Kansas fans are still smiling about Andrew Wiggins’ decision to attend the school. In this edition, I explore how the rest of the Big 12 will look in 2012-13.

For a description of the model that generated these rankings click here.

For an explanation of column headings click here.

Kansas: As I noted on Twitter, if you think Kansas should have a better projection, you may be right. The historic data may not give us an accurate read on Andrew Wiggins. If he is the best high school prospect since LeBron James, that literally means there hasn’t been a comparable freshman in my data. On the other hand, if we can learn something from past freshman phenoms, the lesson is to be careful. In 2010, pundits everywhere claimed that Harrison Barnes was the No. 1 player in the country and one of the greatest prospects on the planet. Then Barnes had such a dreadful freshman season that he stuck around for his sophomore year. And even if Wiggins is great, on a young team with an entirely new starting lineup, there will likely be a few hiccups.

Oklahoma St.: You know your team is headed in the right direction when this is one of your top off-season questions:

Can JUCO center Gary Gaskins replace what Philip Jurick gave Oklahoma St. last year? Jurick wasn’t much of an offensive player, and he was in foul trouble way too often, but he did provide some nice size, shot-blocking, and rebounding when he was on the court.

Yes, the Cowboys return 93% of their offensive possessions on a team that almost won the Big 12 last season. With Markel Brown throwing down more windmill dunks, LeBryan Nash hopefully maturing into his high potential, Michael Cobbins continuing to dominate the paint, and All-American candidate Marcus Smart returning to school, the future is bright.

The only negative piece of news I can find is this. ESPN dropped recruit Detrick Mostella out of its Top 100. (I’m still counting him as a Top 100 recruit until the final consensus rankings are out.)

Baylor: I provided a more detailed summary of Baylor’s lineup last week, but here are a few more thoughts: Losing LJ Rose and Deuce Bello is not a big deal. They had ORtgs of 69 and 86 last year. In fact, Baylor actually moved up from 25th to 24th in my model with the announcement that Rose is gone. He won’t be wasting a handful of possessions in meaningless games this year. And with the recent news that Denver’s Royce O’Neale will be transferring to join the team, Baylor could move even higher. (I want to hear more confirmation that O’Neale will be eligible immediately before I move him into the lineup.)

Iowa St.: Fred Hoiberg just refuses to have a rebuilding year. He has added four JUCO players this off-season. By bringing in transfers three years in a row, he has ensured he has enough veterans to compete each season.

Part of me thinks this is because he is hoping to jump to the NBA. Hoiberg doesn’t want a down-season to wreck his reputation. But if the quick fixes keep working, it is hard to argue with the strategy.

The only real question mark is at PG where freshman Monte Morris has been rising up the recruiting ranks, but still isn’t high enough to be a guaranteed star. Still, with all those JUCO players supporting Georges Niang, Melvin Ejim, and Top 100 prospect Matt Thomas, this team should finish in the top half of the Big 12.

West Virginia: Right now I have West Virginia as the 45th best team in the nation, which would put them squarely on the bubble. But I have complete confidence that Bob Huggins will be back in the tournament. And it isn’t just based on his history of winning. The roster turnover for West Virginia is ideal. Deniz Kilicli, Jabarie Hinds, and Dominque Rutledge had ORtgs of 92, 86, and 84 last year. They were the three least efficient players in the West Virginia lineup. And their departure should hasten the improvement in the West Virginia offense.

I will never understand why Bob Huggins felt so compelled to build his offense around Kilicli. He may have been big and bearded, but he was a poor rebounder, poor finisher, and he had bad hands. Trusting Kilicli was one of Bob Huggins worst decisions at West Virginia.

But Huggins refuses to have another team that lacks interior strength. Huggins is bringing in Top 50 recruit Devin Williams in the paint, two JUCO paint players, and three more freshman forwards. The message is pretty simple. Bob Huggins is tired of his post-play being a liability.

Texas and Kansas St.: I stared at this for awhile, because it surprised me that Texas has a better defensive projection than Kansas St. The bottom line is that the teams had equivalent defenses last year, the coaches have almost identical historical defensive performance (Rick Barnes is seriously under-rated as a defensive coach), and thus it came down to two other factors. First, Texas has more Top 100 recruits. Having athletic players helps on defense as well as offense. Second, Texas returns a larger percentage of its rotation, which should help with continuity.

Still, I suspect Bruce Weber will do even better defensively than what you see here. And he’ll need to given what Kansas St. loses. The Wildcats return just 44 percent of their possessions from last season, and with no elite recruits coming in and no high potential players on the roster, the offense is simply going to take a huge step back.

