Friday, February 9, 2018

Bubble watch part 5 (Big 12 edition)

Lockbox:

Kansas (19-5) (8-3) RPI 6 SoS 1
Vital signs:
8-1 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 9
avg RPI win 82
8-2 vs. Group 1
5-2 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  N-Kentucky, @WVU, TTU
Bad losses:  home to Arizona St and Washington and Okla St and what the hell is going on
So weird.  Looking at the SoS and the Group 1 wins and the road record and you assume it's a 1 seed, no questions asked.  But those catastrophic home losses.  I still think they get the benefit of the doubt if they eventually are able to put "Big 12 champ" on their resume.  Especially with that avg RPI win metric, which is historically high.

Texas Tech (20-4) (8-3) RPI 13 SoS 55
Vital signs:
5-4 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 196
avg RPI win 137
5-3 vs. Group 1
5-1 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  Nevada, @Kansas, WVU, @TCU
Bad losses:  @Iowa St perhaps
Didn't play a true road game in the non-con.  However, they're .500 on the road in Big 12 play, which helps mask that flaw.  Non-con SoS was actually in worse shape than that, but it's out of the danger zone.  And most importantly, they're winning in-conference.  This would be a much different story if they weren't poaching their fair share of quality wins and were hovering around .500 in conference.

West Virginia (18-6) (7-4) RPI 25 SoS 36
Vital signs:
7-4 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 189
avg RPI win 148
5-5 vs. Group 1
5-1 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  Virginia, swept Oklahoma, N-Missouri?
Bad losses:  @Iowa St
There's some cupcakes really submarining the non-con SoS into marginal territory.  Their losses are mostly reasonable minus the ISU thing, as they've lost most of their biggest games.  But on the other hand, they got the Virginia game, so some of those resume flaws are masked.  Their ceiling is limited as a result of being merely .500 against Group 1, but a protected seed should be attainable for them.

Oklahoma (16-7) (6-5) RPI 17 SoS 14
Vital signs:
5-6 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 82
avg RPI win 113
5-6 vs. Group 1
3-1 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  @Wichita St, swept TCU, Kansas and TTU
Bad losses:  @Okla St, @K-State?
Safely in the tournament but seed upside is limited.  They've had a lot of swing games and have won their fair share...but have also lost their fair share.  2-5 in true road games is a little bit of an issue here.  That'll keep them off the 2 line for now.

Bubble:

TCU (16-8) (4-7) RPI 31 SoS 16
Vital signs:
5-5 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 70
avg RPI win 127
4-7 vs. Group 1
2-1 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  N-Nevada, WVU, SMU?
Bad losses:  @Vandy
Should probably be okay.  But they're losing most their swing games in the Big 12, beating the teams they're supposed to and losing to the better ones (with WVU being their counter-result).  That's mildly concerning, and now factor in that they didn't play a true road game in the non-con.  The good news is the SoS numbers are good enough and that Nevada win is holding up for now.

Texas (15-9) (5-6) RPI 46 SoS 17
Vital signs:
4-6 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 77
avg RPI win 132
4-6 vs. Group 1
3-3 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  N-Butler, @Alabama, TTU and Oklahoma
Bad losses:  K-State at home?  @Okla St?
Honestly don't have much to say here.  Every metric is in good but not great shape.  They've won just enough over teams just good enough to feel safe.

Kansas St (17-7) (6-5) RPI 59 SoS 85
Vital signs:
6-4 road/neutral record
non-con SoS 326
avg RPI win 163
3-6 vs. Group 1
4-0 vs. Group 2
Signature wins:  @Texas, TCU, Oklahoma
Bad losses:  N-Tulsa
That non-con SoS is going to be an albatross.  They're going to need to get a higher-end win than any they already have as a result.

The other 3 teams are off the board.  All have simply accumulated too many losses.  Oklahoma St actually has a good collection of wins, but their non-con SoS is getting sunk by some very costly cupcakes.  If they get from 4-7 back to .500 in the conference, the wins it would take would be very notable, and they'd be back on the bubble then.  3-8 vs. Group 1 right now.

Baylor has simply lost all their swing games in the conference.  1 Group 1 win is not enough.

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