predictions for Texas Tech game

Now things get interesting.  Three tournament-bound opponents to end the regular
season.  Chances are that Kansas will not face either Iowa State or Kansas State
in the Big 12 Tournament, and probably not TCU either, so likely only more
tournament-bound teams in the conference tournament.  Then as a 4 seed in the
Big Dance, there won't be any cupcakes there either.  Finish second in the
conference, and Kansas could wind up with a 3 seed.  Close out the season like
they played in January, and the Jayhawks could be a 6 seed.  The point here is
that there are no more easy games.

The good news is that this team has apparently finally come to terms with their
own inconsistency on offense, and have accepted that to win games, their defense
needs to be there night in and night out (or day in and day out for early games).
The Jayhawks have held three of their last four opponents to season lows in
scoring.  Admittedly, two of those three aren't very good teams, but they did
score more against other conference opponents than they did Kansas.

Although Kansas is projected to win the next two games (positive predicted
margins), the cumulative probabilities for the last three games round down to
just a single win.  A win at home today is crucial to a strong finish.
Regardless of what happens today, Kansas will still have more conference wins
than Baylor, whose game on Saturday has been postponed.  Yet another
postponement.  Clearly Baylor is not going to complete a full 18-game conference
slate.  Meanwhile, Kansas is apparently looking into the possibility of playing
a non-conference game in that week reserved for making up postponed games.
Recall that the Tarleton State game was canceled, so Kansas can schedule a
game and stay within the 27-game cap imposed by the NCAA.  Of course, that
assumes none of the Jayhawks' last three games gets postponed.  The way things
have been going for Baylor, next weekend's season finale may not get played.
But would they try to reschedule it during the following week?  Kansas could
still schedule a non-conference game and stick to a two-games-per-week pace.

Anyway, with one exception, the various prognosticators favor Kansas in today's
game.  The exception is the BPI, which has it as a toss-up.  Kansas is technically
the underdog, with a probability of victory at 49.9 percent, but the projected
point margin is zero, meaning overtime.  The optimist is Sagarin's eigenvector
analysis, which favors Kansas by 7.15 points.  The average is 3.05 points, with
a scatter of 1.96 points.

Tech and Kansas have the second and third stingiest defenses in the Big 12,
which has the prognosticators expecting a low-scoring affair.  Kansas averages
140.05 total points while Tech averages 136.95 total points, which average to
138.5 points, suggesting a final score of Kansas 71, Texas Tech 68, while the
averages of the various predictions have it closer to Kansas 69, Texas Tech 67.
Certainly the defensive performances since the West Virginia debacle suggest a
lower scoring affair.

Kansas has a positive trend, but it's not statistically significant, while
Tech has a negative trend of some significance.  Both teams have negative
mental toughness ratings, and both have some significance, with the value
for the Jayhawks being decidedly worse, which mostly offsets the advantage
of the positive trend.

I think it's crucial that the Jayhawks get off to a good start.  It'll be
harder to dig out of hole against the Red Raiders.  Should be a good game,
though I'd be happy with a comfortable margin at the end.

Greenfield Stats Comparison
===========================
Offensive Stats     TTU      KU      Defensive Stats     TTU      KU
Points/Game         74.2    73.3     Opp Points/Game     62.7    66.8
Avg Score Margin   +11.6    +6.5     Opp Effective FG %  47.5    47.4
Assists/Game        12.7    13.7     Off Rebounds/Gm     10.8    10.4
Total Rebounds/Gm   35.8    37.8     Def Rebounds/Gm     22.6    25.0
Effective FG %      49.1    49.9     Blocks/Game          4.2     4.0
Off Rebound %       33.1    30.9     Steals/Game          7.2     6.9
FTA/FGA            0.414   0.300     Personal Fouls/Gm   17.4    15.6
Turnover %          13.6    15.4

Kansas has the advantage in just three of the eight offensive categories
and in just three of the seven defensive categories.

My Stats Comparison        KU             TTU
===================   =============   ============
Performance           -0.50 (7)       +0.75 (4)
Inconsistency         11.66 (10)       8.71 (5)
Trend                 +0.17 ± 0.40    -0.47 ± 0.33
Mental toughness      -0.49 ± 0.26    -0.21 ± 0.16
Average total pts      140.05 (7)     136.95 (9)

The number in parentheses is the conference ranking.

