Big 12 projection, Round 4

Lots of shuffling after Round 4.  Texas Tech's stunning road win over Baylor
enabled the Red Raiders to pick up 0.8 of a projected win, plus the improvement
in their Sagarin Predictor rating boosted their prospects by another full win,
which was enough to displace Texas for third place.  Meanwhile, Kansas picked
up just 0.1 of a projected win by beating Iowa State at home, but by playing
10.5 points below expectation, the Jayhawks' Sagarin Predictor rating sagged
by enough to cost them 0.3 projected wins, so Baylor still has a game lead in
the conference race after rounding.  Oklahoma State rose two spots after
defeating Texas in Round 3, and they just as quickly surrendered those two
spots by losing at West Virginia.

                      Init.  Rd. 1  Rd. 2  Rd. 3  Rd. 4
Pred                  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.   Conf                          
Rank  Big XII Team    Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Record  Next Game   Prediction 
----  -------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------  ------  ---------   -----------
#  2  Baylor          14.0   14.1   14.3   14.8   13.8     3  1   OSU (Sa)   BU  by 13.8         
#  5  Kansas          14.0   13.8   14.4   13.3   13.1     2  1   WVU (Sa)   KU  by 10.8         
# 15  Texas Tech       9.7    9.8    9.1   10.0   11.8     3  1  @KSU (Sa)   TTU by  5.4 road win
# 14  Texas           10.6   11.2   11.7   10.6   11.2     3  1  @ISU (Sa)   UT  by  2.4 road win
# 31  Oklahoma         8.7    8.8    8.6    9.3    8.9     2  2  @TCU (Sa)   OU  by  1.0 road win
# 37  West Virginia    7.9    7.4    7.4    7.6    7.8     2  1  @KU  (Sa)                       
# 44  Iowa State       6.7    6.6    7.2    6.9    7.2     1  3   UT  (Sa)                       
# 53  Oklahoma State   7.3    7.3    6.8    7.7    6.6     1  2  @BU  (Sa)                       
# 62  TCU              6.2    6.2    6.2    5.6    6.1     1  1   OU  (Sa)                       
# 80  Kansas State     4.9    4.8    4.3    4.2    3.5     0  4   TTU (Sa)                       

My trend analysis took honors for best prognostications in Round 4, which included an extra
make-up game on Thursday.  Dunkel pulled up the rear by a wide margin (after taking honors in
the previous round).  Vegas retains the season lead by a half point (total) over Greenfield.
Those two are always so similar that they'll be neck-and-neck all season long.  Sagarin's
eigenvector analysis has the worst four-round total by a wide margin.  Not sure what he sees
in it.

[table too wide for easy display]

Right at the long-term avreage of one road win out of every three games.  Three road wins are
projected for this weekend, but two of them are one-possession affairs and could easily go
either way.

Road wins ( 6 out of 18)                     Home losses                                       RW-HL
-------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ -------
2 Baylor         ISU TCU                     0 Kansas                                         +1 BU
1 Kansas         OSU                         0 Oklahoma                                       +1 KU 
1 TCU            KSU                         0 Texas                                          +1 TTU
1 Texas          KSU                         0 Texas Tech                                     +1 UT 
1 Texas Tech     BU                          0 West Virginia                                   0 OU 
0 Iowa State                                 1 Baylor         TTU                              0 TCU
0 Kansas State                               1 Iowa State     BU                               0 WVU
0 Oklahoma                                   1 Oklahoma State KU                              -1 ISU          
0 Oklahoma State                             1 TCU            BU                              -1 OSU
0 West Virginia                              2 Kansas State   UT  TCU                         -2 KSU

We have the conference's most consistent team coming into Allen Field House on Saturday.
That makes it even hard for the Mountaineers to overcome the double-digit margin.

