initial season projection

The asteroid is back to perihelion!

Sagarin's starting ratings are finally out, and Kansas opens in the #2 spot
behind Gonzaga, a spot higher than in the preseason AP poll.  The Big 12
is #2 among conferences behind the Big Ten, with all ten conference members
in the top tier (top third) of Division I, with four teams in the Top 25.

  #2 Kansas
  #5 Baylor
 #10 Texas
 #16 Texas Tech
 #29 West Virginia
 #39 Oklahoma State
 #48 Oklahoma
 #77 TCU
 #97 Kansas State
#117 Iowa State

My understanding is that Okalhoma State is ineligible to play in the
Big 12 Tournament, so the Wednesday session will feature just one game.
If that game features Kansas State and Iowa State, the game may still be
fairly well attended.

Only 12 non-conference games this season, to go with the usual 18 conference
games.  Out of those 30 games, Kansas is favored in 29 of them.  The sole
projected loss is the game in Waco, though the game is Austin is close to
being a toss-up.  Now comes the confusing part.  If Kansas is projected to
lose only one game, why is the projected record 25 and 5?  This question
seems to come up every season, so let's nip it in the bud right off the bat.
If two teams play each other 100 times on a neutral court, the better team
will be projected to win every game, but do you really expect the final
record to be 100 and 0?  You shouldn't, because the probability of winning
each individual game isn't 100 percent.  Indeed, if the two teams are
nearly equal, such that the probability of the better team winning is just
51 percent, then the final record ought to be something like 51 and 49,
not 100 and 0.  So the projected record is really the sum of the individual
game probabilities of winning.  Having said that, projecting this season's
regular season record is complicated by the two opponents that have not yet
been determined.  We know that we'll open the ESPN Invitational with North
Texas, but the second opponent will be either Dayton or Miami.  Dayton is
the higher ranked of the two, so the projected record assumes that Dayton
will be the opponent.  The third and final game of the Invitational could
come against Alabama, Drake, Belmont, or Iona, with the Crimson Tide being
the most likely opponent, so again the projected record assume that Alabama
will be the opponent.  If some team other than Dayton and Alabama winds up
facing Kansas, the projected number of wins would be slightly higher.

The ugly game of the season comes next week against Tarleton State, which
could be a 30-point win, with a 99.7 percent probability of winning.  Every
other opponent is in the top half the Sagarin ratings, though UTEP could
drop into the bottom half if they don't start the season as projected.

The projected conference record is 14 and 4, though the ratings will be a
lot more robust before the conference slate beings.

As usual, the Sagarin starting ratings are heavily biased by last season,
so the current projections should be taken with as many grains of salt as
you feel is warranted.  The teams won't be well-connected until around
mid-December, so the ratings (and projected record) will show considerable
volatility for the first several weeks of the season.

First up is the Champions Classic in Madison Square Garden against
Michigan State.  Although the Spartans didn't make the AP Top 25, they
are Sagarin's #20 team.  Play 100 times, and Kansas is projected to win
69 of them by an average of 5.45 points, so expect it to be a two-possession
affair.

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
NEUT   # 20 Michigan State                        +5.45             0.690
HOME   #275 Tarleton State                       +29.68             0.997
HOME   #153 Stony Brook-NY                       +22.19             0.978
NEUT   #122 North Texas                          +16.62             0.935
NEUT   # 78 Dayton                               +12.35             0.869
NEUT   # 92 Miami-Florida                        +13.40          or 0.888
NEUT   # 17 Alabama                               +5.06             0.677
NEUT   # 75 Drake                                +11.83          or 0.859
NEUT   #106 Belmont                              +14.88          or 0.912
NEUT   #174 Iona College                         +20.81          or 0.971
AWAY   # 51 St. John's                            +5.86             0.703
HOME   #179 UTEP                                 +24.23             0.986
HOME   # 65 Missouri                             +14.14             0.901
HOME   #132 Stephen F. Austin                    +20.72             0.970
AWAY   # 38 Colorado                              +4.50             0.659
HOME   #115 Harvard                              +19.23             0.960
HOME   # 77 TCU                                  +15.38             0.919
AWAY   # 39 Oklahoma State                        +4.63             0.663
AWAY   # 16 Texas Tech                            +1.68             0.561
HOME   #117 Iowa State                           +19.41             0.961
HOME   # 29 West Virginia                         +9.92             0.816
AWAY   # 48 Oklahoma                              +5.52             0.692
AWAY   # 97 Kansas State                         +10.89             0.839
HOME   # 16 Texas Tech                            +8.12             0.770
HOME   # 13 Kentucky                              +7.40             0.749
AWAY   #117 Iowa State                           +12.97             0.881
HOME   #  5 Baylor                                +5.39             0.688
AWAY   # 10 Texas                                 +0.57             0.521
HOME   # 48 Oklahoma                             +11.96             0.862
HOME   # 39 Oklahoma State                       +11.07             0.843
AWAY   # 29 West Virginia                         +3.48             0.624
HOME   # 97 Kansas State                         +17.33             0.942
AWAY   #  5 Baylor                                -1.05             0.462
AWAY   # 77 TCU                                   +8.94             0.792
HOME   # 10 Texas                                 +7.01             0.738

                                                   overall         24.647
                                                   conference      14.323