Big 12 projection, Round 8

Oklahoma was favored to win at home over Baylor, but wound up losing by 30 points,
and although TCU was projected to lose to Texas Tech, the 19 point loss was much
larger than expected.  Meanwhile, Texas survived at home against Kansas, so Baylor
and Texas both leapfrogged TCU and Oklahoma.  Indeed, Baylor even edged past idle
Kansas State.  Kansas retains the lead, but that lead is slipping away.  Really
could use a home win against Texas Tech on Saturday.

                      Init.  Rnd 4  Rnd 5  Rnd 6  Rnd 7  Rnd 8
Pred                  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.  Proj.   Conf                          
Rank  Big XII Team    Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Record  Next Game   Prediction 
----  --------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  ------  ---------   -----------
# 11  Kansas          12.80  12.87  13.01  12.20  12.60  11.89    5  3   TTU (Sa)   KU  by  4.4
# 14  Iowa State      10.49  10.07  10.97  11.17  10.81  11.27    5  3   UT  (Sa)   ISU by  6.6
# 18  Texas Tech      11.96  13.27  12.28  11.39  10.65  11.08    5  3  @KU  (Sa)   
# 38  Baylor           6.32   6.72   7.51   8.33   9.09  10.29    5  2   TCU (Sa)   BU  by  1.6
# 36  Kansas State     7.81   7.59   8.85   9.59  10.43  10.21    5  2  @OSU (Sa)   KSU by  1.6  RW
# 32  Texas            8.51   8.73   8.61   9.04   8.67   9.08    4  4  @ISU (Sa)   
# 29  TCU              9.99   9.46  10.05   9.32   9.70   8.97    3  4  @BU  (Sa)   
# 25  Oklahoma        10.61  10.44   9.05   8.55   9.18   8.34    3  5  @WVU (Sa)   OU  by  3.6  RW
# 70  Oklahoma State   5.22   6.30   5.60   5.45   4.85   5.05    2  5   KSU (Sa)   
# 69  West Virginia    6.29   4.55   4.07   4.96   4.02   3.82    1  7   OU  (Sa)   

Real Time, who has a habit of predicting more lopsided outcomes than the other
prognosticators, took honors for best predictions in Round 8, thanks to the
outcomes actually being rather lopsided.  Honorable mention to ESPN's BPI for
second place, while my home court adjustment to the adjusted Sagarin ratings
came in third.  It was a horrible round for everybody, with average errors
jumping by over a point.  Greenfield has taken over the season lead marginally
over Vegas.  But that's no surprise, as Greenfield comes closer to mimicking
Vegas than anybody else.

Predictions                                                                                           
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Saga  Mass  Pome  Gree  Dunk  Vega  Dolp  Coll  Whit  ESPN  7 OT  Real  Aste  A-HC  Trnd
ISU over WVU  11.3  15.0  15.0  12.5  11.5  13.0  15.3  18.1  16.3  15.8  13.0  21.0  15.6  17.9  18.3
OU  over BU    7.1   7.0   6.9   6.0  -3.0   6.0   6.8  13.7   9.4   6.4   9.0  11.0   8.4  10.8   4.1
TTU over TCU   4.2   5.0   4.4   5.0   8.5   4.5   3.8   1.1   3.6   7.4   2.0   6.0   4.3   6.7  -2.5
KU  over UT    2.0   2.0   0.6  -2.0   9.5   1.0   0.1  13.5   3.2   0.9   6.0  -4.0   1.3  -1.1  -0.9

     Reality  Error                                                                                  
     -------  --1-----------1-----------1-----1-----------------------1-----------1-----------------2-
              Saga  Mass  Pome  Gree  Dunk  Vega  Dolp  Coll  Whit  ESPN  7 OT  Real  Aste  A-HC  Trnd
        25    13.7  10.0  10.0  12.5  13.5  12.0   9.7   6.9   8.7   9.2  12.0   4.0   9.4   7.1   6.7
       -30    37.1  37.0  36.9  36.0  27.0  36.0  36.8  43.7  39.4  36.4  39.0  41.0  38.4  40.8  34.1
        19    14.8  14.0  14.6  14.0  10.5  14.5  15.2  17.9  15.4  11.6  17.0  13.0  14.7  12.3  21.5
       -10    12.0  12.0  10.6   8.0  19.5  11.0  10.1  23.5  13.2  10.9  16.0   6.0  11.3   8.9   9.1

total         77.6  73.0  72.1  70.5  70.5  73.5  71.8  92.0  76.7  68.1  84.0  64.0  73.8  69.1  71.4
previous     236.8 266.0 235.0 235.0 252.5 233.0 251.8 395.3 288.3 245.5 306.0 302.0 270.0 288.6 276.6
cumulative   314.4 339.0 307.1 305.5 323.0 306.5 323.6 487.3 365.0 313.6 390.0 366.0 343.8 357.7 348.0
per game       8.3   8.9   8.1   8.0   8.5   8.1   8.5  12.8   9.6   8.3  10.3   9.6   9.0   9.4   9.2

One road win had been projected for Round 8, but Kansas failed to seize the opportunity
in Austin, but Baylor stunned the Sooners with a 30 point win in Norman, so we're now
pretty much bang-on the long-term average of one in three road wins.  Two road wins are
projected for Round 9 as Oklahoma travels to Morgantown and Kansas State travels to
Stillwater.  That Baylor has the most road wins at this point should not be too surprising,
considering that all three road wins came against the bottom of the conference.

