Big XII post mortem

The biggest surprise this season was TCU, who finished 3.5 wins ahead of their preseason
projection.  The biggest disappointment is BYU, who finished 3.7 wins behind their
preseason projection.  Errors of 3 projected wins are not unusual historically.

                      Init                
                      Proj   Conf.        
Rank  Big XII Team    Wins   Recrd   Diff 
----  -------------- ------  -----  ------
# 44  TCU             7.460  11  7  +3.540
# 42  Cincinnati      6.568   9  9  +2.432
# 58  West Virginia   6.956   9  9  +2.044
#  6  Houston        12.402  14  4  +1.598
# 15  Texas Tech     10.530  12  6  +1.470
#  3  Arizona        14.903  16  2  +1.097
# 64  Colorado        6.138   7 11  +0.862
# 19  Kansas         11.159  12  6  +0.841
# 63  Arizona State   6.341   7 11  +0.659
# 52  UCF             8.560   9  9  +0.440
# 69  Oklahoma State  6.461   6 12  -0.461
#127  Utah            3.479   2 16  -1.479
#  7  Iowa State     14.726  12  6  -2.726
#101  Kansas State    6.219   3 15  -3.219
# 48  Baylor          9.398   6 12  -3.398
# 25  BYU            12.702   9  9  -3.702

Not surprisingly, Michigan finished with the toughest schedule.  Alabama was #2.
West Virginia winning the College Basketball Crown didn't help them reach double
digits like everybody else in the Big XII.

Rank  Big XII Team   Sched.
----  -------------- ------
#  3  Kansas         +16.63
#  7  Arizona        +15.88
#  8  Texas Tech     +15.57
# 17  BYU            +14.28
# 19  Arizona State  +14.13
# 23  Baylor         +13.64
# 25  Houston        +13.56
# 31  Kansas State   +12.71
# 35  Iowa State     +12.39
# 39  UCF            +11.90
# 40  TCU            +11.82
# 43  Utah           +11.77
# 48  Oklahoma State +11.36
# 56  Cincinnati     +10.73
# 58  Colorado       +10.65
# 71  West Virginia   +9.42

Performance is the average of the difference between the actual and
predicted margins, with the predictions being based on the Pomeroy
ratings.  Most Big XII teams were underrated.  The more games you
play, the closer to zero these numbers would get, barring any
significant changes in personnel due to, for example, injuries.

Big XII Team   Perf.
-------------- -----
Iowa State     +2.55
BYU            +1.73
Houston        +1.24
Texas Tech     +1.22
Baylor         +1.13
Kansas State   +0.79
Kansas         +0.74
Cincinnati     +0.59
Arizona        +0.58
West Virginia  +0.47
TCU            +0.47
Utah           +0.46
Oklahoma State +0.37
UCF            -0.19
Colorado       -0.57
Arizona State  -0.97

Inconsistency is the standard deviation of the differences between the
actual and predicted margins.  The national average is around 10 points.
Interesting that the Big XII's worst and best teams were the most consistent.

Big XII Team   Incon
-------------- -----
Utah            7.41
Arizona         8.29
UCF             9.81
West Virginia   9.95
Houston        10.12
Colorado       10.34
TCU            10.54
Kansas         10.73
Oklahoma State 10.83
Arizona State  11.18
Baylor         11.43
BYU            11.53
Cincinnati     12.16
Texas Tech     12.26
Kansas State   12.71
Iowa State     13.17

Trend is the difference between the actual margin and the predicted margin
as a function of game number.  Typical uncertainties are in the 0.1 to 0.2
range, so most teams showed no significant change in performance over the
course of the season.  Cincinnati was definitely playing better toward the
end of the season (and they dumped their coach).  BYU was definitely playing
worse, but the loss of a key player to injury can do that.  Kansas State also
got worse, and they dumped Tang.  Kansas is pretty low in this ranking; could
it be because a key player started playing full games?

Big XII Team   Trend
-------------- -----
Cincinnati     +0.34
Houston        +0.20
TCU            +0.04
Arizona        +0.03
West Virginia  -0.01
Utah           -0.03
Arizona State  -0.04
Texas Tech     -0.05
Iowa State     -0.07
Baylor         -0.08
Colorado       -0.12
UCF            -0.17
Kansas         -0.25
Oklahoma State -0.35
Kansas State   -0.37
BYU            -0.43

Mental toughness is the difference between the actual margin and the predicted
margin as a function of opponent strength.  Like the previous, typical uncertainties
are in the 0.1 to 0.2 range, so most teams did not do substantially better or worse
depending on the strength of the opponent.  Baylor is an exception; they either
really fell down against tough opponents, or feasted on weaker opponents, or some
combination of the two.  Kansas ended second-worst in the Big XII, despite the big
wins over Arizona, Iowa State, and Houston, probably because they feasted on
Green Bay, Corpus Christi, and Davidson.

