If only games were 39 minutes and 56 seconds long.

It’s often hard to zoom out from a game that came down to the wire. A few possessions at the very end on regulation sent this game into Overtime where Vanderbilt seized control and forced Mizzou to play catchup. When those things happen, we tend to dwell on the final few minutes and forget that it took 38 minutes of action beforehand to get to where we were.

I’m guilty of it. I woke up this morning thinking about Trent Pierce losing site of Tyler Nickel with 4 seconds on the clock and a 3 point lead. I play the what-if game about Mark Mitchell stepping out of bounds with 35 seconds on the clock and a 4 point lead. Or Jacob Crews fouling Nickel before the ball could be in bounded a few moments later. The little mistakes that compounded to the point where a 6 point lead becomes a tied game with only a desperation heave to try and win it.

But the game is 40 minutes of regulation, and this one was an extra 5 minutes in overtime. And the first 38 minutes set the story for how the final two were played.

Both teams were fighting hard for this game. Vanderbilt came out struggling to make shots. They were only 5 for their first 21. None of those was a three pointer either. Missouri wasn’t scorching the nets either, but they were 11 of their first 23, with Caleb Grill and Tamar Bates leading the way. Vandy propped themselves up by crashing the glass hard, for a smaller (height wise) team they rebound well. It’s a stout and physical team, and Missouri had to watch as Chris Mañon had a career day providing a crutch to the Vandy offense until they finally got some shots to fall.

And once their shots started to fall, that short lead flipped in a big way.

Team Stats

• Mizzou has held the line for most of the year on the glass: but they were outfought against the ‘Dores. In conference play Mizzou is 8th on offense rebounding and 11th in defensive rebounding, they’re not bad. But this game was also the first time anyone has been north of 40% and Vandy got over 50%. In the second half Missouri was better, but then again the first shot defense was far worse.
• 2FG% was something I was keeping an eye on: because in the first matchup Vanderbilt was 13-32 from inside the arc, and while that 61.9% mark is ugly it was WAY WORSE in the second half and overtime. Vanderbilt missed 4 2-point field goals in the second half and overtime, in 20 attempts. Yes after halftime they shot 80% inside the arc. If you score 1.24 points per possession you should win most of those games. But when you’re leaking that badly inside the arc, it’s nearly impossible to overcome.

Ball handling was mostly awash, which is to be expected. Vanderbilt turns you over, Mizzou turns you over. They both had a moderate amount of turnovers. But Missouri has been mathematically better in the possession battle most of the year and Vandy won out by being even in the turnovers and going +6 on the glass. It gave them 7 more 2FGA, 4 more 3FGA, and they lost the FT battle by 11.

Player Stats

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

On the season: Mark Mitchell 38, Caleb Grill 31, Tamar Bates 31, Anthony Robinson II 25, Tony Perkins 17, Marques Warrick 13, Trent Pierce 11, Jacob Crews 5, Josh Gray, Marcus Allen 1, Aidan Shaw 1

Caleb Grill was invaluable. But he’s now 7 of his last 32 on three point attempts away from Mizzou Arena, that’s just 21.8%. His gravity on the floor is still enormous, and his savvy offensively is vital to the team… but that’s getting up a lot of three point attempts and not seeing them go in. I think you want him still looking for his shot, but when you have other guys playing as well as they are, it’s ok to turn down a semi-open three for a Mark Mitchell drive or an Anthony Robinson pull up.

Maybe it seems weird to complain about a guy who had 28 points and did so with a 1.27 points per possession, but Grill’s volume of threes is the only real issue… when they’re not going in. He’s been so good about crashing towards the rim off the ball and his 6 for 8 inside the arc was a big deal. There were just several of his missed threes where, if he’s a bit more patient, he’s got a mismatch with Mark or Ant just one pass away.

Talking about Ant, it took him a little bit to get going, but once he was humming Mizzou needed to do a better job of finding him shots and possessions. 1.77 ppp on 14.5% usage tells me you needed a few more shots.

This definitely wasn’t a bench mob game either, something that’s gone Missouri’s way in other road wins. Grill is essentially a sixth starter, but nobody else was really helping all that much. Jacob Crews had a needed three, Marques Warrick did the same, but it really seemed like both coaches found the seven guys they were going to run with and stuck with it.

Vanderbilt played 10 players, Mizzou played 10. But the Tigers had Warrick play 3, and Peyton play 1. Vandy had JQ Roberts play 3 minutes, and Grant Huffman spot in for 5. But four guys played 30+ and each of those guys had big offensive games. Missouri had four guys who played 30+ and really had the same with a positive offensive output.

Missouris four (Mitchell, Grill, Bates, Ant): 80 points on 45 shots

Vanderbilts four (Hoggard, Nickel, Edwards, Mañon): 73 points on 47 shots.

The others for Vandy were productive though, 11 of 21 for 24 points. Missouri’s others pitched in just 13 points on 4 of 12 shooting.

I think Mizzou needed help from just one more guy and they’re likely put over the top. But sometimes that’s life on the road.

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STUDY HALL GLOSSARY ON ROCK M+

True Shooting Percentage (TS%): Quite simply, this calculates a player’s shooting percentage while taking into account 2FG%, 3FG%, and FT%.

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.

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.

%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).

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.