The Big 12 tourney starts in a couple days. Here’s the schedule if you haven’t already seen it. Now let’s get right to the numbers. First, here’s how all the teams have been playing over the last 10 games:

stats glossary

Hey, Colorado’s 1st in something? What the… oh, tempo. OK. Looking at the Pythagorean rating, the top 3 teams here are no surprise. What might surprise you is that if I made this same chart for ALL of Division I NCAA basketball, those three would be ranked 1st, 5th, and 8th. Texas has officially joined the party. Even more surprising is that all three are top 5 in offense. I haven’t actually run the numbers on ALL teams, so the ranks in this next table are where they rate among the 78 that I have looked at. Any team with an outside shot at a 12-seed or better in the big dance was included, along with all Big 12 teams.

I’d be shocked if somebody outside that group cuts down the nets in Oklahoma City. That said, if it happens, it’s bound to be a team out of the KU side of the bracket. Any dark horse from the other side will have to take down KU, A&M, and Texas. Sorry, but nobody’s winning a tournament by beating all three top-10 rated Big 12 powers in consecutive games. That’s impossible.

I’m talking a lot about the top seeds here because I’m not going to have time to do individual game previews of the later rounds. Don’t worry, we’ll get to everyone else right after this page break. (more…)

As everyone (Nebraska excepted) has reached at least the 1/4 point of their conference schedule, I’ve compiled the first set of individual leader boards (conference games only, must play 50% of your team’s minutes) for the Big 12. The complete list can be found here.

Jayhawks make appearances in the following categories:

% of Team’s Minutes Played: Rush, 10th

eFG%: Kaun, 1st; Collins, 2nd; Robinson, 4th

worst eFG%: Chalmers, 7th; Rush, 8th

Most PPWS: Robinson, 1st; Collins, 2nd; Kaun, 4th

Fewest PPWS: Wright, 7th

Points/100 possessions: Collins, 9th

Fewest Points/100 possessions: Robinson, 9th; Chalmers, 10th

Assists/100 possessions: Collins, 2nd; Robinson, 5th; Chalmers, 9th

Assist-to-turnover ratio: Robinson, 10th

Most turnovers/100 possessions: Wright, 6th

Steals/100 possessions: Chalmers, 1st; Wright, 7th

Blocks/100 possessions: Kaun, 1st; Wright, 2nd

Offensive rebound percentage: Wright, 10th

Defensive rebound percentage: Wright, 4th

[Was going to wait and post this as a comment to Hoopinion’s usual preview, but I don’t know if I’ll be at the computer at the right time.] I’ve looked at the ratings on the Massey comparison page (plus the Dunkel), and compiled predictions for those that either list them or give explicit instructions on how to calculate them. So, here is what the computers (and Vegas) think about tonight’s game. (Game scores are rounded, so may not match score margins. And I used Sagarin’s “pure points.”)

• Greenfield … +9.3 … 83.1%
• Dokter … +12.5
• Dolphin … +13.3 … 88.4% (79-65)
• Sagarin … +14.5
• Vegas … +15.5 … (79-64)
• Dunkel … +16
• Ashby … +16 … (78-62)
• Pomeroy … +16 … 92% (80-64)
• Lynch … +18.3
• Moore … +22.9

Mean: +15.4 … Median: +15.8 … right in line with Vegas.

While you’re putting off raking leaves, and while I’m leaving on a jet plane to Manhappenin, I would recommend that you download and print Ken Pomeroy’s Big 12 preview.

It’s a fact-filled journey to and through each Big 12 team this year, including the ridiculously favored toddler Jays.

The PDF comes from this post and make sure if you use run-on sentences like me, that you also give credit to Ken Pomeroy and maybe throw out some love to the Phog Blog to all of your non-PB friends

You should be doing that any way. And if you haven’t ever commented, why not drop us a comment and engage the most intelligent set of Hawk fans outside of the Bourgeois Pig. And we know they’re poseurs anyhoo. Bunch of wine swizzling, cigarette eating poseurs.

Not a ton to say about the Washburn game really, except that I’m excited about the prospect of seeing our boys out there and tearing up my mom’s friend Bob Chipman’s team.

My prediction:

KU: 87

WU 53

Anyone care to challenge me? 

