predictions for Davidson game

It's been ten days since Davidson played a game, but only seven days
since Kansas played a game.  Do the extra three days allow more rust to
accumulate?  It would be a mistake to assume that it does.  Davidson
has played only one ranked opponent, namely North Carolina, and that
was in its most recent outing.  They hung with the Tarheels pretty well,
falling by only 9 points.  They've played only one other Sagarin Top 50
team, losing to Clemson by 17 on a neutral court.  On paper, it should
be a manageable win for Kansas, but definitely not an opponent to take
for granted.  Thankfully, Steph Curry is no longer on the team.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carlton Bragg has a monster game.  And the
way Landen Lucas played in the last game, it may be an indication
that he's breaking out of whatever funk he might have been in.  This
might be a good time for the bigs to make a big contribution,
especially if Davidson has been preparing to play against a small
four-guard line-up.  The Jayhawks might catch the Wildcats off-guard
and put up an impressive win, with the bigs making the difference.
One can only hope so, because we'll need the bigs down the stretch.
But it could just as easily be status quo for the bigs.  We shall see.

Sagarin gives Kansas a 16.6 point margin, with a 96.1 percent
probability of winning the game.  The two teams have been averaging
150 total points, so the suggested final score would be Kansas 83,
Davidson 67.  Both teams are performing above expectation, though
Kansas has the edge by over a point.  While Davidson is right on the
national average in terms of consistency, Kansas has been much more
consistent, which would make it harder to play below expectation by
enough points to lose today's game.  Indeed, Kansas has yet to play
a game more than 8 points below expectation.  Meanwhile, even though
Davidson is less consistent, the Wildcats have yet to play a game
more than 12 points above expectation, so for Davidson to overcome a
16+ point margin for Kansas would be unprecedented for both teams this
season.  Both teams have virtually identical positive trends, though
the value for Kansas has some statistical significance to it, while
the value for Davidson does not.  Both teams have negative mental
toughness ratings, and again the value for Kansas has some statistical
significance to it, while the value for Davidson does not.  Taken at
face value, the margin would become 17.6 points.  The new Sagarin
"offense-defense" method puts the margin at 18.6 points and the
final score at Kansas 88, Davidson 70.

Massey gives Kansas an 18.0 point margin, with a 95 percent
probability of winning the game.  His projected final score
is Kansas 87, Davidson 69.

Pomeroy has Kansas with the better adjusted offense by 8.9 units, as
well as the better adjusted defense by 8.4 units, which combine to
an advantage of 17.3 units for Kansas.  The average adjusted tempo is
71.2, which translates into a 12.3 point advantage for Kansas and a
predicted final score of Kansas 81, Davidson 69.  But you know what?
While pondering why Pomeroy's margins have been consistently smaller
than the others, and having just determined a new scaling factor for
Whitlock's power ratings, it occurred to me that I've been ignoring
the home court advantage when computing the margin from Pomeroy's
ratings.  If we use Sagarin's 3.12 point home court advantage, the
margin for Pomeroy increases to 15.4 points, right in line with Vegas.
The suggest score then becomes Kansas 82, Davidson 67.  Of course, it
can be argued that the Sprint Center isn't a true home court for
Kansas.  Pomeroy would call it a "semi-home" game and probably
diminish the home court advantage, but not eliminate it, so you might
bump up the Davidson score by a point.  Not sure why I forgot to
include the home court advantage when computing the Pomeroy margin.
Maybe it's because we started out with two neutral court games, and I
got into a nasty habit.  But when Crotistics finally got on board for
this season recently, I had to manually include the home court
advantage after differencing his ratings, so that should have triggered
my memory at that time.  Oh well.  It's in there now for Pomeroy.

Greenfield gives Kansas a 15.0 point margin, with a Vegas implied
final score of Kansas 84.5, Davidson 69.5 (you pick the roundings).
Among the key offensive stats, Kansas has the advantage in all eight
categories.  Among the key defensive stats, Kansas has the advantage
in five out of seven categories, with Davidson holding opponents to
a slightly lower effective field goal percentage, while also
committing slightly fewer personal fouls per game.

Dunkel gives Kansas a 22.0 point margin, and he claims that a Vegas
line is at 14.0 points, so he is picking Kansas against the spread.
His total points is 162, suggesting a final score of Kansas 92,
Davidson 70.  Meanwhile, Vegas calls for 156.5 total points, suggesting
a final score of Kansas 85, Davidson 71.

