Big XII projection, Round 3

We're only one-sixth of the way through the conference season, but I'm ready to call
it:  Kansas will not win the Big XII conference.  To win the conference, you need to
hold serve at home and win several games on the road.  Kansas struggled to hold serve
in its one home game against a middle-tier (in the conference) opponent and now has
lost two of the more winnable road games.  With conference leader Iowa State strolling
into Allen Field House on Tuesday, the expectation is that Kansas will start the
conference season with a 1-3 record, when the two front-runners are only expected to
lose three conference games.  The Jayhawks would have to run the rest of the table or
get lots of help.  I just don't see that happening.  The defense has completely
disappeared:  they gave up 44 points in the first half of the UCF game, 51 points in
the second half of the TCU game, and 47 points in the second half of the West Virginia
game, with all that happening after earning Pomeroy's #6 defense after thirteen
non-conference games.  Oddly enough, Kansas could still win a national championship,
given that there is still lots of time to figure things out.  The talent is there,
but the chemistry is lacking for the moment, and it's not going to appear before the
Jayhawks have played themselves out of the conference race.

Meanhile, Iowa State played almost 7 points below expectation in a home win over
Oklahoma State, while Arizona played 2 points above expectation in a road win over
TCU, hence the Wildcats retook first place over the Cyclones.  However, if Iowa State
earns a road win over Pomeroy's #23 team, even if Arizona earns a home win over
Pomeroy's #89 team, it's quite likely that Iowa State will find itself right back in
first place after Round 4.  And Houston's dominating road win over Baylor was enough
to propel the Cougars into third place over the Cougars (the other Cougars, that is).

Interesting how many opponents are expected to score 73 points in Round 4.

                      Init   Rd 1   Rd 2   Rd 3   
                      Proj   Proj   Proj   Proj   Conf.
Rank  Big XII Team    Wins   Wins   Wins   Wins   Recrd  Next Game and Prediction
----  -------------- ------ ------ ------ ------  -----  ------------------------
#  2  Arizona        14.903 14.987 15.043 15.379   3  0  Wed  ASU  96  73
#  3  Iowa State     14.726 14.953 15.318 15.265   3  0  Tue @KU   78  73  road win
# 10  Houston        12.402 12.680 12.888 13.804   3  0  Tue  WVU  71  58
# 11  BYU            12.702 12.945 13.152 13.115   3  0  Wed  TCU  86  73
# 22  Texas Tech     10.530 10.715 10.532 10.768   2  1  Wed  UU   89  73
# 23  Kansas         11.159 10.213 10.281  9.190   1  2  Tue  ISU  73  78  home loss
# 45  UCF             8.560  9.660  8.905  8.951   2  1  Wed @KSU  88  88  road win
# 59  West Virginia   6.956  6.788  7.081  8.359   2  1  Tue @UH   58  71
# 53  TCU             7.460  8.339  8.325  7.954   1  2  Wed @BYU  73  86
# 55  Oklahoma State  6.461  6.036  6.943  7.222   1  2  Tue  BU   90  89
# 76  Colorado        6.138  7.055  7.322  7.089   2  1  Wed @UC   74  79
# 42  Baylor          9.398  8.483  8.120  6.872   0  3  Tue @OSU  89  90
# 64  Cincinnati      6.568  6.262  5.913  5.790   0  3  Wed  CU   79  74
# 89  Arizona State   6.341  5.513  5.147  5.616   1  2  Wed @UA   73  96
# 77  Kansas State    6.219  6.013  5.942  5.413   0  3  Wed  UCF  88  88  home loss
#122  Utah            3.479  3.358  3.086  3.213   0  3  Wed @TTU  73  89

If it's any consolation, there is one category in which Kansas leads the Big XII,
namely strength of schedule.  The surprise is to see Texas Tech in second place,
after years of seeing them at or near the bottom of the conference with their
Charmin-soft non-conference schedules.  Every team improved its ranking and rating,
some by more than others.

Rank  Big XII Team   Sched.
----  -------------- ------
#  2  Kansas         +12.08
#  5  Texas Tech     +10.20
# 22  Arizona State   +6.88
# 30  Kansas State    +6.37
# 41  Baylor          +5.80
# 46  Arizona         +5.54
# 52  BYU             +5.33
# 60  Houston         +4.90
# 77  Utah            +3.78
# 87  UCF             +3.11
# 93  Cincinnati      +2.79
# 95  Oklahoma State  +2.58
# 98  Iowa State      +2.35
#131  Colorado        +1.21
#154  TCU             +0.50
#271  West Virginia   -2.95

All the projected road wins in Round 3 actually happened -- except for Kansas at West Virginia.
Only two road wins are projected for Round 4, though one of them is effectively a toss-up.
UCF has just a fractional point advantage over Kansas State.

Road wins ( 9 out of  24)                     Home losses                                     RW-HL
--------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- -------
2 Arizona      UU  TCU                        0 Arizona                                      +2 UA 
2 BYU          KSU UU                         0 BYU                                          +2 BYU
2 Houston      UC  BU                         0 Houston                                      +2 UH 
1 Colorado     ASU                            0 Iowa St.                                     +1 ISU
1 Iowa St.     BU                             0 Kansas                                       +1 TTU
1 Texas Tech   CU                             0 Oklahoma St.                                  0 CU
0 Arizona St.                                 0 Texas Tech                                    0 UCF
0 Baylor                                      0 W. Virginia                                   0 KU
0 UCF                                         0 UCF                                           0 OSU
0 Cincinnati                                  1 Arizona St.  CU                               0 WVU
0 Kansas                                      1 Cincinnati   UH                              -1 ASU
0 Kansas St.                                  1 Colorado     TTU                             -1 UC 
0 Oklahoma St.                                1 Kansas St.   BYU                             -1 KSU
0 TCU                                         1 TCU          UA                              -1 TCU
0 Utah                                        2 Baylor       ISU UH                          -2 BU
0 W. Virginia                                 2 Utah         UA  BYU                         -2 UU