West:

KU: Kind of irritated to see KU out West against UCLA, but no worries.

Nova / UK: I see Nova winning this game, but I would love to see UK in the second round.

Tech / Illinois: Tech should win, but maybe Weber can pull out the Orange coat.

So. Illinois: Good seed…they defend well..should be a good 2nd round game.

Duke / VCU: 6 seed is generous to Duke, but I’m guessing they’ll play well in the tourney.

Pitt / Wright State: Pitt needs to rebound

Indiana / Gonzaga: Should be a good game, but the Zags are overmatched.

UCLA: Weber State is probably worse than Niagara.

East:

UNC: They won’t make the Final Four. By far the toughest draw of any top 1/2 seed, IMO. They’ve a very small chance of making the Final Four, let alone anything else.

Marquette / Michigan: both good teams, but MSU is underseeded.

USC / Arkansas: USC wins.

UT / NMSU: Watch out for UT. Durant is a huge problem for anyone. He breaks Roy’s heart this year if Izzo doesn’t break it before that.

Vandy / GW: Upset special. UF dragged SEC teams’ seeds up.

WSU / ORU: No one will overlook ORU because of KU. WSU plays slow so ORU could stay close and you all know what happen when Vealy gets hot.

BC / Tech: Give Bob Knight a week to prepare anytime outside of the NCAA tournament, and he’ll win. In the NCAA, he seems to like short trips.

Georgetown: A very good team, but beware the B’s of March.

South:

OSU: playing very well right now…15 wins in a row.

BYU / Xavier: X shouldn’t be in. BYU is big enough to give OSU some heat, but, IMO, OSU has easiest 2nd round game.

UT / Long Beach: UT / OSU will be an interesting game if we see it.

Virginia / Albany: I’ll bet we see a close game here.

Louisville / Stanford: Stanford shouldn’t have been in.

A&M / Penn: A&M will emerge from this bracket, I think.

Nevada / Creighton: one of the best first round games. Nevada is better than people think, with Fazekas and Kemp. Creighton, I thought before seeing the bracket, would beat somebody in the first round. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? That question will remain unanswered.

Memphis / North Texas: Memphis got a favorable geographic draw. I think they lose in round two.

Midwest:

Florida: Got a lot of credit for last year. They’ve been apathetic of late, even if they are well balanced. They’re going to lose to somebody.

Arizona / Purdue: A potentially tough second round matchup for UF if Zona is able to put it together.

Butler / ODU: Upset special. Butler’s good but has limped a bit of late.

Maryland / Davidson: Another upset special. Maryland could do some damage, but they could also bow out early.

Winthrop / Notre Dame: Notre Dame is playing very well. Winthrop is a very good team. Could be upset special number 3 in this bracket.

Oregon is very hot. HOT HOT HOT.

UNLV / GT: Surprised about GT, no idea on this game.

Wisconsin: Can’t believe AM slipped to the 15 line!

This is my first post, so I’ll try not to embarass myself.

Last night David sent me a file that can be used to predict games using Ken Pomeroy’s ratings. Using this Excel spreadsheet, you can predict the winner of each game, the score, and % of the time that either team will win. There are various uses for this, obviously. What I have done is take Joe Lunardi’s current projected bracket (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology) and figure out what percentage of the time each team will advance to each round. As this is fairly time consuming, I have only done the West region (where Kansas currently resides). Here’s what I came up with:

Advances to 2nd Rd Sweet 16 Elite 8 Final Four

Wisconsin 98.7% 71.2% 51.6% 22.9%

Central Connecticut 1.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Jackson St. 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Kansas 98.9% 75.5% 52.0% 37.%

East Tennessee St. 1.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Georgetown 94.1% 79.6% 34.4% 21.0%

Pennsylvania 5.9% 1.6% 0.1% 0.0%

Air Force 94.7% 56.3% 20.2% 5.3%

Vermont 5.3% 0.5% 0.2% 0.0%

Virginia Tech 75.8% 37.2% 12.3% 2.9%

Santa Clara 24.2% 6.0% 1.1% 0.0%

Virginia 62.8% 13.4% 2.0% 0.5%

Winthrop 37.2% 5.4% 0.5% 0.1%

Southern California 30.6% 4.7% 1.4% 0.5%

Michigan St. 69.4% 19.8% 9.5% 4.9%

Notre Dame 67.6% 22.3% 12.4% 3.5%

Tennessee 32.4% 6.3% 2.1% 0.3%

Obviously, a lot of this depends on the draw, but Kansas will be the favorite to advance in just about any draw they have, as they are #2 in Pomeroy’s ratings. What I found interesting was Wisconsin and Kansas reach the Elite 8 almost the exact same percentage of the time, although Kansas is clearly superior when they play head to head. This is a byproduct of Kansas having both Georgetown (Pomeroy #7) and Michigan St. (Pomeroy #11) in their half of the bracket. I would expect that in an average bracket, Kansas would have a greater chance of reaching the Elite 8, but if they were paired with a stronger #1 seed, their chances of winning their Regional Final game would decrease.

