initial season projection

Pomeroy is out with his starting ratings, so we can perform an initial season
projection based on those ratings.  It calls for a 22-9 record.  Projected
losses include the Duke game in Las Vegas, the Creighton, Cincinnati,
Iowa State, Baylor, and Houston road games, plus the Houston home game.
The projected Cincinnati and Iowa State losses would be consecutive.

Wait a minute!  That's only 7 projected losses.  So why a projected record
of 22-9???  Every year that I haven't explained this situation right off the bat,
somebody asks about it.  It has to do with the laws of probability and statistics.
If you have two nearly equal teams, say one with a rating of 51 and another
with a rating of 49, and you have them play each other 100 times on a neutral
court, the team with the rating of 51 would be favored to win EVERY SINGLE
GAME!  Of course; it's the higher rated team.  But in reality, that team would
likely win only 51 percent of the time, for a record of 51-49.  That is, you're
only going to win toss-up games half the time.  You really have to look at the
probability of victory in each game and add all those probabilities together to
determine the projected season record.  Do that with the probabilities shown
below and you'll get 22 wins out of a 31 game season.  The road game with
BYU is a projected win, but by just a fraction of a point.  That could easily be
one of those statistical losses.

Houston is Pomeroy's #1 team, and by enough that the home court advantage
won't be enough to prevent KU from being the underdog in the home game with
Houston.  KU will play #1 twice, home and away, #2 once on a neutral court,
#7 twice, home and away, #8 at home, #11 on the road, #12 on the road, #14
at home, #15 on the road, #17 on the road, and #21 on the road.  That's 12
games against the Top 25.  Another monster schedule.

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
HOME   #214 Howard                      87  61   +25.35             0.992
HOME   # 14 North Carolina              78  73    +5.20             0.688
NEUT   # 35 Michigan St.                73  67    +5.44             0.696
HOME   #173 Oakland                     83  61   +22.25             0.982
HOME   #154 UNC Wilmington              82  61   +21.04             0.977
NEUT   #  2 Duke                        71  73    -1.62             0.439
HOME   #165 Furman                      84  62   +22.30             0.982
AWAY   # 12 Creighton                   73  75    -2.53             0.405
AWAY   # 53 Missouri                    75  71    +3.94             0.645
HOME   # 52 N.C. State                  79  68   +11.03             0.851
HOME   #243 Brown                       87  60   +26.48             0.994
HOME   # 87 West Virginia               80  66   +14.59             0.916
AWAY   # 66 UCF                         75  70    +5.59             0.701
HOME   # 71 Arizona St.                 80  66   +13.51             0.899
AWAY   # 17 Cincinnati                  72  73    -0.35             0.487
AWAY   #  7 Iowa St.                    69  73    -3.50             0.370
HOME   # 49 Kansas St.                  76  66   +10.60             0.842
AWAY   # 58 TCU                         76  71    +4.86             0.677
HOME   #  1 Houston                     69  69    -0.16             0.494
HOME   # 66 UCF                         79  66   +12.59             0.883
AWAY   # 11 Baylor                      72  74    -2.62             0.402
HOME   #  7 Iowa St.                    73  69    +3.50             0.630
AWAY   # 49 Kansas St.                  73  69    +3.60             0.633
HOME   # 80 Colorado                    80  65   +14.15             0.909
AWAY   # 82 Utah                        77  69    +7.43             0.759
AWAY   # 21 BYU                         74  74    +0.43             0.516
HOME   # 89 Oklahoma St.                82  66   +15.32             0.926
AWAY   # 80 Colorado                    76  69    +7.15             0.750
HOME   # 15 Texas Tech                  72  67    +5.24             0.690
AWAY   #  1 Houston                     65  73    -7.16             0.249
HOME   #  8 Arizona                     79  75    +4.05             0.649