Well, the finality of it all is on full display above: This year, there is a wide gulf between first and second, as well as between seventh and eighth.
The following seeds are locked: No. 1 Kansas, No. 7 Oklahoma State, No. 11 Iowa State and No. 12 Nebraska.
Everything else still is in play today, which should make for an absolutely stellar finish to the Big 12 regular season.
Games on.
| Seed* | Record* | Tourney* | RPI | Pomeroy | Sagarin | Streak | Best Win** | Worst Loss** | Coach | |
| Kansas | 1 | 15-1 | NCAA | 1 | 2 | 1 | W-1 | Kansas State (x2) | Oklahoma State | Bill Self |
| Kansas State | 2 | 12-4 | NCAA | 5 | 10 | 5 | L-1 | Baylor | Ole Miss | Frank Martin |
| Baylor | 3 | 11-5 | NCAA | 10 | 14 | 11 | W-3 | Texas A&M | Colorado | Scott Drew |
| Texas A&M | 4 | 11-5 | NCAA | 11 | 22 | 19 | W-2 | Baylor | Washington | Mark Turgeon |
| Missouri | 5 | 10-6 | NCAA | 32 | 12 | 15 | W-1 | Kansas State | Oral Roberts | Mike Anderson |
| Texas | 6 | 9-7 | NCAA | 25 | 13 | 10 | W-1 | Pittsburgh | Oklahoma | Rick Barnes |
| Oklahoma State | 7 | 9-7 | NCAA | 27 | 45 | 34 | L-1 | Kansas | Oklahoma | Travis Ford |
| Colorado | 8 | 6-10 | None | 111 | 86 | 95 | W-2 | Baylor | Oregon State | Jeff Bzdelik |
| Texas Tech | 9 | 4-12 | NIT | 64 | 88 | 71 | L-6 | Oklahoma State | Nebraska | Pat Knight |
| Oklahoma | 10 | 4-12 | None | 104 | 90 | 96 | L-7 | Texas | San Diego | Jeff Capel |
| Iowa State | 11 | 3-13 | None | 140 | 80 | 84 | L-2 | Saint Louis | Colorado | Greg McDermott |
| Nebraska | 12 | 2-14 | None | 157 | 97 | 101 | L-1 | Texas Tech | Iowa State (x2) | 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
Damn, KenPom sort of overreacted to our loss Wednesday, didn't he?
Baylor is on a tear of late. If you just look at the computer numbers, the Bears look like they could be climbing into NCAA 3-seed territory. But one must judge the whole resume, and bad losses to Alabama and Colorado probably will keep Baylor down on the 4-line.
Similarly, Texas A&M just keeps improving its stock. The Aggies are a 6 seed right now, but with a win or two in Kansas City, I easily could see them being a 5.
Oklahoma State didn't do itself any favors, however. Their letdown in College Station means the Cowboys better beat Nebraska and likely Oklahoma in order to stay on the right side of the bubble.
Mad props to Colorado. I've been pumping the Buffaloes on here for at least a week, but even I didn't see them snapping their ugly road losing streak this season. With a home game today against Texas Tech, which has lost six in a row, Colorado looks good for a 6-10 finish and a three-game winning streak heading to Sprint Center.
Wow. Pretty impressive, considering the Buffs' last winning streak of any kind came in late December against Cal State Northridge and Yale.
This goes without saying, but I once again must emphasize that Oklahoma, Iowa State and Nebraska are disasters.
The Sooners now have lost seven in a row, and despite a game effort in the first half against Texas on Big Monday, you never really felt like they were going to win. Seven likely will become nine, and Jeff Capel then will have some serious housecleaning to do this off-season.
Meanwhile, Iowa State's RPI has sunk to a truly awful 140. How the hell is a team with two pros this bad? I don't care about the German who quit — on paper, the Cyclones should be where Colorado is.
And then there's Nebraska. Where do I even start? The sub-150 RPI? The worst-in-the-Big 12 Sagarin rating (a dubious honor inherited from Colorado for the first time all season)? Getting swept by Colorado and Iowa State?
Having lost in Lincoln ought to keep Capel and Pat Knight awake at night in a cold sweat for months to come.
GAMER: No change.
Pomeroy: No change.
Sagarin: No change.
Self-Evaluation
Next year, I'm going to have to try and turn some of these 5-1 weeks into 6-0 ones. This week was my seventh.
But who in their right mind would have predicted Colorado winning on the road, even against the worst team in the Big 12? Certainly not these three computer systems.
Otherwise, everything went as expected. But today could prove more interesting.
I like Kansas and Texas A&M to win on the road, but I suppose either home team could pull the upset, too.
Meanwhile, Baylor and Colorado should win at home, but I also could see Texas or Texas Tech stealing one on the road.
Kansas State and Oklahoma State ought to roll, though. A loss in either Bramlage or Gallagher-Iba on Senior Night to the worst two Big 12 teams would be very surprising.
Cumulative pick record: 73-17 (.811)
A Quick Note on Big 12 Seeding
OK, I know there supposedly is some Big 12 release that came today with all the seeding possibilities, but those dumb gwats must have screwed something up, because it apparently said K-State is assured a bye, and that's not actually true.
So here's the definitive list of possibilities. How do I know it's definitive? Because I calculated every single one of the 64 possibilities myself.
I'm not going to write out what all has to happen for any particular outcome to occur, but individual scenarios are available upon request in the comments section.
Baylor
Best Seed: No. 2
Worst Seed: No. 6
Colorado
Best Seed: 8th
Worst Seed: 9th
Iowa State has secured a No. 11 seed.
Kansas has secured a No. 1 seed.
Kansas State
Best Seed: No. 2
Worst Seed: No. 5
Missouri
Best Seed: No. 2
Worst Seed: No. 5
Nebraska has secured a No. 12 seed.
Oklahoma
Best Seed: No. 9
Worst Seed: No. 10
Oklahoma State has secured a No. 7 seed.
Texas
Best Seed: No. 4
Worst Seed: No. 6
Texas A&M
Best Seed: No. 2
Worst Seed: No. 6
Texas Tech
Best Seed: No. 8
Worst Seed: No. 10
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|