The Kansas St. player most likely to break out is probably Thomas Gipson. He has been a relatively efficient aggressive player his whole career, and with more playing time, his PPG and RPG numbers should skyrocket.

Shane Southwell and Will Spradling are also quality players, but both have flags that make the model question whether they can become stars. For Southwell, there is a concern whether last year’s hot three point shooting will be sustainable. Southwell suddenly jumped from being a guy who couldn’t buy a three pointer to a 44 percent three point shooter last year, and there may be some regression. And Spradling was super-efficient, but rarely shot. It isn’t clear whether Spradling can maintain his efficiency while taking a larger role on the team.

But even if the Kansas St. offense falls off dramatically, the Texas offense still looks worse on paper. Returning Top 100 recruits Cameron Ridley, Prince Ibeh, Javan Felix, and Jonathan Holmes should make some progress. But even if they do, this still won’t be a good offensive team.

Oklahoma: The Big 12 is really becoming the land of JUCO transfers this year. When Amath M’Baye unexpectedly declared for the draft, Lon Kruger realized he would be starting over in the paint and brought in three JUCO big men to try to fill the void. But I’m surprised he didn’t bring in a JUCO transfer at the PG position. With Sam Grooms departing, there is a real empty spot at that position too. Isaiah Cousins has the highest assist rate of any returning guard, but he struggled with turnovers. And that probably means that unranked freshman Jordan Woodard will be asked to run the show. Without high potential players in the paint or at the PG spot, there just isn’t a lot of upside for this team. The model projects them to win five less conference games than a year ago.

Texas Tech: I stared at the Texas Tech projection for awhile because it really doesn’t make sense to me. Certainly, I expect Tubby Smith to turn Texas Tech’s defense around. For Texas Tech’s defense to improve to 102.7 seems like a cakewalk. But I was puzzled that the model is so optimistic about Texas Tech’s offense. Basically, this is a case of addition by subtraction. The only key player Texas Tech loses is Josh Gray.* And Gray used way too many possessions (15 of 80 from 3) for an inefficient player (81 ORtg) while running the point for the Red Raiders. Of course backup PG Daylen Robinson wasn’t any better (70 ORtg). And you can see why Tubby Smith’s first move at Texass Tech was to go sign a JUCO PG in Robert Turner. Turner may not have major upside, but his job should simply be to get the ball to the other players and stop wasting possessions. Jaye Crocket, Jordan Tolbert, Dejan Kravic, and Dusty Hannahs may not have been good players, but they were average. And just making sure the team gets an average shot each possession will be a serious upgrade from last season.

Of course, to some degree the model may be falling for the “bad shot fallacy.” I.e., when a team runs its offense and can’t get a good shot, the PG often ends up jacking up threes as the shot-clock expires. Josh Gray wasn’t the only bad player on the team last year. But with a new coach and most players back, some upward trajectory is certainly possible.

*Ty Nurse is also gone but he almost never shot the basketball.

TCU: It feels like TCU should be making a bigger move in the right direction. Kyan Anderson was a remarkably solid PG on a dreadful offensive team. Devonta Abron looks like he might be a legitimate Big 12 post player. Meanwhile transfer Karviar Shepherd is the first consensus Top 100 freshman to attend TCU since at least 2000. But TCU was an absolutely dreadful D1 team last year. And with only 44% of the teams minutes returning, the Horned Frogs will be breaking in a bunch of new unranked players again next year. When transfer Trey Ziegler joins the team in 2014-2015, there might be some real upward mobility. Until then expect more of the same.

The game of the weekend featured Baylor ending Kentucky’s 55-game home winning streak. I’ve often described Scott Drew as an excellent recruiter, but without the in-season coaching ability of John Calipari. But for at least one afternoon, Scott Drew’s club ended up on top.

A couple of things fascinated me about the game.

First, John Calipari had Kyle Wiltjer on the bench for a long stretch in the second half. And he really had no choice. Wiltjer finished the day 1-for-11 from the floor, and he doesn’t have the defensive ability to stay in the game if his shot isn’t falling. Wiltjer has to find ways to provide value to his team other than just knocking down threes if he is going to be a true leader this season.

Second, I continued to be impressed with the all-around game of Baylor’s Isaiah Austin. I wish he would settle for a few less outside shots, but what I love about Austin is how he always looks extremely focused when on the floor. Even if he commits a turnover or takes a dumb shot, Austin doesn’t ever appear to get rattled.