Road wins (13 out of 38)                   Home losses                            Differential (RW-HL)
----------------------------------------   ------------------------------------   --------------------
3 Baylor         OSU WVU OU                0 Kansas                               +2 Baylor        
2 Iowa State     OSU TTU                   0 TCU                                  +1 Iowa State    
2 Kansas State   ISU OU                    1 Baylor         KU                    +1 Kansas        
2 Texas Tech     WVU UT                    1 Iowa State     KSU                   +1 Kansas State  
1 Kansas         BU                        1 Kansas State   UT                    +1 Texas Tech    
1 Oklahoma       OSU                       1 Texas          TTU                    0 TCU           
1 Oklahoma State WVU                       1 Texas Tech     ISU                    0 Texas         
1 Texas          KSU                       2 Oklahoma       KSU BU                -1 Oklahoma      
0 TCU                                      3 Oklahoma State ISU BU  OU            -2 Oklahoma State
0 West Virginia                            3 West Virginia  TTU OSU BU            -3 West Virginia 

The inconsistency for Oklahoma jumped from 9.0 points to 11.8 points.  That's what playing
35 points below expectation can do.  The inconsistency for Baylor also jumped.  Interesting
that Baylor sits atop both the trend and mental toughness ratings.

Performance (points)    Inconsistency (points)    
---------------------   ----------------------    
Iowa State      +1.85   Kansas            8.09    
Texas Tech      +0.99   West Virginia     8.81    
TCU             +0.60   Texas Tech        9.55    
Baylor          +0.28   Oklahoma State    9.80    
Texas           +0.17   Iowa State       10.06    
Oklahoma        -0.19   TCU              10.91    
Oklahoma State  -0.27   Kansas State     11.33    
Kansas          -0.59   Texas            11.53    
Kansas State    -1.42   Oklahoma         11.81    
West Virginia   -2.62   Baylor           13.73    

Trend (points per game)           Mental toughness
------------------------------    ------------------------------
Baylor          +1.46 +/- 0.42    Baylor          +0.55 +/- 0.26
Iowa State      +0.49 +/- 0.35    Kansas State    +0.45 +/- 0.24
Kansas State    +0.33 +/- 0.44    Texas           +0.36 +/- 0.26
TCU             +0.21 +/- 0.43    Oklahoma State  +0.14 +/- 0.26
Texas           +0.21 +/- 0.42    Texas Tech       0.00 +/- 0.16
Oklahoma State  -0.20 +/- 0.39    Iowa State      -0.03 +/- 0.21
West Virginia   -0.37 +/- 0.31    Kansas          -0.06 +/- 0.22
Texas Tech      -0.44 +/- 0.34    TCU             -0.08 +/- 0.28
Oklahoma        -0.45 +/- 0.42    West Virginia   -0.28 +/- 0.20
Kansas          -0.51 +/- 0.28    Oklahoma        -0.65 +/- 0.41

After traveling to Lawrence, Texas Tech ought to get out of the cellar in terms of Strength
of Schedule.

Average offense (pts)   Average defense (pts)   Total Points             Scoring Margin (pts)     
---------------------   ---------------------   ----------------------   ----------------------   
Iowa State      79.14   Texas Tech      57.62   West Virginia   149.10   Iowa State      +13.10   
Kansas          76.10   Kansas State    59.30   Kansas          147.00   Texas Tech      +12.24   
TCU             75.75   Baylor          64.20   Iowa State      145.19   TCU              +8.25   
West Virginia   73.24   Iowa State      66.05   TCU             143.25   Baylor           +7.65   
Oklahoma        72.43   Oklahoma        67.38   Oklahoma        139.81   Kansas           +5.19   
Baylor          71.85   TCU             67.50   Oklahoma State  139.35   Oklahoma         +5.05   
Texas           71.14   Texas           67.52   Texas           138.67   Kansas State     +4.80   
Texas Tech      69.86   Oklahoma State  70.20   Baylor          136.05   Texas            +3.62   
Oklahoma State  69.15   Kansas          70.90   Texas Tech      127.48   Oklahoma State   -1.05   
Kansas State    64.10   West Virginia   75.86   Kansas State    123.40   West Virginia    -2.62   

Schedule Strength
--------------------------
Kansas          82.87 ( 1)
Texas           80.56 ( 6)
Oklahoma        80.50 ( 7)
Oklahoma State  80.36 ( 8)
West Virginia   78.65 (20)
Kansas State    77.52 (34)
Iowa State      77.46 (36)
TCU             77.05 (44)
Baylor          76.97 (47)
Texas Tech      76.76 (48)