The Morning Commute for November 25, 2024.
Welcome to the Morning Commute
Today we’re talking about stocks.
More specifically, Mizzou Basketball stock.
After dropping triple digits on another poor buy opponent last night, Mizzou basketball sits within the top 50 of Ken Pomeroy’s national rankings. And while you’d think putting a number like 112 on the scoreboard would raise the overall offensive profile, Mizzou’s offensive efficiency took a hit because of some poor three-point shooting and garbage time free throw shooting. They went from 34th to 38th.
“Number go down” aside, you can feel the collective excitement picking up for this team. Mark Mitchell is starting to turn into the killer Dennis Gates wants him to be, Caleb Grill can’t stop drilling threes, Tamar Bates is quietly putting up a dozen a night, Anthony Robinson is nearly accidentally running into triple-doubles… the team is coalescing, and it’s only blemish is a road loss to Memphis that one could put aside to one of the worst halves of basketball I’ve ever seen (hyperbole, but still.)
To take the Rock M+ section from below and move it up here, you can understand why Hoops fans are starting to buzz a bit. From last night’s University of Arkansas Pine-Bluff Game Thread:
datamizzou: Game score checks in at 93.
Running average settles in at 83.4. That’s what you’re looking for.
And what did the other Matt have to say?
Matthew Harris: The metrics tell the tale of MU doing what we identified as key areas in the scout:
Dominate Ball-Handling: MU’s BCI (3.5) was four times better than UAPB’s mark (0.842)…
Create Clean Disruption: The Tigers personal foul efficiency — blocks plus steals divided by fouls — was a gaudy 1.286. As we’ve noted before, an issue last season was selling out to create those plays but just putting opponents on the line a ton…
Apply Rim Pressure: UAPB is one of the worst teams nationally at stopping point-blank looks. The Tigers shot 71.8 percent inside the arc…
Wipe the Glass: MU was plus-18 in the rebound column, including 19 offensive boards that generated 11 additional possessions…
Read the rest on Rock M+!
It’s still early and Mizzou has a few very challenging games ahead that will show us how much they’ve really gelled. But it’s hard not to get excited about a team whose advanced profile is starting to look more and more like a unit with a legitimate shot at the NCAA Tournament. That would be one hell of a turnaround from whatever happened last season.
Yesterday at Rock M
In this awesome sidebar by Quentin, who was on the IR this week and didn’t make the trip to Starkville, he talks about how the Tigers’ ground and pound attack effectively silenced those annoying as all hell cowbells
Highlighting this quote to personally thank Quentin, who had his own version of a flu game, except it was a flu week and he still managed to kill the pieces, per usual
It’s also wild to think about being disappointed when the home team is 8-3, and 10 wins are still on the table with a win in the bowl game. I know that’s far from a given, but even winning 9 games isn’t something we should feel disappointed about. Missouri has been playing football for 123 years and 25 of those seasons have seen 8 wins or more (20.3%), EIGHT of those seasons have seen 9 wins or more (6.5%), and seven seasons have hit 10 wins or more (5.6%).
We love math, don’t we folks? Percentages, numbers. Outstanding.
- In which Chad played double duty by sharing spare thoughts from the game and giving us his odd-servations for Week 14
2:30 pm (SECN) – Arkansas at Mizzou (-3.5 / 54.5 total)
NoW – Oddsmakers are basically looking at this one as a toss-up, giving Mizzou the edge with homefield advantage. The Razorbacks notched their 6th win Saturday against Louisiana Tech, but they haven’t been all that competitive in their last three games against teams with a pulse…
Not that Mizzou needed any bulletin board material for this one, but…
Saturday morning was one of those pinch me moments. I traveled to the “up-and-coming suburb” (as my mom called it) of Verona, Wisconsin and bustled into a school bus, driven by “Bus Driver Gary,” at least according to the nameplate above his seat.
Maybe-Gary wore a Packers sweatshirt and a warm smile as he welcomed his passengers to Wisconsin. He shuttled fans from a local elementary school parking lot to THE Thomas Zimmer Cross Country Course.
I don’t know anything about cross-country, but I am a fan of good writing. Therefore, I liked this.
The next week will be critical for Mizzou as the team has two matches remaining on the regular season schedule: #12 Kentucky and Auburn. Their performance will make the difference between a favorable five seed or a tough first round matchup as a seven seed in the NCAA Tournament.
I feel like I know enough about tournaments to say that favorable seeds are preferable to non-favorable seeds. Get one of the former, please and thank you.
Missouri hit the 100 point mark with 3:50 left in the game. It’s their second 100+ point game of the season, a feat they only achieved one time last season which was in the season opener against none other than Arkansas Pine Bluff.
Gotta be honest, I wouldn’t be upset if MIzzou did this a few more times this season
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