Of course it is easy to describe an intangible like “quiet confidence” when a player is winning. And with Kentucky losing, it is easy to attack Nerlens Noel’s complete lack of an offensive game. But had Kentucky rallied to win, we’d instead be talking about all the little things Noel did to help his team win on Saturday. Noel had 16 rebounds and 6 steals in Kentucky’s loss, and Kentucky needed those defensive stops in a game where they shot so poorly. Watching so many freshmen play prominent roles made me want to do a quick update of how all the top recruits have fared this season. Here is a summary of the RSCI Top 80.  * = injured or ineligible for part of the season

Kentucky has had a problem with rebounding this year, but don’t blame Nerlens Noel. He needs some help from Willie-Cauley Stein and Kyle Wiltjer who are very poor defensive rebounders for their size.

If Kaleb Tarczewski and Steven Adams aren’t earning major minutes at this point in the season, it is hard to envisioning them becoming full scale stars later. When conference play rolls around, coaches tend to be less patient with their freshmen. Thus in many ways, percentage of minutes can be the most important stat this time of year.

Efficiency is also important, and Kyle Anderson’s 87.9 ORtg is terrible for an elite recruit. Point guards can struggle more than other players to adapt to the college game and Anderson was considered to have point guard skills out of high school. So perhaps Anderson’s struggles aren’t a complete surprise. On the other hand, Archie Goodwin and Marcus Smart weren’t really point guards in high school and they have adapted to the position. Goodwin’s turnover numbers are far too high, but he’s set up his teammates passably while setting up his own shot a lot. And Marcus Smart has made a tremendous transition to playing the point-guard position at the college level. Smart’s assist rate is much better than many players regarded as better passers out of high school.

I really think the problem with Anderson is that Ben Howland hasn’t figured out how to use him. Lots of coaches from Rick Pitino to John Thompson III have been able to feature great lanky passers, by positioning them at the high post and letting them see the whole floor. Anderson still has the potential to be that type of player, even if he has struggled early.

Grant Jerrett and Sam Dekker are the only players in the Top 20 who are not starting. Ricardo Ledo is ineligible. And Kris Dunn and Gary Harris are injured.

We start to see the typical drop-off when we get to recruits in the 11-20 range. DaJuan Coleman still has the profile of a player who will be a star in a future season, but right now he is having trouble earning playing time behind other quality big men on Syracuse’s roster. Meanwhile Cameron Ridley has been extremely disappointing for Texas. Certainly it hurts not to have Myck Kabongo eligible, but Kabongo’s absence doesn’t explain why a player like Ridley can be so passive against a team like Chaminade as he was in the Maui Invitational loss. The only good thing I can say about Ridley is that he has 19 blocks already, which is more than any other player in the Top 50 except Nerlens Noel.

Only Rasheed Sulaimon has become an undisputed crunch time star for his team. And Sulaimon’s efficiency is even more impressive when you look at Duke’s strength of schedule so far. Rodney Purvis has also played major minutes, but he is deferring a lot to his teammates at this point.

Glenn Robinson has been shockingly efficient at this point in the season, well above many of his peers on this list. But none of the players listed here are going to quite be in the national player of the year discussion because they are starting to become more passive offensive players. (I.e. the percentage of possessions used is now often below 20%) Only Danuel House is using a large number of possessions at this point in the rankings, and House plays for a Houston team that is in the process of upgrading its talent level in anticipation of joining the Big East.

This preseason I wrote how Marcus Paige would have some growing pains and be inconsistent this year, and the response I got was that Roy Williams had a ton of confidence in Paige and that I was being un-necessarily pessimistic. So far, with an 87.7 ORtg, neither Paige nor the Tar Heels are off to a great start. Paige has better days ahead, but North Carolina is also going to have a few more baffling losses before the season is over.

I was worried that Yogi Ferrell could have a similar negative impact on the Hoosiers because freshmen are often inconsistent. But Ferrell has thrived because he has worked within the offense. Instead of hogging the ball and needing to create shots, Ferrell has let his teammates work their isolation stuff, and provided key drives and dishes when needed. Ferrell has been happy to fill a role on the Hoosiers, and he has been everything Indiana needed.

Finally, Tony Parker’s minutes this year have been a joke, but with Josh Smith transferring, Parker at least has a chance of cracking the UCLA rotation now.

Notice how often a lack of playing time plagues players at this point in the rankings. I expected and still expect big things out of Kansas’ Perry Ellis and Iowa’s Adam Woodbury, but their coaches have only given them a taste of playing time at this point. The result is that some guys at this point in the rankings become unmitigated gunners. Hey Indiana’s Jeremy Hollowell, no matter how good you think you are, when the game with North Carolina was close late in the first half, Indiana didn’t want you bombing threes. They wanted Jordan Hulls bombing threes.

