initial BIg 12 projection

Last season we had 90 conference wins to spread around.  This season we have 126 conference wins to
spread around.  Due to rounding, the sum of the initial number of predicted wins is 126.001.  As a
general rule, the lower the ranking, the lower the number of projected wins.  However, UCF is ranked
a bit higher than Kansas State, but is projected to win fewer games than Kansas State, and that's
due to the unbalanced schedules.  Each team plays 18 conference games, just like last season, so
the projected conference record for Kansas is currently 11-7.

                      Init
Pred                  Proj
Rank  Big XII Team    Wins
----  -------------- ------
#  1  Houston        14.753
#  4  BYU            13.331
# 13  Kansas         11.129
# 15  Baylor         10.930
# 18  Iowa State     10.283
# 26  Oklahoma        9.775
# 32  Texas           8.957
# 34  TCU             8.897
# 37  Texas Tech      8.828
# 40  Cincinnati      8.497
# 75  Kansas State    6.225
# 73  UCF             5.855
# 93  Oklahoma State  4.861
#124  West Virginia   3.680

Iowa State has been winning games by an average of 6.73 points more than predicted; then again,
the Cyclones have played the conference's weakest schedule, according to Pomeroy.  Maybe that
has something to do with it.

Houston has been incredibly consistent, or so it seems.  However, the fewer points you score in a
game, the smaller your standard deviation is going to be.  Houston has been playing the lowest-scoring
games in the conference, but if you scale their scoring up to the conference average, their inconsistency
would still be around 8.3, a fair bit better than the rest of the conference.

Performance (points)     Inconsistency (points)    
---------------------    ----------------------    
Iowa State      +6.73    Houston           7.17    
BYU             +6.54    West Virginia     7.85    
Houston         +4.44    Oklahoma State    7.88    
Baylor          +3.29    TCU               8.57    
Cincinnati      +2.44    Texas             9.07    
UCF             +2.42    BYU              10.32    
TCU             +1.41    Oklahoma         10.38    
Oklahoma        +1.20    Kansas           10.67    
Texas Tech      +0.74    Texas Tech       10.69    
Kansas          -0.17    Cincinnati       11.05    
Oklahoma State  -0.32    Kansas State     12.14    
Kansas State    -0.52    Baylor           12.39    
Texas           -0.61    UCF              12.69    
West Virginia   -2.10    Iowa State       13.42    

Trends, as a general rule, are not statistically significant.  Texas Tech appears to be getting better,
while Oklahoma and Iowa State may be getting worse.

West Virginia seems to play better against tougher opponents.  They'll get plenty of them in conference
play, so don't be surprised if the Mountaineers win more than the 4 games they're currently projected to
win.

Trend (points per game)           Mental toughness
------------------------------    ------------------------------
Texas Tech      +1.14 +/- 0.75    West Virginia   +0.25 +/- 0.25
UCF             +0.72 +/- 1.09    Oklahoma        +0.18 +/- 0.24
Oklahoma State  +0.46 +/- 0.59    Kansas          +0.09 +/- 0.27
Texas           +0.37 +/- 0.69    Kansas State    -0.10 +/- 0.40
West Virginia   +0.13 +/- 0.61    Oklahoma State  -0.14 +/- 0.25
Houston         +0.02 +/- 0.55    TCU             -0.18 +/- 0.20
TCU             +0.01 +/- 0.66    Texas           -0.21 +/- 0.23
Baylor          -0.17 +/- 1.09    BYU             -0.35 +/- 0.27
Kansas State    -0.23 +/- 0.94    Texas Tech      -0.36 +/- 0.38
Cincinnati      -0.57 +/- 0.84    Cincinnati      -0.42 +/- 0.39
BYU             -0.61 +/- 0.78    Houston         -0.44 +/- 0.18
Kansas          -0.82 +/- 0.90    Baylor          -0.62 +/- 0.21
Oklahoma        -0.92 +/- 0.75    UCF             -0.74 +/- 0.41
Iowa State      -1.01 +/- 0.99    Iowa State      -0.82 +/- 0.31

Houston may not score that much, but with that defense, they don't have to.  The gap between Houston
and second-place Iowa State in defense is about as large as the gap between second place and last place.
BYU has been rolling up big scores, and big margins as a result.

Average offense (pts)   Average defense (pts)   Total Points             Scoring Margin (pts)     
---------------------   ---------------------   ----------------------   ----------------------   
BYU             89.31   Houston         50.33   Baylor          157.83   BYU             +26.69   
Baylor          87.56   Iowa State      60.15   TCU             152.23   Iowa State      +25.00   
Iowa State      85.15   BYU             62.62   BYU             151.92   Houston         +24.65   
TCU             85.10   Oklahoma        64.44   Cincinnati      147.92   TCU             +17.96   
Oklahoma        81.33   UCF             65.33   Oklahoma        145.77   Baylor          +17.29   
Cincinnati      81.00   Texas           65.38   Kansas          145.42   Oklahoma        +16.88   
Kansas          78.46   Texas Tech      65.40   Iowa State      145.31   Cincinnati      +14.08   
Texas           78.08   Cincinnati      66.92   Kansas State    145.23   Texas           +12.69   
UCF             77.42   Kansas          66.96   Texas           143.46   UCF             +12.08   
Texas Tech      77.06   Oklahoma State  67.08   UCF             142.75   Texas Tech      +11.65   
Houston         74.98   TCU             67.13   Texas Tech      142.46   Kansas          +11.50   
Kansas State    74.90   Baylor          70.27   Oklahoma State  141.23   Oklahoma State   +7.08   
Oklahoma State  74.15   Kansas State    70.33   West Virginia   137.85   Kansas State     +4.58   
West Virginia   66.96   West Virginia   70.88   Houston         125.31   West Virginia    -3.92   

Pitiful.  Half the conference is in the Bottom 50 in strength of schedule.  They haven't been
tested.  Kansas has played the toughest schedule, surprise, surprise.  Give West Virginia props
for playing a decent schedule, but they've paid the price in terms of win-loss record.  Without
Huggins, they're not ready for such a tough schedule.  All based on Pomeroy.

Schedule Strength
---------------------------
Kansas          +4.45 ( 60)
West Virginia   +3.09 ( 85)
Kansas State    +1.07 (137)
Baylor          +0.63 (152)
Houston         -1.05 (216)
Texas Tech      -2.83 (277)
Cincinnati      -3.69 (296)
BYU             -4.47 (313)
Texas           -5.37 (328)
UCF             -5.79 (331)
Oklahoma State  -5.92 (334)
Oklahoma        -6.26 (337)
TCU             -7.20 (346)
Iowa State      -7.28 (347)

Note that UCF is the only Big 12 team to play a 12-game non-conference slate.  Everybody else
played the maximum 13 games.