A close first half but then a second half blowout that isn’t even full reflected in the final score.

Since I’ve been trying to publish a Pourover column each Sunday, I’ve tried to keep the focus for them on the season at large and avoid any game play. Knowing I’d have to turn around and write Study Hall. But what Missouri did to Georgia in the second half is something I just couldn’t ignore.

I think the technical term is: Pantsed.

Maybe it’s not technical but that’s what it was. The Tigers walked out at halftime and scored on their seven possessions. Georgia kept pace on the first three, and then the pressure began to mount. Then from 12:45 to 9:26 the pressure cracked the Bulldogs and Missouri went on a 15-0 run that started with two layups and three dunks. The lead ballooned to 19, and Georgia looked dejected.

They kept trying to fight though. Blue Cain would can a three, Anthony Robinson would answer with a layup. Cain answered right back with a pull up jumper, and Tony Perkins scored a layup. Per Statbroadcast Missouri scored on 72% of their second half possessions for a points per possession for a pretty robust 1.581 points per possession.

This is all up against a team with a top 40 defense. They gave up 80+ points to Alabama and Florida but that was on the road. At home they just don’t leak points like that. Their previous worst defensive performance was 1.115 ppp against Mississippi State. Missouri’s 1.42 ppp stands out.

Full disclosure here on the numbers, if you’re a KenPom subscriber he had the game at 63 possessions which would put Mizzou at 1.388 ppp. I checked BartTorvik who also had 63 possessions, but I reran the numbers here and it kept spitting out 61. I checked EvanMiya and he had 61 possessions… so I don’t know why we’re all getting something different, but if you’re looking at different sites at least that might explain some slightly different numbers. Either way, 1.388 or 1.42 is pretty elite offense.

Team Stats

I think you’d be hard pressed to find may games against HM opponents with a BCI this high: Only 3 turnovers for the Tigers is impressive, they had two shot clock violations and then Marcus Allen tried to drive the defense and had the ball knocked away for a jump ball. There were zero live ball turnovers. Missouri has had 58 games with fewer than 10 turnovers since entering the SEC against SEC opponents, they’ve had 4 games of 5 turnovers or less. They’ve had two games with as few as 3 turnovers, both under Dennis Gates, both this season, both on the road. Georgia and Tennessee.
Mizzou’s a much better rebounding team but they haven’t been big on crashing the offensive glass: they’re just 8th in the SEC for ORB%, but 4th in DRB%. Their 50% offensive rebound rate is their second best mark on the season (sorry MVSU). A 50% ORB rate is rare, so rare against a conference opponent that Missouri has done it 4 times and three of them were under Frank Haith.
What’s most impressive to me is they dismantled a solid defense and didn’t shoot the ball all that well: I get how things snowballed in Starkville, they made 15 threes. I get how they scored 80+ against Tennessee, they made 12 threes and shot 40% and still went to the line 29 times. But Missouri pummeled Georgia’s defense at the rim while only making 31% of their threes.

Rebounding, ball control, and shots at the rim. Missouri’s free throw rate was the second lowest on the season, they just didn’t need the freebies. That’s good because the officials were letting things go.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Anthony Robinson II, Caleb Grill, Mark Mitchell

On the season: Mark Mitchell 32, Tamar Bates 30, Caleb Grill 23, Anthony Robinson II 20, Tony Perkins 16, Trent Pierce 11, Marques Warrick 10, Jacob Crews 5, Josh Gray, Marcus Allen 1, Aidan Shaw 1

So many good performances here but it’s really nice to see the return of the Anthony Robinson II that we’ve come to know this season. Ant was cool, calm, and collected. He fouled out but at least two of those calls were pretty questionable and one I’m not even sure what the official saw to blow his whistle (the late in the first half dunk by Asa Newell). For Rock M+ subscribers you should check out Matt Harris’s film review on Ant’s performance. Despite fouling out he wasn’t really in foul trouble, he fouled out with a minute to play and played 12 minutes in the half. In those 12 minutes he was a +19.