And if you have a few minutes to burn today, check out Bracketography’s Big 12 preview. 

technorati tags:kansas, jayhawks, basketball, betting, predictions

For those of us who missed it, the Oklahoma - Oregon game provided a zany ending to say the least.

Former US Senator, Oklahoma Governor, Rhodes Scholar and OU President David Boren had this to say:

“It is truly sad and deeply disappointing that members of our football team should be deprived of the outcome of the game … because of an inexcusable breakdown in officiating”

Down by 13 with just a few minutes to go, Oregon scored a touchdown, then lined up for an onside kick. Though Oregon appeared to have violated the 10 yard rule, officials awarded Oregon with the recovery and the ball, and Oregon went on to score after yet another controversial interference call. Oregon wins.

Here’s a slow motion video of the on-side kick:

Making things worse, it looks like this edit that Oregon didn’t even recover the onside kick:

I didn’t watch it live, so I’ve got only the grainy flash video of YouTube, but the idea that Oregon got this ball is preposterous. Dan Fouts, hall of famer and OREGON GRAD, calls the call “ridiculous” on the broadcast:

You can watch 5:10 of insanity in this video, but you’ve got be hungry, because most of it is already above:

This will go down in the history of College Football as one of the all time blown sequences.

technorati tags:oklahoma, oregon, officials, video

Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports notes that Nebraska is in the running for a couple of well-regarded coaches, but their chances of success depend on making a quick hire.

“Nebraska AD Steve Pederson has already met with Texas-El Paso coach Doc Sadler and reached out to South Alabama in an effort to find out the status of its coach, John Pelphrey. As reported by FOXSports.com on Thursday, Sadler and Pelphrey are two names that have emerged to replace former Cornhuskers coach Barry Collier, who left to become the athletic director at Butler last week.

According to sources, Pelphrey would be interested, because of his desire to eventually coach somewhere that he can recruit elite talent, coach a national program and consistently reach the NCAA tournament.

Pelphrey has watched his buddy, Billy Donovan, do it at Florida - but the big difference is that Nebraska doesn’t have much talent in its state while Donovan was able to recruit the Sunshine State and also go out of the area and lure big-time recruits.”

I think Pelphry would be a coup for Nebraska, and the Florida comparison points this up. Jeff Goodman also notes that standout recruit Bill Walker will likely go to K-State if he lands in college at all, and that Billy Gillespie is taking large strides on the recruiting trail, having just robbed Texas and Florida with last week’s commitment from DeAndre Jordan.

As the Big 12 North continues to dissolve before our eyes, I wonder to myself, “Do we benefit at all from the continued mediocrity of our former Big 8 comrades?”

I can’t see how we do. The South will rise again next year, with the emergence of young A&M, OSU and Baylor teams, and the North is only getting weaker. Plus, half of the North will be playing with new coaches next year. New and better coaches will help in the long term, i think, but next year will be interesting to say the least.

MU and Huggins

I suggested Huggins to MU back in October, but I didn’t think it would happen. Now we find out that some of MU’s boosters are all over Huggins, and some want to keep their distance. Sunvold is apparently upset that neither Huggins nor Majerus received an interview for the Mizzou job. I don’t know what Mizzou expects, but as long as there’s such a disunity between what the University wants and what the Athletic Department wants (reading between the lines there’s a huge schism here), Mizzou’s big money sports will continue to be mired in mediocrity.

But keep it quiet, because I would hate to see Mizzou get wise to their foolishness.

A snippet on Gardner:

Junior guard Thomas Gardner declared that he’s entering the June 27 NBA draft and foregoing his senior season. He said he will not hire an agent at this time, which would enable him to maintain eligibility for his final season at MU if he chooses to withdraw his name from draft consideration.

According to Andy Katz:

Morgan was summoned to a meeting with athletic director Jamie Pollard and president Gregory Geoffroy at 10 p.m. Thursday night. Morgan said he was told at the meeting that he was fired, as was his staff.

Morgan, 55, had been the coach for three years after replacing Larry Eustachy on May 14, 2003. [snip]

Morgan said he was told the basketball program should be the marquee of the athletic department but “we don’t think you can do that.”

Morgan said, “The only person who had a better first three years here was Tim Floyd.”