Common Opponents
================
There are seven common opponents, all in conference (Tech has yet to play TCU),
two of which Kansas has played twice (Oklahoma State, Iowa State) and three of
which both teams have played twice (Oklahoma, Kansas State, West Virginia) for
which I will use only the home-home and road-road permutations, plus the
head-to-head in Lubbock, giving us thirteen scores to compare:

KU   -7 OU  on road ( -3 neutral court)     KU   +4 OU  at home (  0 neutral court)
TTU  +2 OU  on road ( +6 neutral court)     TTU  +5 OU  at home ( +1 neutral court)
KU   -5 TTU at home ( -9 neutral court)     KU   +3 TTU at home ( -1 neutral court) 

KU  +12 OSU at home ( +8 neutral court)     KU   -5 OSU on road ( -1 neutral court)
TTU  -5 OSU at home ( -9 neutral court)     TTU  -5 OSU at home ( -9 neutral court)
KU  +21 TTU at home (+17 neutral court)     KU  +12 TTU at home ( +8 neutral court)

KU  +23 KSU at home (+19 neutral court)     KU  +18 KSU on road (+22 neutral court)
TTU +11 KSU at home ( +7 neutral court)     TTU +11 KSU on road (+15 neutral court)
KU  +16 TTU at home (+12 neutral court)     KU  +11 TTU at home ( +7 neutral court) 

KU  +14 ISU on road (+18 neutral court)     KU  +33 ISU at home (+29 neutral court)
TTU +27 ISU on road (+31 neutral court)     TTU +27 ISU on road (+31 neutral court)
KU   -9 TTU at home (-13 neutral court)     KU   +2 TTU at home ( -2 neutral court) 

KU  -25 UT  at home (-29 neutral court)
TTU  +2 UT  on road ( +6 neutral court)
KU  -31 TTU at home (-35 neutral court) 

KU   -8 BU  on road ( -4 neutral court)
TTU  -8 BU  at home (-12 neutral court)
KU  +12 TTU at home ( +8 neutral court) 

KU  -12 WVU on road ( -8 neutral court)     KU  +14 WVU at home (+10 neutral court)
TTU  -1 WVU on road ( +3 neutral court)     TTU -11 WVU at home (-15 neutral court)
KU   -7 TTU at home (-11 neutral court)     KU  +29 TTU at home (+25 neutral court) 

KU   +1 TTU on road ( +5 neutral court)
KU   +9 TTU at home ( +5 neutral court) 

The average is 4.85 points in favor of Kansas, with a scatter of 15.4 points.  Decrease
the home court advantage to just 2 points, and the average margin becomes 2.38 points.

Players to Watch
================
most minutes       Kyler Edwards (guard)
most points        Matthew McClung (guard)
most rebounds      Kevin McCullar (guard)
most assists       Kyler Edwards (guard)
most steals        Kevin McCullar (guard)
most blocks        Marcus Santos-Silva (forward)
most turnovers     Matthew McClung (guard)
most fouls         Kevin McCullar (guard)

Forward Joel Ntambwe left the program for personal reasons.  He was ninth on the
team in minutes played and points scored.

                                                          16-7           14-6
                       Margin   Predicted   Win Prb      Kansas       Texas Tech
Predictor              points     Score     percent   Rating   SOS   Rating   SOS 
====================   ======   =========   =======   ============   ============
Sagarin Overall         +3.14   68   65       62       # 13   # 17    # 18   # 69
Sagarin Predictor       +2.96   68   65       61.4     # 13   # 17    # 16   # 69 
Sagarin Golden Mean     +3.51   68   65                # 13   # 17    # 20   # 69 
Sagarin Recent Games    +1.64   67   66                # 31   # 17    # 28   # 69 
Sagarin Eigenvector     +7.15   70   63       74   
Massey                  +4.00   69   65       63       # 10   # 30    # 16   # 75
Pomeroy                 +1.60   65   64                # 24   # 24    # 20   # 84
Greenfield              +1.00   67   66                # 15   # 10    # 14   # 25
Dunkel                  +5.00   72   67                # 21           # 20                           
Vegas (via Dunkel)      +1.50   68   66                                          
Dolphin Predictive      +2.27   68   66       58.1     # 21   # 17    # 20   # 28
Real Time               +7.00   77   70       60.5     # 44   # 36    # 44   # 61 
Seven Overtimes         +5.00   70   65       69       #114   #  5    # 24   # 74
DPPI                    +1.70   70   68       55.8     # 25   # 27    # 18   # 68
ESPN BPI                 0.00                 49.9     # 22   # 33    # 11   # 55
Whitlock                +1.89                          # 25   # 44    # 23   # 65
Colley Matrix           +3.20                          # 28   # 18    # 40   # 53
NCAA NET                                               # 19           # 15
LRMC                                                   #  2 * #       # 17 * #   
common opponents        +2.38
====================   ======   =========   =======   ============   ============ 
average                 +3.05   69.1 65.8     61.5
scatter                  1.96    2.8  1.7      7.0

