My favorite moment from last night's game: getting to relive (in my head) the classic moment from MU-UAPB '98, where John Woods was inbounding the ball, turned to press row and said "These guys are terrible!"  Good times.

Mizzou 95, UA-Pine Bluff 41

• The one qualm: rebounding.  UAPB should not have gotten 17 offensive rebounds.  Meanwhile, Mizzou actually got fewer offensive rebounds than expected, which is a bit befuddling, even though we were obviously getting the young guys a lot of minutes.
• That said...that's all the complaining that can be done.  UAPB shot under 30% and had an 8-28 Assist-turnover ratio.  There are easy wins, and there are easy wins.
• The per-possession efficiency for Mizzou actually was not as great this game as it was against ORU.  Whereas the ORU game was won with offense, this one was clearly won with defense.

EqPts = a take-off of the Net Equivalent Points idea discussed last week.  Taking points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account, the team's points are re-distributed to figure out who had the biggest impact on the game itself, instead of just how many balls a player put through a basket.  I can go into detail on the formula if anybody asks, but for now just know that that was the intent.

• God bless Matt Lawrence.  He almost had a Rip Hamilton-like line of all points and nothing else.  But when he's making his 3's, he belongs on the floor.
• Jaureth Bamford (Justin Safford + Keith Ramsey + Laurence Bowers): 39 minutes, 13 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 steals.  Awesome.  Ramsey continues to do all the little things, and I should also mention that Safford's passing has been a nice addition so far this year.
• Actually, the whole team's passing has been a nice addition this year.  Last year, four guys averaged 0.09 assists per minute or better.  This year: seven.
• If JT Tiller has a great game against Cal, he officially gets the "Big Game" nickname.  Against the cupcakes, Tiller sits back and lets his teammates shine (well, I guess he lets them shine instead of just sucking), but against the bigger names on the schedule, he has stepped up in a major way.  Cal is officially the third "real" team Mizzou will play this year.  If he comes up big, it's Big Game Tiller.

Season to Date

• Give Jarrett Sutton 21 minutes a game, and he'll score 27 points!  He's a machine!