season projection

It's that time of year!  The asteroid is back at perihelion, and the Sagarin
starting ratings are out.   The only game in which Kansas is not favored is
the road game with West Virginia, where the Jayhawks are a 1 point underdog.
The next toughest game is the Champions Classic tilt with Kentucky, where
Kansas is a 1 point favorite.  If you're a newbie to this list, don't make
the mistake of thinking that because Kansas is favored in all but one game,
the projected record would be 30-1.  Rather, the projected win total is the
sum of the individual game probabilities, and that sum is NOT 30.  Instead,
the sum is 24.967, which we'll round up to 25 wins, for a projected record
of 25-6.  Now, you might think that the projected record ought to be better
than that for the third-ranked team in the Sagarin ratings.  But the Big 12
is once again the toughest conference.  The LOWEST ranked team is Oklahoma
State, and they're #49.   If the Big Dance simply took the top 68 teams in
the Sagarin ratings, the entire Big 12 conference would be dancing.  No
other conference can make that claim.  Of course, automatic bids will go to
several lower-ranked teams, but even if just the top 32 teams make it to the
Big Dance, the Big 12 would get seven teams in.

The usual caveats apply.  The starting Sagarin ratings are heavily biased by
the previous season's results, so the preseason projection should be taken
with several grains of salt.  I'm not familiar with all of the opponents, so
I don't know if anyone is in a position to exploit Kansas' main weakness,
which is lack of depth.  We can run, but if an opponent can also run, and
do so with a full complement of 13 scholarship players, they could outrun
Kansas.  Another weakness might come at the stripe.  The player most likely
to get fouled is Azubuike, and he has yet to demonstrate a shooting touch
from the stripe.  Preston, by contrast, looked good at the stripe in the
exhibition against Pittsburg State.  Fortunately, the non-conference portion
of the schedule isn't nearly as tough as the conference portion, and we'll
add Cunliffe to the availability list by the time conference play begins.

Here is Kansas' season:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
----   -----------------------------   -------   ------    -----    -----
HOME   #183 Tennessee State                      +26.20             0.991
NEUT   #  5 Kentucky                              +0.95             0.534
HOME   #120 South Dakota State                   +21.88             0.977
HOME   #238 Texas Southern                       +29.06             0.996
HOME   #110 Oakland-Mich.                        +20.88             0.971
HOME   #147 Toledo                               +23.52             0.984
NEUT   # 44 Syracuse                              +9.83             0.814
HOME   #105 Washington                           +20.47             0.969
HOME   # 73 Arizona State                        +16.68             0.935
AWAY   # 88 Nebraska                             +13.25             0.886
HOME   #200 Omaha(Neb.-Omaha)                    +26.92             0.993
AWAY   # 58 Stanford                              +9.12             0.796
AWAY   # 23 Texas                                 +4.02             0.643
HOME   # 39 Texas Tech                           +12.38             0.870
AWAY   # 22 TCU                                   +3.93             0.640
HOME   # 32 Iowa State                           +11.23             0.846
HOME   # 40 Kansas State                         +12.39             0.870
AWAY   #  6 West Virginia                         -1.15             0.458
HOME   # 17 Baylor                                +8.38             0.777
AWAY   # 28 Oklahoma                              +4.67             0.664
HOME   # 29 Texas A&M                            +10.90             0.839
AWAY   # 40 Kansas State                          +6.39             0.719
HOME   # 49 Oklahoma State                       +14.04             0.899
HOME   # 22 TCU                                   +9.93             0.817
AWAY   # 17 Baylor                                +2.38             0.586
AWAY   # 32 Iowa State                            +5.23             0.683
HOME   #  6 West Virginia                         +4.85             0.670
HOME   # 28 Oklahoma                             +10.67             0.834
AWAY   # 39 Texas Tech                            +6.38             0.719
HOME   # 23 Texas                                +10.02             0.819
AWAY   # 49 Oklahoma State                        +8.04             0.768