Analyzing the Big 12 race
Wild day in Big 12 men’s basketball. Six games, and only one blowout, and that blowout came in what figured to be the game of the day, Texas A&M at Kansas State. The Wildcats rolled 75-54. Three games were decided by two points: Texas 69-67 over Colorado, Baylor 72-70 over Nebraska and OU 63-61 over Texas Tech. The other two games were superbly competitive, too: Kansas 76-70 over Missouri and Iowa State 73-66 over OSU.
It’s time to start analyzing the conference race, and the best way to do so is with a plus/minus system. Home wins and road losses are a wash. No points given or taken away. But lose at home, and it’s a minus. Win on the road, and it’s a plus. Using that system, here are the standings:
1. Kansas +2: Road wins at Missouri and Nebraska. The Jayhawks will be a threat to run the table.
2. Baylor & Kansas State +2: Don’t look now, but the Bears are for real. Their win at Nebraska makes Baylor 3-0 in the league. And Kansas State’s win at Oklahoma came with Blake Griffin healthy, so K-State clearly has separated itself into the upper echelon.
4. Texas A&M, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas, Colorado, Texas Tech: all even. In regular standings, it’s good to get road games behind you. In this form of standings, the stronger teams tend to have more road games ahead of them, giving them a chance to burst ahead. A&M, OSU, Colorado and Tech all have lost two road games already, Iowa State and Texas only one.
10. Missouri & OU -1: Mizzou lost at home to Kansas, OU lost at home to K-State, so give the edge to Missouri.
12. Nebraska -2: Huskers have lost at home to Kansas and Baylor. It’s going to be a long winter in Lincoln.
What to make of Big 12 basketball using this system? The Big 12 has four conference road wins so far, and Kansas has half of them. That had better change, else the Big 12 won’t like what it sees when the NCAA Tournament pairings come out. Because right now, there’s a whole bunch of teams in the middle.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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