I’ll probably do another one of these with a future Lunardi bracket, and compare the two.

Ken Pomeroy predicts just one actual loss for the Hawks between now and the Big 12 Tournament - at Nebraska. That projection will surely change over time. Overall, he projects that KU will be 27-3 (due to risk adusting an additional loss in there non-specificallly) going into the post-season.

I don’t think we’ll lose at Nebraska, for what it’s worth, and I don’t think we’ll lose to A&M at home. I do think, however that we’ll lose one or two more weirdo games that I’m not seeing so clearly yet.

Speaking of record projections, I never made one.

Here it is, Jeremy’s official Phog Blog Prediction: 36-3

Doing that would break the record for all time wins in a season by KU and we’d have to get to the championship game to get there. Whether we will win or not…too hazy.

Speaking of projections, drop your projection in the comments and the person who ends up closest wins a Phog Blog t shirt. In the case of a tie, we’ll rig up some elaborate scheme by which the shirt can be transferred daily between the respective winners. Actually, I have more than one t shirt to give .

NOTE: I always pick optimistically. Since KU basketball doesn’t really matter, there’s no harm in it. Pick away.

Gary Parrish takes a look at the Big 12 basketball season and not surprisingly, KU comes out on top. Way on top.

KU’s schedule in the Big 12 is, on paper, about as easy as it could be, with the top teams from the South all visiting Allen and the North still mired in coaching change mud. Indeed, as soon as Nebraska finds a new coach, Bill Self will have the most tenure of any coach in the North if I’m not mistaken.

Back to Parrish, you should definitely check out the whole article, but here’s the concentrated essence of what he says:

There are three teams in the nation that, heading into the season, appear to be a level above everybody else. Kansas is one, with the others being Florida and North Carolina. So any Jayhawks fans worried about a third consecutive loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament need not worry. This team will be playing deep into March, and perhaps into April.

KU will likely be favored by 5 or more in every big 12 game this year. I think the toughest game will be in Manhattan for some reason. If Huggs knows one thing, it’s that he has to stop the multi decade streak and win one for the first time in Bramlage.

From the LJW today.

Meanwhile, college basketball writer Gary Parrish of cbssportsline.com, who caught up with KU coach Bill Self and players Russell Robinson and Sasha Kaun at last week’s Big 12 Media Day, taps the Jayhawks second nationally behind Florida.

Street and Smith also has Florida ranked No. 1 and KU 2, followed by North Carolina. Athlon has KU, Alabama, Florida and North Carolina reaching the Final Four, with the Tar Heels winning it all for the second time in three years.

Of course, as mentioned three times on Phog Blog last week, the Mercurial Seth Davis conjures us at number 1, both now and 5 months from now. This is the same Seth Davis who in late February still considered K State a bubble team, so you might be building your house on the rhetorical sand if you put too much faith in his prognostications.

Still, a broken clock is right twice a day, so I won’t be disparaging him or anyone else anything if I find myself dancing like a madman in Atlanta 5-6 months from now.

Thanks to the myriad wonders of technology, I can now provide an online calendar of our beloved Jayhawks’ schedule for the upcoming year. You can always come back to this link to see it, but if you are clever, you’ll integrate it with your calendar of choice.

If you are a google calendar user, you can subscribe to the calendar using this link.

Enjoy. OH, and the 2006 KU football schedule has been added as well.

Looks like the Las Vegas Invitational games are set. Also interesting to note is that KU will be selling tickets to the Vegas game via the Williams Fund. The convention center - where the event will be held - only seats 6,000. Methinks that the KU-Florida tickets will demand a pretty penny.

The two Las Vegas Invitational games in Lawrence will be part of KU’s season-ticket package. Ticket information on the games in Las Vegas will be mailed to Williams Fund members in the next couple weeks.

“The tickets will be sold through the schools - ours through the Williams Fund,” KU senior associate athletic director Larry Keating said, referring to the eight schools that will congregate in Vegas - KU, Towson, Tennessee State, Ball State, Florida, Western Kentucky, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Prairie View.