Xavier has played much better than many of us anticipated this season, and freshman Semaj Christon deserves a lot of that credit. Christon has out-played point-guards like Marcus Paige and realistically he’s been much more important than even Yogi Ferrell given his role in the offense. Christon is using nearly 30% of his team’s possessions, scoring at a prolific clip, and setting up his teammates without a rash of turnovers.

Most of Christopher Opekpa’s stats are pretty pedestrian, but not his block rate. Opekpa has 35 blocks at this point in the season, easily out-distancing any of the other freshmen in today’s column.

Nik Stauskas has been unbelievably efficient at this point and he is playing major minutes to boot. Some people expected Michigan to be a Top 10 team, but did they really expect Stauskas to outperform his peer level players by this much? His efficiency is due in large part to his teammates, and his shot-selection. But his performance is still notable. Stauskas has the most threes of anyone mentioned in this column (18 made) beating even UCLA’s super-aggressive shooter Jordan Adams.

Also give Adams credit. He’s shooting 26% of the time while maintaining a solid ORtg. Kyle Anderson may have been the third rated recruit for UCLA, but Adams has actually played like one.

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Before I talk about Day 1 of the NCAA tournament, I have one preview item for Day 2. As a detailed reader of Monday’s column may have noted, Purdue is the most improved offensive team in the country in the last 10 games. The reason most people haven’t noticed is because Purdue’s defense went in the tank over the same time period. But in the next table I focus on the individual offensive numbers to see whose offense has changed the most:

One popular theory is that the removal of Kelsey Barlow has improved the offense. Barlow was kicked off the team and his minutes have now dropped to zero. But Barlow was not a black-hole offensively, and it isn’t clear that his removal should make that much of a difference.

Instead it looks like there are two contributing factors. First, Purdue has tightened a 9 player rotation down to 7 players. All are receiving substantially more playing time than early in the year. I would argue that Anthony Johnson should actually be receiving less time and that perhaps it should be a 6 player rotation. But obviously Matt Painter sees something in the defense and effort of the freshman Johnson. Overall this core group of 7 is building more chemistry.

Second, five of these players have seen their efficiency improve from the start of the year. That’s fairly impressive when you consider that the Big Ten schedule should be tougher than the non-conference schedule. Hummel is getting to the line a little more often, and as for the rest of the rotation, they are simply making more shots. Turnovers are also down.

Of course with this shorter rotation, players have been more hesitant to foul, the team is forcing fewer turnovers, and teams seem to be getting easier shots against Purdue. It is hard to play pressure defense with a short rotation, and unless Purdue gets a little more defensive effort against St. Mary’s, they will be done in the first round. Offensive improvement is great, but not if you cannot get stops.

Game Notes

Even on a day that lacks historic drama, there are always plenty of storylines in the NCAA tournament.

-There are the stories about player homecomings. Louisville’s Peyton Siva is from the Seattle area and the chance to play in Portland meant many of his family could drive to Thursday’s game. And while his playing time was limited due to foul trouble, Siva made the most of his time on the court scoring 17 points in 25 minutes. For much of the game, Davidson simply could not keep Siva out of the lane.

-There are the stories of high school teammates re-united. Southern Miss guard Neil Watson and Kansas St. guard Will Spradling played AAU ball together and had been friends since 8^th grade. They often guarded each other during Thursday’s game and while Watson got the upper hand with 16 points and 3 assists, Spradling’s Kansas St. team won the game.

-There are the stories of heartbreak. Long Beach St. senior Larry Anderson tried to return from a knee injury, but he was ineffective in limited minutes, and LBSU came up a few points short of upsetting New Mexico.

-There are the stories of redemption. Iowa St. has a team of players that didn’t fit in well elsewhere. Chris Allen was a problem at Michigan St., Royce White had off-the-court troubles at Minnesota, and even Scott Christopherson (the home-grown Cyclone on this team) once played for Marquette. All three were spectacular in the Cyclones win over defending champion UConn. Allen had 20 points, White had a double-double with 15 points and 13 boards, and Christopherson chipped in 15 points too. And when this group of cast-offs built a 36-14 first half lead on the defending champs, they were playing beautiful basketball.