Real Time gives Kansas an 11.0 point margin with a final score of
Kansas 84, Davidson 73.  That is, unless you also click on the Scouting
link, where the margin is just 9 points, the probability of victory is
72.8 percent, and the final score is Kansas 83, Davidson 74.

Collegiate Basketball News is now doing the RPI for this season.  Last
season's Jayhawk killer, Villanova, is now in the #1 spot with Baylor
dropping to #2.

Dolphin isn't on board with this season yet, as usual.  I'm using last
season's rankings in the table below.  But he usually appears right
around when the teams become connected, so if he's going to come on
board for this season, it should be Real Soon Now.

The latest projections that I have from Don Davis are dated December 2,
so they're a little out-of-date by now, but they give Kansas a 5.3 point
margin, with a final score of Kansas 77, Davidson 71, with the rounding
working in the Jayhawks' favor.  Note that Don has this game labeled as
a neutral court game, which partially explains the small margin.  Being
somewhat out-of-date is probably a bigger reason.

Colley is now on board with this season.  He only does rankings, not
game predictions.  Like the RPI, he has Villanova #1, with Baylor
dropping to #2.

Whitlock is finally on board with this season.  To set the scaling
factor, I'll note that he has Villanova as #1 with a power rating of
60.80, and Alabama A&M as #351 with a power rating of 0.50, for a
difference from top to bottom of 60.3 units.  Meanwhile, Sagarin gives
Villanova a Predictor rating of 92.83 and Alabama A&M a rating of 48.78,
for a difference of 44.05 points.  Sagarin agrees with having Alabama
A&M at the bottom of the rankings, though Villanova is only Sagarin's
#7 team in Predictor.  The indicated scaling is 0.73 points per unit.
If instead we use Sagarin's #1 team in Predictor, West Virginia, the
difference increases to 47.6 points, and the scaling would then be
0.79 points per unit.  Because Whitlock credits Pomeroy for the scores,
I wouldn't be surprised if he also uses a power rating method that
scales things to 100 possessions, so a scaling factor of 0.73 comes
closer to Pomeroy's method (as well as what I was using last season
for Whitlock), so I'll go with that for now.  The difference between
Whitlock's power ratings for Kansas and Davidson is 14.96 units, which
scales to 10.92 points.  Add Sagarin's 3.12 points for the home
court advantage, and the margin becomes 14.0 points.

ESPN isn't on board with its BPI this season yet, as usual.  I'm using last
season's rankings in the table below.  Like Dolphin, the BPI for this
season should be appearing soon.

The LRMC isn't available for this season yet, as usual.  I'm using last
season's rankings in the table below.  LRMC usually shows up around the
time of the NCAA Tournament.

Seven Overtimes gives Kansas just an 8.0 point margin with a 79 percent
probability of winning the game.  The suggested final score is
Kansas 79, Davidson 71.  This game is flagged as being at a neutral
site, which might explain the lower margin.

Crotistics gives Kansas a 15.3 point margin after differencing his
ratings for the two teams, adding in the 3.5 point generic home court
advantage, and then another 0.82 points from the team-specific home
advantage factor.  If you don't think the Sprint Center qualifies as
a home court, reduce the margin by 4.3 points.

There are no common opponents.

Players to watch:  Forward Peyton Aldridge plays the most minutes and
grabs the most rebounds; guard Jack Gibbs scores the most points and
dishes the most assists, but also commits the most turnovers; guard
Jon Axel Gudmundsson is their leading thief; forward Will Magarity
blocks the most shots, but also commits the most personal fouls.

The average of the various prognostications is 15.3 points in favor of
Kansas.  I suspect that Davidson's recent performance against North
Carolina is what made some of those predicted margins on the smaller
side.  Make it Kansas 83, Davidson 67, with the rounding working in
the Jayhawks' favor.

Rock Chalk!
     
