Well, at least the order of standings is starting to reflect the national rankings a little better.
I hope Mizzou enjoyed its stay near the top, because if you click the jump, you'll see that No. 5 looks about right for the Tigers, given the way things stand today.
| Seed* | Record* | Tourney* | RPI | Pomeroy | Sagarin | Streak | Best Win** | Worst Loss** | Coach | |
| Texas | 1 | 15-1 | NCAA | 4 | 3 | 1 | W-17 | Pittsburgh | none | Rick Barnes |
| Kansas | 2 | 15-1 | NCAA | 3 | 2 | 2 | W-2 | Temple | Tennessee | Bill Self |
| Kansas State | 3 | 12-4 | NCAA | 5 | 9 | 8 | W-2 | Xavier | Missouri | Frank Martin |
| Baylor | 4 | 10-6 | NCAA | 26 | 27 | 21 | W-1 | Xavier | Colorado | Scott Drew |
| Missouri | 5 | 10-6 | NCAA | 47 | 12 | 22 | L-1 | Kansas State | Oral Roberts | Mike Anderson |
| Texas A&M | 6 | 7-9 | NIT | 36 | 39 | 38 | L-2 | Clemson | Washington | Mark Turgeon |
| Iowa State | 7 | 6-10 | NIT | 108 | 67 | 68 | W-1 | Bradley | Northwestern | Greg McDermott |
| Oklahoma State | 8 | 6-10 | NIT | 37 | 56 | 56 | L-2 | Texas Tech | Oklahoma | Travis Ford |
| Colorado | 9 | 4-12 | None | 140 | 95 | 109 | L-1 | Baylor | Oregon State | Jeff Bzdelik |
| Texas Tech | 10 | 4-12 | None | 52 | 91 | 77 | L-3 | Washington | Wichita State | Pat Knight |
| Oklahoma | 11 | 4-12 | None | 77 | 90 | 86 | W-2 | Oklahoma State | San Diego | Jeff Capel |
| Nebraska | 12 | 3-13 | None | 122 | 79 | 85 | L-3 | USC | Creighton | Doc Sadler |
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
The week's big winner did it in a game no one saw. Iowa State shot up to a projected No. 8 seed on the heels of a surprising win in Lincoln. Nebraska is really tanking, to allow the Cyclones to snap an 18-game road losing streak in conference play. I suppose the Clones just got a good vibe from being near their home away from home, Memorial Stadium.
Also falling apart is Oklahoma State, which has shown me virtually nothing. But I still expect the Cowboys to do exactly what they did last year: Avoid bad losses and sneak into the NCAA Tournament with a high RPI and roughly zero quality wins. And don't even get me started on Texas Tech, which finally is being exposed like I suspected they might all the way back before the Wichita State loss.
Oklahoma also continues to inch its way up the chart, thanks to back-to-back "upset" wins at home. I use quotes, because for the teams listed from 5-12, road wins are going to be extremely rare. That's part of what made Iowa State's win on Saturday so shocking. Anyhow, don't worry about the Sooners. They now face road games at Texas A&M and Texas Tech this week, and will be hard-pressed to win either.
Colorado's computer numbers got dinged a bit from losing to us, but after watching the Buffaloes on TV, that team looks a lot closer to 5-11, or even 6-10, than 4-12. Bzdelik's doing a good job with them, but they're still a bit too young and lacking in depth to seriously threaten the upper-half teams.
Don't be fooled by Texas A&M's current projection. The Aggies showed signs of finding themselves against Texas, and I fully expect them to nab at least one upset and get to .500 in conference play. With their schedule and high RPI, that should be good enough to go dancing.
Finally, the conference race. Despite Baylor flip-flopping with Missouri, I personally think it's already down to three teams: Kansas, Kansas State and Texas. Obviously, tonight's game will play a huge role in deciding that race.
Indeed, Texas picked up its first projected loss literally on the eve of the game in question, so here's hoping GAMER and Pomeroy got it right. On the flip side, though, we lost that tie in Sagarin, which puts an L back on our projected resume against KU in Manhattan. But a win over Texas might boost our numbers enough to reverse that yet again, producing a 15-1 Texas, a 14-2 Kansas and a 13-3 K-State that beat both of them. I think I could live with that.
GAMER: Now has K-State beating Texas, Baylor beating K-State and Iowa State beating Oklahoma State.
Pomeroy: Now has Baylor beating K-State and Missouri, Oklahoma beating Iowa State and Texas beating Missouri.
Sagarin: Now has Baylor beating K-State, Kansas beating K-State in Manhattan, and Iowa State beating Colorado and Missouri.
Self-Evaluation
Another bloody 4-2 week. The pattern is becoming familiar: Botch the OU game and fail to predict a non-Big Four team (i.e., KU, KSU, UT and Baylor) that steals one on the road. I have Missouri to thank in both instances.
The latest models seem to be picking up on one basic truth, though: Don't pick the road team. There are three sets of games, including the one spanning the next three days, where not even one road team is predicted to win. And only the top five are predicted to win more than one road game all season.
Cumulative pick record: 12-5 (.706)
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 (he predicts a probability outcome for each game remaining)
- S — Sagarin composite rankings (home court advantage is taken into account)
Predicted Outcomes
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