KU still on top in the Big 12, Baylor gains, West Virginia fades

Kansas is still clinging to a slight lead in the Big 12 probabilistic projections but Baylor has closed the gap and there is little margin for error. You can see the projections in the following links in table or chart form.

Big 12-tables

Big 12-charts

Also, KU has almost closed the gap for 1st place in the DPPI with Duke's loss to Louisville. Kansas is a mere 0.08 points behind Duke. Order is being restored in the basketball world as Gonzaga is in third and Michigan St. is in 4th. Those would be my 4 No. 1 seeds as of now. Baylor and West Virginia (7th and 8th) would be 2 seeds. Virginia and UNC would not be in the tourney and the Big 12 would get only 4 teams while the Big 10 would get 12 teams. Of course, that won't happen because a lot will change between now and March. Strange season in college basketball.

My DPPI is here --> DPPI

That may be what the numbers say but I do not see it that way. I think right now Baylor is in the drivers seat. They have road wins over both KU and TT not to mention OSU. They have been very good in conference play.

Hairy, I agree with you. That is why I have been building a new methodology for calculating probabilities and score projections. My old methodology for calculating score projections was really just intended to project the scoring margin. The actual score projection was simplistic and I was not happy with it. So I developed a new algorithm for score projections. I finished it up this morning and went back and tested it against prior games and it is substantially more accurate in projecting the actual scores while the margins are about the same. While I was at it, I added a new algorithm for projecting probabilities. Whereas the old method used total team rating as a correlation variable, this one breaks it down into offense and defense rating and instead of using scoring totals it normalizes score to possessions. I went back and reran the Big 12 projections after every round and your smell test was validated. Baylor is actually in the drivers seat by a small margin. I have posted the updated graphs and tables. Baylor is projected to win 14.6 games and KU is projected to win 14.2 games using this new methodology. I will continue to track both methods, but my best judgment is that the new method will prove more reasonable. It is also great that Asteroid does his methodology as well giving a good comparison. I'm not sure what he bases his on but he has KU projected to win ever so slightly more than Baylor but it is similar to my projection, or at least in the ballpark. Incidentally, KU is projected to win 25.2 games and lose 5.8 games. Round that to 25-6, meaning likely 3 more losses.

Big 12-tables

Big 12-charts