10 of 12 teams have now played their conference opener. Hit the jump to see how the conference season's first data input, including at least one upset, shook up the projections.
| Seed* | Record* | RPI | Pomeroy | Sagarin | Best Win** | Worst Loss** | Coach | |
| Oklahoma | 1 | 13-3 | 9 | 16 | 8 | Kansas State | Arkansas | Jeff Capel |
| Baylor | 2 | 12-4 | 44 | 30 | 21 | Arizona State | South Carolina | Scott Drew |
| Kansas | 3 | 12-4 | 49 | 25 | 40 | Washington | UMass | Bill Self |
| Texas | 4 | 11-5 | 21 | 27 | 22 | UCLA | Arkansas | Rick Barnes |
| Missouri | 5 | 11-5 | 55 | 14 | 24 | Cal | Nebraska | Mike Anderson |
| Oklahoma State | 6 | 10-6 | 20 | 38 | 34 | Rhode Island | Washington | Travis Ford |
| Kansas State | 7 | 9-7 | 112 | 20 | 55 | Cleveland State | Oregon | Frank Martin |
| Nebraska | 8 | 8-8 | 84 | 67 | 73 | Missouri | UMBC | Doc Sadler |
| Texas A&M | 9 | 4-12 | 48 | 86 | 69 | Arizona | Tulsa | Mark Turgeon |
| Iowa State | 10 | 4-12 | 127 | 101 | 104 | Houston | Hawai'i | Greg McDermott |
| Texas Tech | 11 | 2-14 | 93 | 107 | 99 | New Mexico | Lamar | Pat Knight |
| Colorado | 12 | 0-16 | 261 | 177 | 197 | Colorado State | SMU | Jeff Bzdelik |
Note: As any of these numbers change, I will 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 Pomeroy rating
Now that's more like it.
The fraud that is Missouri basketball is now in its rightful place. Actually, I think they could finish a little lower, but this seems about right for now. I knew the initial projections were screwy.
Likewise, Oklahoma is where it should be, atop the bracket. The Sooners' numbers gained across the board, and we became their best win vis a vis Pomeroy. I guess we have that going for us.
Baylor received a slight bump from beating Tech, and OU's rise coupled with UT's fall broke the 4-way tie that was in place on Friday. Kansas' RPI went up, as Michigan State was a high-quality opponent, while the Jayhawks' Pomeroy suffered for the loss. Net effect on projected seed? Zero.
Missouri took a massive hit. Nebraska is now their worst loss (duh!), the numbers suffered across the board, and their seed plummeted. Oklahoma State received a sizable boost in RPI from beating Texas A&M.
K-State moved up in Sagarin by 1, but that was more than offset by the RPI falling to under 100. 9-7 seems about right for now. I no longer believe we are an NCAA Tournament team. (I know, I know - I was holding out hope...) The numbers are just undeniably bad right now. OU would have helped immensely. All projections have us losing at KU and NU, and Baylor is a toss-up. A 1-3 start pretty much screws our chances, and @OSU has now changed to a probable loss while A&M remains a toss-up. For now, I see a three-letter tournament in our future, and this is coming from a Kool-Aid-chugging optimist, mind you...
Nebraska had a good Saturday. Their projected record went from 6-10 to 8-8, their numbers increased nicely, and they posted their best win of the season in knocking off the Tigers. All of which makes Saturday's game in Lincoln even more daunting, of course, especially when you factor in that the Huggins-Martin-Hill brain trust has yet to win a game up there.
Texas A&M and Iowa State both saw their numbers increase despite losing. This is what happens when you finally play quality opposition. ISU in particular was impressive in dogging the Longhorns all day in Austin.
That pretty much confirms Texas Tech and Colorado as the two worst teams in the league. Somehow, Colorado's suckiness is such that their already-crappy numbers dropped sharply across the board despite not playing. That's simply marvelous.
Based on Saturday's results, Pomeroy now projects us to lose to Oklahoma State. He also now projects Nebraska to beat Oklahoma State. There were no other changes in the Pomeroy projections.
Based on Saturday's results, Sagarin now projects us to lose to Nebraska in Lincoln. He also now projects Oklahoma to beat Baylor in Norman. There were no other changes in the Sagarin projections.
As you can see below, I like KU, MU, and OU to win this week, and although ISU won a coin flip, don't sleep on Nebraska. Baylor should handle A&M, even in College Station.
Obviously, R serves only as a tiebreaker, so it is only listed when there is a split between P and S.
Results are plugged into this wonderful tool to generate the predicted records and seed order.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 recs | 3 comments
Really surprised to see our RPI drop that much
Would’ve figured playing a top ten team and losing (albeit at home) would’ve at least held us steady. Don’t know how the rest of our non-con faired (actually I know Oregon lost), but still somewhat surprising to me. Don’t know how much Saturday changed my outlook on this team. I still think 10 wins can be had. As long as we can figure out the 1-3-1, we should be ok. Hard to take too much away from losing to a top 10 team. Even if we had shot as bad as we did, but took care of the ball instead of turning it over 10 times in the last 4 minutes of the first and first 10 or so of the second, the game is so much closer. Anyway, I would love to see us win tomorrow and think we have a better than average shot, overcoming the odds we face (KU coming off loss, conference opener at home, rivalry game, John “f-ing” Higgins, etc.) will be difficult. That really makes Saturday in Lincoln paramount. Could be a big turning point for the season. We shall see.
As for the rest of the conference, no huge surprises for me. Seeing MU play Illinois told me all I needed to know about them. OSU is a bit of a surprise, but I haven’t been all that impressed with what I have seen of aTm this year either.
All that said, I hate ku with all my heart and hope we beat the ever-living crap out of them tomorrow.
gw1754 - January 12, 2009
I agree, 10 wins is still on the table...
…but it will require an upset, which this system cannot really predict. That said, I firmly believe we will surprise SOMEONE along the way. Consider that the last two seasons, this team’s only South road wins were at Texas and at Oklahoma. They always win an unlikely one somewhere. Maybe it will be tomorrow night…
BracketCat - January 12, 2009
I'm not sold on the fact that we'll finish with over 8 wins.
I haven’t seen us play much, but I don’t think this team can play consistent enough to win 9-10 games. With the exception of Colorado, any team can beat us any given night if we don’t shoot well – especially from beyond the arc. It seems to be our saving grace in the big wins over the past few years. And in close games, our free throw shooting will eat us alive.
mystman995 - January 12, 2009
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of Bring On The Cats to post a comment.