allow us to keep pace with Oklahoma, which should win in anemic College Station, although a loss certainly isn't out of the question.

Meanwhile, Iowa State faces a challenge in its own right against a Texas Tech team that scratched and clawed in Norman , and appears desperate to collect that first Big 12 win. Better the Clones than us, I say.

And then there's the game in Austin. A Kansas win knocks Texas a full peg below us in any tiebreaker scenario. A Horn win keeps a championship theoretically possible, if improbable. I call that a win-win.

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

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Discussion

As you can see from the prediction changes below, Kansas' stock is rising after Big Monday, while Baylor's is sliding commensurately.

In the ultimate "what have you done for me lately," that translates into the one significant predicted seed change this week: Missouri slides ahead of Baylor based on record vs. the No. 1 team, i.e. Kansas.

The computers already seem to have forgotten the equally lopsided loss Mizzou suffered just two weeks ago in the Octagon. No, it's time to dump on Baylor, they say, despite the lopsided score every team leaves Lawrence with.

GAMER: Now has Baylor losing at Missouri, Kansas State winning at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State winning at Texas Tech and Texas winning at Texas A&M.

Pomeroy: Now has Kansas winning at Baylor.

Sagarin: Now has Baylor losing at Texas and Kansas winning at Baylor.

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Self-Evaluation

And just like that, I'm right back to where I started — an .800 pick percentage.

Perfect weeks will do that for you, and it doesn't get any more perfect than picking all five home teams to win and watching them all hold serve in their houses.

Picking four road teams today, however? That's an almost-certain recipe for disaster, in my experience.

Each game has its own unique trap-ness to it. The pitfalls that face us in Stillwater are obvious — no wins there since 1993. Oklahoma is no shoo-in at Texas A&M, considering the Aggies are desperate for a win.

Iowa State should handle Texas Tech, though, right?

And don't ask me why, but I've got a weird feeling that an improving Texas team might try to redeem itself for two tough road losses. Perhaps KU will be a little full of itself coming off its big win and the upset comes to life.

Even the one game that seems like a slam-dunk obvious win for the home team won't necessarily play out that way.

Sure, Baylor is a matchup nightmare for Mizzou, but we've seen Baylor teams in this position before totally derp it up.

All of this is just a long of way of saying: Don't be surprised if 4-1 is my top end after today's action.

Cumulative pick record: 20-5 (.800)

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

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Predicted Outcomes