Here is Kansas' season, for which the current season projection is still 17-9:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
NEUT   #  1 Gonzaga                     90 102    -6.94    -5.06
NEUT   #225 Saint Joseph's-Pa.          94  72   +20.94    +1.06
NEUT   # 51 Kentucky                    65  62    +5.66    -2.66
Div2        Washburn                    89  54
HOME   #149 North Dakota State          65  61   +17.96   -13.96
HOME   # 14 Creighton                   73  72    +2.44    -1.44
HOME   #280 Omaha(Neb.-Omaha)           95  50   +26.06   +18.94
AWAY   # 16 Texas Tech                  58  57    -1.15    +2.15
HOME   # 17 West Virginia               79  65    +3.17   +10.83
HOME   # 22 Texas                       59  84    +4.15   -29.15
AWAY   # 84 TCU                         93  64    +7.91   +21.09
HOME   # 20 Oklahoma                    63  59    +3.62    +0.38
AWAY   # 41 Oklahoma State              70  75    +2.42    -7.42
AWAY   #  2 Baylor                      69  77    -8.66    +0.66
AWAY   # 20 Oklahoma                    68  75    -0.50    -6.50
HOME   # 84 TCU                         59  51   +12.03    -4.03
AWAY   # 10 Tennessee                   61  80    -2.30   -16.70
HOME   #159 Kansas State                74  51   +18.43    +4.57
AWAY   # 17 West Virginia               79  91    -0.95   -11.05
HOME   # 41 Oklahoma State              78  66    +6.54    +5.46
HOME   #137 Iowa State                  97  64   +16.53   +16.47
AWAY   #137 Iowa State                  64  50   +12.41    +1.59
AWAY   #159 Kansas State                59  41   +14.31    +3.69
HOME   # 16 Texas Tech                            +2.97             0.614
AWAY   # 22 Texas                                 +0.03             0.501
HOME   #  2 Baylor                                -4.54             0.326

Here is Texas Tech's season:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
HOME   #313 Northwestern State         101  58   +28.32   +14.68
HOME   #170 Sam Houston State           84  52   +18.60   +13.40
NEUT   #  7 Houston                     53  64    -2.26    -8.74
HOME   #289 Troy                        80  46   +25.50    +8.50
HOME   #329 Grambling State             81  40   +29.46   +11.54
HOME   #104 Abilene Christian           51  44   +12.76    -5.76
HOME   #334 Texas A&M-CorpusChristi     77  57   +30.20   -10.20
HOME   # 13 Kansas                      57  58    +1.15    -2.15
AWAY   # 20 Oklahoma                    69  67    -1.41    +3.41
HOME   #324 Incarnate Word              79  51   +28.86    -0.86
HOME   # 41 Oklahoma State              77  82    +5.63   -10.63
HOME   #159 Kansas State                82  71   +17.52    -6.52
AWAY   #137 Iowa State                  91  64   +11.50   +15.50
AWAY   # 22 Texas                       79  77    -0.88    +2.88
HOME   #  2 Baylor                      60  68    -5.45    -2.55
AWAY   # 17 West Virginia               87  88    -1.86    +0.86
AWAY   # 29 LSU                         76  71    +0.01    +4.99
HOME   # 20 Oklahoma                    57  52    +2.71    +2.29
AWAY   #159 Kansas State                73  62   +13.40    -2.40
HOME   # 17 West Virginia               71  82    +2.26   -13.26
AWAY   # 13 Kansas                                -2.97             0.386
AWAY   # 41 Oklahoma State                        +1.51             0.575
HOME   # 22 Texas                                 +3.24             0.632
AWAY   # 84 TCU                                   +7.00             0.777
HOME   #137 Iowa State                           +15.62             0.934
AWAY   #  2 Baylor                                -9.57             0.129
HOME   # 84 TCU                                  +11.12             0.886