Although the conference still is tightly packed, it's begun to separate into two halves — those with winning conference records and those without. Not coincidentally, those who follow the jump will see that the upper six also are the projected tournament teams at this time.
| Seed* | Record* | Tourney* | RPI | Pomeroy | Sagarin | Streak | Best Win** | Worst Loss** | Coach | |
| Kansas | 1 | 16-0 | NCAA | 1 | 1 | 1 | W-7 | Kansas State | Tennessee | Bill Self |
| Baylor | 2 | 13-3 | NCAA | 24 | 14 | 13 | W-2 | Texas | Colorado | Scott Drew |
| Kansas State | 3 | 12-4 | NCAA | 7 | 8 | 9 | W-1 | Texas | Missouri | Frank Martin |
| Texas | 4 | 12-4 | NCAA | 18 | 7 | 6 | W-1 | Michigan State | Connecticut | Rick Barnes |
| Missouri | 5 | 9-7 | NCAA | 49 | 15 | 24 | L-1 | Kansas State | Oral Roberts | Mike Anderson |
| Texas A&M | 6 | 8-8 | NCAA | 26 | 40 | 34 | W-2 | Clemson | Washington | Mark Turgeon |
| Oklahoma State | 7 | 6-10 | NIT | 30 | 56 | 43 | L-2 | Kansas State | Oklahoma | Travis Ford |
| Colorado | 8 | 5-11 | None | 137 | 83 | 97 | L-2 | Baylor | Oregon State | Jeff Bzdelik |
| Texas Tech | 9 | 4-12 | NIT | 41 | 84 | 72 | L-2 | Washington | Missouri | Pat Knight |
| Oklahoma | 10 | 4-12 | None | 90 | 96 | 91 | L-1 | Oklahoma State | San Diego | Jeff Capel |
| Iowa State | 11 | 4-12 | None | 111 | 87 | 82 | L-1 | Bradley | Oklahoma | Greg McDermott |
| Nebraska | 12 | 3-13 | None | 133 | 90 | 94 | L-1 | Tulsa | Colorado | 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
Missouri's loss is the state of Texas' gain. The Tigers dropped enough in the computer rankings to help the Longhorns pick up an extra projected win, and Mizzou's real-life loss gave Texas A&M just the bump it needed to get to a predicted .500 record and the elusive sixth projected bid.
It's telling that the winning streaks are concentrated at the top and the losing streaks at the bottom, further reinforcing the dichotomy that I suggested is emerging.
But it's also fitting that in this conference, where anyone can beat anyone (hell, even lowly Colorado can drag the mighty Jayhawks to overtime), none of the streaks are longer than two games (with the obvious exception of one).
For any team other than Kansas, sustaining success longer than two or three games will be difficult — which will make it all the more impressive if K-State can do precisely that this month.
GAMER: Now has Texas A&M beating Oklahoma in Norman.
Pomeroy: Now has Oklahoma State losing at Iowa State and at Texas Tech.
Sagarin: Now has Texas beating Missouri, Oklahoma State losing to Baylor at home and to Iowa State* in Ames, and Texas Tech losing at Colorado.
*This result is marked with an asterisk above and below because — once home-court advantage was factored into the equation — ISU and OSU were tied by Sagarin rating. The last time this happened, I flipped a coin and it favored the home team, so for simplicity's sake (and to make things a little more interesting upset-wise), I'm just going to award all ties to the home team.
Self-Evaluation
I thought I was going out on a limb in projecting three road wins, and as it turned out, only Baylor could protect its home floor. When the 32-game winning streak at Mizzou Arena crumbles to the ground, it's eye-opening.
Road success no longer appears as elusive as it did two weeks earlier — at least, for the teams at the top.
Keeping that in mind, the model is taking four road teams to win today. K-State, Missouri and Texas all should win, but all easily could lose, as well.
The Baylor game is much more iffy. Coming off a win like Wednesday's, Texas A&M will be fired up to protect its home court, where it has not lost this season. The winner of that game will take a huge step forward toward claiming a first-round bye in Kansas City.
I also would be unsurprised by Oklahoma State stealing a win in Lubbock. It'll be interesting to see if my near-80 percent pick record holds up today.
Cumulative pick record: 35-9 (.795)
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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