Snyder, Wooldridge, Sutton (probably), Collier (almost), and now Morgan. Tough year for some Big 12 coaches.

Look out world, this team just learned what it takes to win in a big-time environment.

The win is great, but I think it’s the lessons learned in the last few weeks that will prove the most important.

How about Julian Wright tossing down two of the sickest in-game dunks I’ve ever seen in the last 5 minutes.

I tell you, I screamed the Rock Chalk Chant all over Fairway and Westwood.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK, KU!

Now throw us a 4 seed selection committee. 9-1 over the last 10.

Over on Ken Pomeroy’s site, a reader sent in Big East and ACC tournament predictions based on his Pythagorean Ratings. (Thanks to Jeremy for pointing this out.) They’re about what you’d expect: the only teams with a better than 10% chance of winning their tournaments are Duke and UNC in the ACC and UConn and Villanova in the Big East. I thought it’d be fun to do the same with the Big 12 tournament:

At first I was surprised how unbalanced the Big 12 tournament is compared to the other two. The lowest chances of any team in the Big East or ACC tournaments is Georgia Tech, with a 0.42% chance. Meanwhile here in the Big 12, there are 4 teams with worse shots. Then I realized that the spread from best to worst in the Big 12 is a lot larger:

Big East: UConn - Seton Hall = .955 - .783 = .172

ACC: Duke - Georgia Tech = .954 - .731 = .223

Big 12: Texas - Missouri = .967 - .582 = .385

Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Baylor are all also worse than Georgia Tech (the worst team in either of the other two tournaments). No wonder people are dumping on the Big 12 so much this year. The bottom teams are really, really bad.

I was also a little surprised that Texas’s odds are so much better than Kansas’s, but take a look at their most likely opponents for each round.

Texas: KSU (.802), Tex A&M (.865), Kansas (.953)

Kansas: OSU (.823), OU (.864), Texas (.967)

Regardless of the stats, it’s clear that Texas are the two solid favorites to take home the trophy. Although if KU wins, the Big 12 may forget to give one to them.

Yet more trophies for the Jayhawks, and hopefully, our boys won’t need to sell them like Bjorn Borg is selling his Wimbledon hardware.

A hint to Brandon Rush and all of the Jayhawk fans who are disappointed he didn’t make First Team all Big 12 from the AP:

Opposing coaches want him to leave. That’s why they say things like “he’s a pro,” and that’s why they voted him First Team All B12. I think you can make an argument that he belongs there, but he wouldn’t be on my first team. Not this year anyhow.

In any case, here are the awards:

First Team
P.J. Tucker, Texas, Jr., 6-5, 225, Raleigh, N.C.
LaMarcus Aldridge, Texas, Soph, 6-10, 237, Dallas, Texas
Curtis Stinson, Iowa St, Jr., 6-3, 215, Bronx, N.Y.
Richard Roby, Colorado, Soph, 6-6, 195, San Bernardino, Calif.
Jarrius Jackson, Texas Tech, Jr., 6-1, 185, Monroe, La.

Second Team
Brandon Rush, Kansas, Fresh., 6-6, 202, Kansas City, Mo.
Terrell Everett, Oklahoma, Sr., 6-4, 188, Charleston, S.C.
Cartier Martin, Kansas St, Jr., 6-8, 220, Houston, Texas.
Taj Gray, Oklahoma, Sr., 6-9, 238, Wichita, Kan.
Acie Law, Texas A&M, Jr., 6-3, 185, Dallas, Texas.

Third Team
Joseph Jones, Texas A&M, Soph, 6-9, 250, Normangee, Texas.
Mario Chalmers, Kansas, Fresh., 6-1, 182, Anchorage, Alaska.
Will Blalock, Iowa St., Jr., 6-0, 205, Boston, Mass.
Daniel Gibson, Texas, Soph, 6-2, 190, Houston, Texas.
Thomas Gardner, Missouri, Jr., 6-5, 213, Portland, Ore.

Honorable Mention
Michael Neal, Okla.;
Mario Boggan, Oklahoma St.;
Russell Robinson, Julian Wright, Kansas;
Aaron Bruce, Baylor;
Aleks Maric, Nebraska;
Brad Buckman, Texas;
Kevin Bookout, Oklahoma.