I’m using my ratings and Bill James’ log5 formula to estimate the chances of each participating team advancing to a particular round of its conference tournament.
Big 12 Conference
Location: Kansas City (Sprint Center)
Dates: March 12-15
Chance of bid thief: 4 percent
Current kPOY: Andrew Wiggins, Kansas
Projections:
Qtrs Semis Final Champ 1 Kansas 100 74.2 56.3 43.0 2 Oklahoma 100 56.7 34.6 13.2 4 Iowa St. 100 58.1 18.8 10.2 7 Baylor 91.3 42.7 24.7 8.7 3 Texas 100 57.3 25.1 7.9 8 Okla. St. 73.6 22.2 12.8 7.5 5 Kansas St. 100 41.9 10.9 5.0 6 W. Virginia 100 42.7 15.6 4.0 9 Texas Tech 26.4 3.5 1.2 0.4 10 TCU 8.7 0.7 0.08 0.004
The absence of Joel Embiid is not well accounted for in Kansas’s rating, so the Jayhawks’ chances are a bit overstated. (Future generations will look back on the all-Big 12 team with bewilderment that Embiid wasn’t on it.) I’d still argue they are the obvious favorite here even without their talented center.
But that doesn’t mean the Jayhawks are a shoo-in to win it. Far from it, even if they had a healthy Embiid. A potential quarterfinal game against Oklahoma State figures to be a very competitive game, even with the proximity bonus I’m assuming Kansas gets at the Sprint Center. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to find a third-to-last seed better than Oklahoma State in recent times. In other low-seed excitement, Baylor is the fourth choice despite being seeded seventh. The Bears get the virtual bye in the opening round and a quarterfinal game against Oklahoma will be a coin flip. The Big 12, like the Pac-12, does not have incredibly low odds for the seven-seed playing the eight-seed for the title.