Big XII Team   Tough
-------------- -----
Utah           +0.13
TCU            +0.10
Arizona        +0.08
Cincinnati     +0.03
Oklahoma State +0.03
Arizona State  -0.02
UCF            -0.02
Texas Tech     -0.08
Houston        -0.14
BYU            -0.21
Kansas State   -0.23
West Virginia  -0.24
Iowa State     -0.25
Colorado       -0.26
Kansas         -0.29
Baylor         -0.42

No surprise that Arizona had the highest average scoring margin.  This
ranking looks a lot like the final standings.  Margins were adjusted to a neutral
court by subtracting 2 points from the home team and adding 2 points to the road
team.

Big XII Team   Margin
-------------- ------
Arizona        +16.23
Iowa State     +15.69
Houston        +13.88
BYU             +7.31
Texas Tech      +6.56
Kansas          +5.40
Cincinnati      +4.70
TCU             +4.29
West Virginia   +3.60
Baylor          +2.88
UCF             +1.35
Colorado        -0.45
Oklahoma State  -0.54
Arizona State   -2.42
Kansas State    -3.05
Utah            -5.41

Like high scoring games?  Watch the Cowboys.  Like hockey or soccer and their
low-scoring games?  Watch the Mountaineers.  Here is how Big XII teams did in
total points, including overtimes (see next section for numbers of overtime
games).

Big XII Team   TotalP
-------------- ------
Oklahoma State 167.06
Kansas State   161.41
Colorado       159.91
UCF            159.03
BYU            158.97
Baylor         157.33
Arizona        155.54
Arizona State  154.67
Utah           153.44
Texas Tech     153.35
TCU            149.46
Iowa State     147.59
Kansas         144.43
Cincinnati     140.70
Houston        139.19
West Virginia  136.66

Which Big XII teams had the best offenses and best defenses?  Scoring doesn't
tell the whole story.  Points per possession would be a better metric, but box
scores show points scored and points allowed, not the number of possessions.
Also, points scored in overtime can distort the results, so I'm showing the
number of overtime games as well (which assumes I correctly captured all of
those, but I admittedly wasn't paying all that close attention during the
non-conference portion of the season).  Also, it should be noted that these
results have been adjusted to a neutral court by taking 2 points away from the
home team and adding 2 points to the road team.  Results from neutral court
games were not adjusted.

Big XII Team   Offen   #OT
-------------- -----   ---
Arizona        85.88    1
Oklahoma State 83.26    3
BYU            83.14    1
Iowa State     81.64    0
UCF            80.19    2
Baylor         80.11    0
Texas Tech     79.96    1
Colorado       79.73    1
Kansas State   79.18    0
TCU            76.87    3
Houston        76.53    1
Arizona State  76.12    0
Kansas         74.91    2
Utah           74.02    0
Cincinnati     72.70    1
West Virginia  70.13    2 one of which was a double overtime, or 3 overtimes

Big XII Team   Defen
-------------- -----
Houston        62.66
Iowa State     65.95
West Virginia  66.53
Cincinnati     68.00
Kansas         69.51
Arizona        69.65
TCU            72.59
Texas Tech     73.40
BYU            75.83
Baylor         77.23
Arizona State  78.55
UCF            78.84
Utah           79.42
Colorado       80.18
Kansas State   82.23
Oklahoma State 83.80

How well did the various ranking systems do in the ESPN Tournament Challenge?
That is, if the predicted winners were chosen from the higher ranked team, how
did the bracket do?  Note that this result isn't the same as saying which
ranking system is the best, as the result depends on ESPN's assigned point
levels for each game, with the championship game being worth as much as the
entire Round of 64.  For comparison purposes, I'm also showing the maximum
number of points possible, along with the actual winner.  All the ones above
the blank line had Michigan as the top-ranked team.  Interesting that Georgia
Tech's LRMC did a hair better than Team Rankings, who does a pretty good job
of matching Vegas.  The Colley Matrix did well, despite its more RPI-like
rakning method that relies more on wins and losses than point differentials.
Dunkel did surprisingly well.  Meanwhile, Pomeroy did surprisingly poorly,
almost as bad as Don Davis' DPPI.  But hey, it's easy to get wacky results in
a single-elimination tournament.  Play a best-of-seven to advance and the
results would be completely different.

1920   maximum points possible
1810   JesterSkate's Picks 12 (100th percentile)
1370   Georgia Tech LRMC      ( 98.5 percentile)
1360   Mike Greenfield (Team Rankings)
1340   Colley Matrix
1320   Dunkel Index

1100   Haslametrics
1040   Evan Miya
1010   Donchess
 990   Bart Torvik
 990   NCAA Net
 970   ESPN BPI
 960   Andy Dolphin
 890   Associated Press
 890   Jay Bilas
 860   INCC Stats
 860   Whitlock
 850   Massey composite
 830   Ken Massey
 820   Ken Pomeroy
 810   Don Davis

Note that I used Bilas' advertised picks for every game.  I'm not aware of
any ranking system published by Bilas.