Before I saw the stats, I would have guessed Tamar Bates would end up as the second or third most important player. He buoyed the offense in the first half with his shooting, and his two second half dunks were such exclamation points on the way Missouri was playing.

Meanwhile Caleb Grill with a pretty poor shooting day yet he still had heavy impacts on the game with 15 points, 5 rebounds and 4 steals. He was only 2-9 from 3FG but still had a 141 ORtg. I also want to point out Mark Mitchell with another good game, I’m not sure I love him attempting 4 threes but I’ll take the individual stat line otherwise, plus a 56% floor rate.

Slight nods towards Trent Pierce for looking like himself, including being a menace on the offensive glass. And Jacob Crews only attempted one three, but had a terrific day. Tony Perkins put Newell on a poster.

It felt as though Missouri was merely idling in the parking lot outside for the first half before hitting the gas in the second. In the first 12 minutes they made 16 of their 19 field goal attempts. The tally was 3 made threes, four dunks, 7 layups, and 4 out of 5 from the free throw line. 39 points in 12 minutes is a lot. They cruised after.

The win moved the Tigers to 14th in KenPom, and 8-4 in conference play. What might be just as impressive if they’ve beaten the expected margin in their favor in every game except for the loss at Texas, and the home loss to A&M. Mizzou is a one point favorite heading into Wednesday so lets keep that streak going!

True Shooting Percentage (TS%): Quite simply, this calculates a player’s shooting percentage while taking into account 2FG%, 3FG%, and FT%. The formula is Total Points / 2 * (FGA + (0.475+FTA)). The 0.475 is a Free Throw modifier. KenPomeroy and other College Basketball sites typically use 0.475, while the NBA typically uses 0.44. That’s basically what TS% is. A measure of scoring efficiency based on the number of points scored over the number of possessions in which they attempted to score, more here.

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%): This is similar to TS%, but takes 3-point shooting more into account. The formula is FGM + (0.5 * 3PM) / FGA

So think of TS% as scoring efficiency, and eFG% as shooting efficiency, more here.

Expected Offensive Rebounds: Measured based on the average rebounds a college basketball team gets on both the defensive and offensive end. This takes the overall number of missed shots (or shots available to be rebounded) and divides them by the number of offensive rebounds and compares them with the statistical average.

AdjGS: A take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds. It takes points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account to determine an individual’s “score” for a given game. The “adjustment” in Adjusted Game Score is simply matching the total game scores to the total points scored in the game, thereby redistributing the game’s points scored to those who had the biggest impact on the game itself, instead of just how many balls a player put through a basket.

%Min: This is easy, it’s the percentage of minutes a player played that were available to them. That would be 40 minutes, or 45 if the game goes to overtime.

Usage%: This “estimates the % of team possessions a player consumes while on the floor” (via sports-reference.com/cbb). The usage of those possessions is determined via a formula using field goal and free throw attempts, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. The higher the number, the more prevalent a player is (good or bad) in a team’s offensive outcome.

Offensive Rating (ORtg): Similar to Adjusted game score, but this looks at how many points per possession a player would score if they were averaged over 100 possessions. This combined with Usage Rate gives you a sense of impact on the floor.

IndPoss: This approximates how many possessions an individual is responsible for within the team’s calculated possessions.

ShotRate%: This is the percentage of a team’s shots a player takes while on the floor.

AstRate%: Attempts to estimate the number of assists a player has on teammates made field goals when he is on the floor. The formula is basically AST / (((MinutesPlayed / (Team MP / 5)) * Team FGM) – FGM).

TORate%: Attempts to estimate the number of turnovers a player commits in their individual possessions. The formula is simple: TO / IndPoss

Floor%: Via sports-reference.com/cbb: Floor % answers the question, “When a Player uses a possession, what is the probability that his team scores at least 1 point?”. The higher the Floor%, the more frequently the team probably scores when the given player is involved.

In attempting to update Study Hall, I’m moving away from Touches/Possession and moving into the Rates a little more. This is a little experimental so if there’s something you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if there’s an easy visual way to present it.