               =================================== Sagarin ====================================
               Rate    SoS    PP     GM    Rcnt   Perf   Inc.       Trend        Mental Tufness
               ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   --------------   --------------
Kansas         #  3   # 56   #  5   #  5   #  5   +1.5    7.4   +1.08 +/- 0.78   -0.35 +/- 0.24
Davidson       # 64   # 58   # 63   # 71   # 70   +0.2   11.1   +1.09 +/- 1.79   -0.04 +/- 0.41
 
               = Massey =   = Pomeroy =   Greenfield   Dunkel    Real Time    === RPI ===
               Rate   SoS   Rate    SoS   Rate   SoS    Rate    Rate    SoS   Rate    SoS
               ----  ----   ----   ----   ----  ----    ----    ----   ----   ----   ----
Kansas         #  3  #  2   #  4   # 63   #  2  #  3    #  6    #  2   # 11   #  7   # 42
Davidson       # 73  # 19   # 64   # 44   # 65  # 26    # 73    # 74   # 22   # 34   # 44
 
               ======================= Dolphin ======================   =====    == DPPI ==
               Std.   Med.   Pre.   IRPI   RPI    Pair   Poll   Sched   Recrd    Rate   SoS
               ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   ----   -----   -----    ----  ----
Kansas         # (1)  # (1)  # (2)  # (2)  # (1)  # (1)  # (1)           9-1     #     #   
Davidson       #(89)  #(89)  #(106) #(72)  #(68)  #(84)  #(91)           5-3     #     #   
 
               = Colley =     Whitlock      ESPN BPI     == LRMC ==    == 7OT ===    Crotistics
               Rate   SoS    Rate   SoS    Rate   SoS    Rate   SoS    Rate   SoS    Rate   SoS
               ----  ----    ----  ----    ----  ----    ----  ----    ----  ----    ----  ----
Kansas         #  6  # 35    #  5  #  9    # (5) #       # (1) #       #  1  # 14    #  2  #  7
Davidson       # 75  # 27    # 55  # 20    #(99) #       #(125)#       # 88  # 19    # 56  # 44

Here is Kansas' season, with the latest season record projection as 25-6;
we're back down to just two more projected losses, namely the consecutive
road games at West Virginia and Kentucky, but two others are toss-ups.
Kansas should go into Hilton with a 5-0 conference record.

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
NEUT   # 16 Indiana                     99 103    +3.94    -7.94
NEUT   #  2 Duke                        77  75    -1.24    +3.24
HOME   #147 Siena                       86  65   +24.67    -3.67
HOME   #104 UAB                         83  63   +21.22    -1.22
HOME   # 56 Georgia                     65  54   +15.83    -4.83
HOME   #139 NC Asheville                95  57   +23.55   +14.45
HOME   #180 Long Beach State            91  61   +26.47    +3.53
HOME   # 55 Stanford                    89  74   +15.76    -0.76
HOME   #227 Kansas City(UMKC)          105  62   +29.41   +13.59
HOME   # 83 Nebraska                    89  72   +18.47    -1.47
HOME   # 63 Davidson                             +16.64             0.961
AWAY   #182 UNLV                                 +20.33             0.985
AWAY   # 49 TCU                                   +8.74             0.853
HOME   # 47 Kansas State                         +14.43             0.969
HOME   # 27 Texas Tech                           +10.53             0.914
AWAY   # 39 Oklahoma                              +6.99             0.814
HOME   # 36 Oklahoma State                       +12.94             0.931
AWAY   # 15 Iowa State                            +0.78             0.541
HOME   # 77 Texas                                +18.02             0.968
AWAY   #  1 West Virginia                         -5.81             0.269
AWAY   #  4 Kentucky                              -3.36             0.361
HOME   # 14 Baylor                                +6.52             0.750
HOME   # 15 Iowa State                            +7.02             0.822
AWAY   # 47 Kansas State                          +8.19             0.856
AWAY   # 27 Texas Tech                            +4.29             0.711
HOME   #  1 West Virginia                         +0.43             0.518
AWAY   # 14 Baylor                                +0.28             0.512
HOME   # 49 TCU                                  +14.98             0.964
AWAY   # 77 Texas                                +11.78             0.888
HOME   # 39 Oklahoma                             +13.23             0.954
AWAY   # 36 Oklahoma State                        +6.70             0.778

Here is Davidson's season to date:
 
SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
HOME   #284 Appalachian State           86  74   +19.38    -7.38
NEUT   # 33 Clemson                     78  95    -4.23   -12.77
NEUT   #113 Missouri                    70  55    +5.10    +9.90
NEUT   #126 Arizona State               68  60    +5.67    +2.33
HOME   #200 Charlotte                   79  57   +14.40    +7.60
AWAY   #219 Mercer                      78  57    +9.32   +11.68
AWAY   #114 College of Charleston       61  76    +2.00   -17.00
AWAY   #  6 North Carolina              74  83   -16.22    +7.22
AWAY   #  5 Kansas                               -16.64             0.039