The starters came out flat, but the subs did some walloping.
There won’t be any dissertations written on the overall quality of the Pacific Tigers. They’re not Mississippi Valley State levels of bad, but they’re not a great basketball team. Dave Smart is a terrific basketball coach, and given time and resources he’ll get that program rolling soon enough. But they’re not there yet.
But they aren’t that bad.
Pacific led 9-4, Missouri looked a bit lethargic offensively. But they went from -5 to +38 in about 30 minutes of game action, so they figured it out.
A 15-2 run led to an 8 point lead. Then a 20-2 run beginning just before the end of the 1st half and for the first five minutes of the second and the game was over.
Even before the game the knowledge on Pacific were they could be plucky, but they had a very shallow bench. Once Missouri got the pace up, and forced a few turnovers, they were able to keep any pressure on defensively to maintain a healthy margin. And margins are what you’re wanting to grow when you have these buy games.
Missouri was projected to win by somewhere around 20 points depending on your favorite analytics site. They won by 35. Now for two straight games the Tigers have widely outperformed their expected margins. That’s the good trend.
Team Stats
- Pace was one area where the Tigers wanted to juice things: and a Pacific team who only wants to play 7 guys, I thought they might need to get the pace up into the upper 60s to low 70s. But that just wasn’t necessary thanks to a 1.39 points per possession. For context that number is better than any single game last year, and was only bested once two years ago.
- Three Point shooting is important times 1,000: with Caleb Grill going nuclear (he’s now up to 56.7% on the season after starting 0-7), the Tigers have now made 39 of of 79 3FGA (49.4%) which is a really helpful way of running good offense. After starting 10 of 26 (21.7%) they’re now the 39th best shooting team in the country. I have no idea if this keeps up, I don’t really expect it to, but it really demonstrates how valuable those shots can be.
- Competent rebounding is refreshing: even if the Tigers are never great rebounders under Gates, just being adequate is enough if they can force turnovers AND not turn the ball over.
Player Stats
Your Trifecta: Caleb Grill, Trent Pierce, Ant Robinson-Tamar Bates
On the season: Caleb Grill 7, Mark Mitchell 7, Tamar Bates 7, Anthony Robinson II 5, Trent Pierce 2, Marques Warrick 2, Aidan Shaw 1
One thing we knew about Caleb Grill when he committed to Missouri was his hot and cold nature as a shooter. You’re always going to get effort, defense, rebounding, when the shot is falling he can do what he’s done now for a couple games in a row… go nuclear. Hopefully over the next few games he can save some firepower for Kansas and Illinois on the horizon.
One of the things I remarked on the Game Thread was about Trent Pierce’s energy coming off the bench. He’s still shooting the ball poorly (just one of his last nine from outside) but he’s attacking the rim, getting to the FT line, (a 75% Free Throw rate!), and playing good defense. It’s nice to see that rewarded with a spot in the trifecta.
Mizzou housed a solid buy game opponent and their two marquee transfer portal additions were non-factors. Tony Perkins, again, took a DNP and Mark Mitchell was pretty awful offensively. With neither guy playing or playing well the results didn’t matter. That’s heartening, because each of the last two years the issue has been depth. Not every guy on the 15 man roster is going to be nails every night, so it’s good when you can sub someone in who can be who you need.
Even with Annor Boateng struggling, and Mitchell having an off night, everyone else was good. Sure Peyton Marshall can tighten up a bit defensively, and you’d like to see Jacob Crews knock down a jumper here or there, but otherwise this went about as well as you could want offensively.
Defensively it’s worth pointing out that Missouri’s defensive efficiency has climbed to 83rd in KenPom. Opponent adjustment is important, but holding Pacific to just 25 second half points when you were playing freshmen for most of the last 10 minutes is a good sign. Mizzou has now won four games in a row and each result has been unsteady. But they’ve now put together three really good defensive performances out of the four games.
Next up is Arkansas Pine Bluff, then Lindenwood. Neither game should be close. I think your goal is to see about revving up Perkins, but continuing to lean hard on your defense. I’m not sure you can expect to shoot 50% from three point range each game. So I’d like to see them attack the rim more and continue to get to the foul line.
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.