-There are even the moments of glory for losing teams. Colorado St. may have lost to Murray St. to open the day, but millions of people across the country saw the 6’4” Pierce Hornung diving on the floor and grabbing 10 first half rebounds as the Rams led at halftime. South Dakota St., making the first NCAA tournament appearance in school history, gave Baylor an early scare with a 19-7 lead. And even UNLV gave its fans one last moment to cheer by trimming a 20 point deficit to 2 points in the final minutes against Colorado. Those teams may not have won, but at least there were a few highlights.

There were just two seeding upsets on Thursday (with VCU and Colorado winning). VCU’s upset was the most dramatic. VCU’s Bradford Burgess hit a three pointer late, VCU’s Darius Theus hit a runner in the lane, and then Wichita St.’s Garrett Stutz missed a game tying three at the buzzer. But it hardly felt surprising after VCU’s tournament run last year.

That meant the only real drama of the day came when top seeded Syracuse struggled to defeat UNC-Asheville. The game featured at least three controversial calls, the missed goaltend against Syracuse, the bizarre lane violation (that later proved to be the correct call), and the inbounds pass that bounced off a Syracuse player but was ruled Syracuse ball. Charles Barkley called the officiating a “travesty”, and for those hoping to see a 16-seed beat a 1-seed for the first time in NCAA history, it certainly felt that way. For most of the game, every time Syracuse went on a run, it seemed like UNC-Asheville had an answer. Near the 15 minute mark of the second half, Syracuse turned a pair of steals into the lead, only to see the Bulldogs take the lead back. Near the 9 minute mark, James Southerland hit a three pointer and Rakeem Christmas got a foul and one, but again UNC-Asheville answered. And it felt like the only reason UNC-Asheville could not answer at the end was because of those controversial calls.

Perhaps there was a little drama when Harvard pulled within 5 points against Vanderbilt. After losing in the first round in recent years, Commodore fans had at least one moment of panic. But the truth is, the real beauty of a day like Thursday isn’t the basketball games, it is the future match-ups. Because most of the top seeds advanced, that means we have an outstanding slate of games on Saturday.

Random Thoughts

-Bad Pun of the Day: Regarding the aforementioned Neil Watson, Len Elmore said “It’s elementary, Watson is getting it done.”

-West Virginia’s loss was tough, but not entirely unexpected. This team just relied too much on Truck Bryant and Kevin Jones, and when Bryant struggled this year, as he did on Thursday, WVU simply had no chance to win.

-For Indiana, more than Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls’ points, I was extremely impressed with their active hands. They combined for nine steals and the two that Hulls got before half-time seemed critical to me. Those steals prevented New Mexico St. from entering the locker room with real momentum.

Expected Wins in the Field of 64

It is time to introduce a table that I will be showing on a nearly daily basis during the tournament. The table shows the expected wins for various teams (based on the Pomeroy rankings) and why these have changed each day. Expectations primarily change because a team wins or loses. See “Own”. But expectations can also change because a team’s potential future opponents change. See “Other”. Finally, expectations can change because of margin within the tournament. See “Marg”. Here are some examples. VCU beat Wichita St. which substantially improved their “Own” expected number of wins. But Indiana also advanced (instead of New Mexico St.) and that “Other” game hurt VCU’s expected wins. Meanwhile Syracuse struggled to beat UNC-Asheville while Wisconsin crushed Montana so the Badgers see their “Marg” improve.

-If you study this table (and the next table) carefully, the first thing you might notice is that Pomeroy’s expected champ at the start of Monday was Kentucky, but at the start of Thursday, it was Ohio St. Because the SEC struggled in the NIT and the Big Ten did well in the NIT, Ohio St. actually passed Kentucky for first place in Pomeroy’s rankings during the week.

-The second thing you should note is that VCU picked up the most impressive victory. Beating Wichita St. not only gave them a win, it also gave them some option value for future wins in the tournament. In the table below, Kentucky’s win was mostly expected. After beating Western Kentucky, Kentucky’s expected number of wins in the tournament barely changed.

-In the “Other” column, Indiana got the biggest benefit from Wichita St. going down, but Kentucky also got a slight benefit as well.

-The Big Ten (Ohio St., Indiana, Wisconsin) all won by impressive margins and that makes Michigan St. look better without even playing.  See “Marg”.

-Wichita St. and UNLV lost and gave away plenty of value to the rest of the field. See “Own.”

-Syracuse saw both Wisconsin and Vanderbilt advance meaning the Orange are guaranteed to face a strong team in the Sweet Sixteen. See “Other.”

-Syracuse had a disappointing margin of victory against UNC-Asheville, but Kentucky had a disappointing margin against Western Kentucky too. See “Marg.”