Performance (points)     Inconsistency (points)
---------------------    ----------------------
Baylor          +3.11    West Virginia     6.91
Iowa State      +2.80    Kansas State      7.85
Texas Tech      +1.62    Texas             8,04
Kansas State    +1.06    TCU               8.46
Kansas          +0.69    Baylor            8.76
Texas           +0.56    Kansas            8.81
TCU             +0.52    Texas Tech       10.43
Oklahoma        +0.33    Iowa State       11.57
Oklahoma State  -0.26    Oklahoma         11.79
West Virginia   -0.40    Oklahoma State   11.95

The only mental toughness rating that is statistically significant belongs to Iowa State.

Trend (points per game)           Mental toughness
------------------------------    ------------------------------
TCU             +0.75 +/- 0.61    Iowa State      +0.45 +/- 0.17
Texas Tech      +0.51 +/- 0.57    Oklahoma        +0.07 +/- 0.26
West Virginia   +0.37 +/- 0.42    Baylor          +0.06 +/- 0.17
Iowa State      +0.32 +/- 0.64    Texas Tech      +0.03 +/- 0.19
Kansas State    +0.07 +/- 0.49    Kansas State    +0.02 +/- 0.17
Texas           -0.04 +/- 0.45    West Virginia   -0.03 +/- 0.22
Oklahoma        -0.13 +/- 0.66    Texas           -0.13 +/- 0.15
Baylor          -0.41 +/- 0.48    Kansas          -0.18 +/- 0.32
Kansas          -0.66 +/- 0.52    TCU             -0.24 +/- 0.24
Oklahoma State  -0.80 +/- 0.71    Oklahoma State  -0.30 +/- 0.32

Average offense (pts)   Average defense (pts)   Total Points             Scoring Margin (pts)  
---------------------   ---------------------   ----------------------   ----------------------
Kansas          81.00   Texas           53.88   Kansas          148.47   Baylor          +19.94
Baylor          80.62   Texas Tech      59.31   Baylor          141.31   Texas           +15.62
Texas Tech      74.31   Iowa State      59.56   Oklahoma State  138.13   Texas Tech      +15.00
Oklahoma        72.56   Baylor          60.69   Oklahoma        135.62   Kansas          +13.53
TCU             71.31   Kansas State    62.40   TCU             134.69   Iowa State       +9.94
Oklahoma State  70.27   West Virginia   62.40   Texas Tech      133.62   Oklahoma         +9.50
Iowa State      69.50   Oklahoma        63.06   West Virginia   131.00   TCU              +7.92
Texas           69.50   TCU             63.38   Kansas State    130.47   West Virginia    +6.20
West Virginia   68.60   Kansas          67.47   Iowa State      129.06   Kansas State     +5.67
Kansas State    68.07   Oklahoma State  67.87   Texas           123.38   Oklahoma State   +2.40

Imagine playing a Top 25 opponent (at least according to the AP poll) at home and
having it hurt your strength of schedule.  Yeah, Kansas dropped 4 spots.  Everybody
else in the conference moved up, some of them significantly.  By playing Baylor in
Waco, Texas Tech moved up 83 spots; by playing Kansas in Lawrence, Iowa State moved
up 80 spots; by playing West Virginia in Morgantown, Oklahoma State moved up 29 spots
and displaced Kansas as having played the toughest schedule in the Big 12.  That will
continue for at least another round, as the Cowboys play in Waco next.  Both Texas and
Texas Tech are on the road this weekend, so they will move up after Round 5, possibly
out of the 200s.

Schedule Strength
---------------------------
Oklahoma State  77.50 ( 22) up 29
Kansas          76.91 ( 30) down 4
Baylor          75.82 ( 54) up 34
Oklahoma        74.80 ( 81) up 45
Kansas State    74.43 ( 90) up 31
Iowa State      74.06 (107) up 80
West Virginia   73.72 (120) up 10
TCU             71.49 (225) up 33
Texas Tech      71.12 (251) up 83
Texas           70.59 (267) up 42