There’s something fishy with the Sagarin ratings that was revealed by
the usual research for today’s game with Wisconsin Milwaukee. The
Panthers’ schedule includes a game against South Dakota State.
Massey’s listing, albeit for last season, shows South Dakota State to
be a Division II school, though Sagarin includes the Jackrabbits in
his ratings, and his ratings only include Division I schools. Could
it be that South Dakota State is a provisional member of Division I
this year? But that’s not the fishy part. Sagarin gives South Dakota
State the 6th most difficult schedule, yet who have they played? Well,
#37 Butler, #54 Wisconsin Milwaukee, #56 Marquette, #97 Denver,
#98 Illinois Chicago and on down. Kansas has played a tougher schedule
than that, so why does Sagarin call it the #115 schedule? Methinks
Sagarin has a bug in his software.

Anyway, the latest Sagarin Pure Points ratings give Kansas a 16.5 point
edge in today’s game and a 90 percent chance of winning. Kansas is
playing 5.0 points better than its Pure Points rating, while Milwaukee
is playing 4.0 points better, which boosts the edge to 17.5 points.
The narrow win over South Carolina has resulted in a negative trend for
Kansas, but it is not statistically significant. Milwaukee started with
lopsided victories over Prairie View and Parkside, then a win over a
decent Air Force team, then another lopsided win over South Dakota State
plus a solid win over Illinois Chicago, which led to a rather lofting
rating for them. Against Saint Louis they played as expected, but lost
to a weak Valparaiso team and then got trounced by Wisconsin, leading to
a steep negative trend of very high significance. But expect them to
bring their A game against Kansas, with a little extra confidence
arising from the fact that they won’t have to go up against Simien. I
wouldn’t expect their negative trend to continue. Both teams are less
consistent than the national average, but Milwaukee by 4 more points
than Kansas.

Still no ratings from Massey; his rankings aren’t very informative.

Jerry Palm doesn’t include South Dakota State in his RPI list, nor does
he include North Dakota State, while Sagarin includes both. That may
explain why Sagarin lists 332 schools while Palm lists only 330, but
I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere that there are 331 Division I schools
this season. Anybody know who is right? Interesting to see Palm’s RPI
show Boston College as #1 and Kansas at #2, whereas Dolphin has them
reversed. They can’t both be right. It has been noted that the RPI
calculation this season is supposed to give more weight to road wins,
but has the NCAA come right out and stated what their formula is? If
they have, then all accurate implementations of that formula ought to
yield the same results. So either the implementations are not accurate,
or they’re guessing at what the NCAA’s formula is.

Dolphin is predicting a score of 78 to 63 in favor of Kansas with a 90
percent chance of Kansas winning. Those outcomes are assuming Kemper
Arena represents a home game for Kansas. That probability is consistent
with Sagarin’s prediction.

The numbers show the Lafayette game to be the best of the season for
Kansas, yet Self called it the worst. South Carolina was the worst
game of the season for Kansas.

               ======================== Sagarin =======================
               Rate    SoS    Elo     PP   Perf   Inc.       Trend
               ====   ====   ====   ====   ====   ====   ==============
Kansas         #  4   #115   # 14   #  4   +5.0   12.8   -0.37 +/- 2.64
Milwaukee      # 59   #209   # 82   # 54   +4.0   16.9   -6.68 +/- 1.81 

               ============ Massey ============     === RPI ===     ====
               Rate    SoS    Pow    Off    Def     Rate    SOS     Rec.
               ====   ====   ====   ====   ====     ====   ====     ====
Kansas         #  5   # 59   #      # 14   # 52     #  2   # 13      7-0
Milwaukee      # 66   #119   #      # 86   # 99     #112   #231      6-2

               ======================= Dolphin ======================
               Std.   Med.   Pre.   IRPI   RPI    Pair   Poll   Sched
               ====   ====   ====   ====   ====   ====   ====   =====
Kansas         #  6   #  6   #  5   #  4   #  1   #  5   # 12   0.499
Milwaukee      # 53   # 54   # 47   # 72   #184   #129   # 25   0.407

Here is Kansas’ season:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
====   =============================   =======   ======    =====    =====
HOME   # 28 Vermont                     68  61   +13.46    -6.46
HOME   #174 Saint Joseph’s              91  51   +24.96   +15.04
HOME   # 69 Nevada                      85  52   +18.56   +14.44
HOME   # 29 Pacific                     81  70   +13.63    -2.63
HOME   # 42 TCU                         93  74   +15.62    +3.38
HOME   #124 Louisiana-Lafayette         96  51   +21.96   +23.04
HOME   # 41 South Carolina              64  60   +15.52   -11.52
HOME   # 54 Wis.-Milwaukee                       +16.50             0.902
HOME   #  6 Georgia Tech                          +7.37             0.718
HOME   # 50 Texas A&M                            +16.27             0.898
AWAY   # 11 Kentucky                              +1.78             0.555
AWAY   #109 Iowa State                           +13.16             0.848
AWAY   #110 Colorado                             +13.19             0.849
HOME   #106 Nebraska                             +20.83             0.948
AWAY   # 81 Villanova                            +11.43             0.814
AWAY   #326 Baylor                               +32.43             0.994
HOME   #  9 Texas                                 +8.88             0.756
HOME   #144 Missouri                             +23.14             0.965
AWAY   #106 Nebraska                             +12.87             0.843
AWAY   #107 Kansas State                         +12.96             0.845
HOME   #110 Colorado                             +21.15             0.951
AWAY   #  8 Texas Tech                            +0.77             0.524
HOME   #109 Iowa State                           +21.12             0.951
AWAY   # 15 Oklahoma                              +3.49             0.608
HOME   #  2 Oklahoma State                        +2.43             0.575
HOME   #107 Kansas State                         +20.92             0.949
AWAY   #144 Missouri                             +15.18             0.882

We’re back to a season record projection of 23-4, which looks more
likely with Simien out, yet all games are now projected wins, thanks
to Texas Tech’s drubbing by Iowa.

Here is Wisconsin Milwaukee’s season to date:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
====   =============================   =======   ======    =====    =====
HOME   #329 Prairie View A&M           117  55   +33.27   +28.73
Div2        Wisconsin Parkside          87  50
HOME   # 59 Air Force                   50  45    +4.61    +0.39
HOME   #217 South Dakota State          89  54   +15.37   +19.63
AWAY   # 98 Illinois-Chicago            75  67    +0.06    +7.94
AWAY   #257 Saint Louis                 57  47   +10.06    -0.06
AWAY   #189 Valparaiso                  71  72    +5.76    -6.76
AWAY   # 30 Wisconsin                   37  66    -6.75   -22.25
AWAY   #  4 Kansas                               -16.50             0.164