Study Hall: Mizzou-Truman State

Why tweak a format that worked so well last year, right?  While Statsheet.com doesn't track exhibition games, I still do, meaning you get the data tables without the pretty Statsheet graphs.  Regardless, here's a statistical look back at the laughingest of exhibition laughers.

Mizzou 96, Truman State 33

• Damn...hold them to one less point, and we perfectly triple their score.  Inexcusable.
• Obviously we're not going to try to glean too much from any of this, but there's statistical domination, and there's statistical domination.  I mentioned last week that Mizzou is as safe as anybody when it comes to avoiding slip-ups in these types of games, simply because when the athletic advantage is this significant, an opponent will have to shoot about 85% from the field to have a shot.  And if Truman had indeed shot 85% from the field, they'd have ended up with around 26 more made field goals and 52-62 points...and they'd have still lost.
• Didn't you miss having BCI in your life?  I know I did.
• Nice walk-up crowd, by the way.  There's nothing truly amazing about attendance of 8,120, but considering we drew 4,300 for the first exhibition last year, I think that number's pretty outstanding.

If you're looking for red flags, here's what I've got to offer:

1. Missouri was 3-for-16 from 3-point range.  A lot of the misses were open looks from people we know to be good shooters.  Kimmeh and Justin Safford combined to go 1-for-5 from downtown, for instance.  If there's a worry at all, it's that Miguel Paul and Michael Dixon combined to go 0-for-6.  With such a small sample size, however, we'll obviously wait and see how the next few games go before we call this an actual worry.
   
   
2. Twelve turnovers is a bit much for an opponent like Truman State, even in a game where the starters averaged only 17.6 minutes.  Kimmeh led the way with three, while Dixon and Laurence Bowers had two each, but ten of the turnovers came before halftime, and things got shored up tremendously in the second half.  Again, this isn't a concern yet.
   
   
3. I mentioned wanting to see good things from Marcus Denmon, wanting him to prove to me he could be the second good long-range shooter that we needed, and he clearly didn't show that in opportunity #1.  As with the others, this isn't a concern yet, just a missed opportunity.  He's got plenty more chances to show what he can do.  Meanwhile, he played great defense all night, and that's lovely.

That's about all I've got as far as negatives go.  Player stats after the jump.

Player Stats

* AdjGS = a take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds.  It does the same thing my previous measure of choice did (it takes points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account to determine an individual's "score" for a given game), only the formula is more used and accepted.  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.

• I had a friend in town from Chicago, and the first thing I told him as we headed to the game was, if Laurence Bowers is really good, we're going to be great this year.  Again, it was only Truman State (how many times can one person say that in one post?), but let's just say that his numbers were gaudy enough to excite me.  You expect good numbers, but his were great.  Eight offensive rebounds, and a nice touch on the 17-footer that Leo and DeMarre patented last year, plus a couple of steals and a couple of blocks?  Yes, please.
• Compared to my expectations, the person who impressed me most on Friday was Tyler Stone.  I mentioned this in yesterday's podcast, but he was a lot bigger than I expected, and he was very smooth around the hoop.  I'm not sure his range goes beyond 8 feet yet, but we've got plenty of bigs (Bowers and Safford, to name two) with good range--we need a guy with post moves and strength, and Stone's showing was encouraging.  Obviously I'll wait to see him do that against a real opponent before I get too encouraged, but he looked really good.
• As I also mentioned in the podcast, I cannot tell you the morbid enjoyment I got out of watching J.T. Tiller guard D2 guards man-to-man.  It was almost uncomfortable to watch after a while.  Meanwhile, Zaire Taylor and Kim English seemed perfectly content with distributing the ball and getting younger guys some opportunities to make plays.  I assume we'll see more shots from both of them when the games get real.  It really was fun, though, to watch English looking to get Jarrett Sutton the ball every second that he was on the court.
  
• Get John Underwood a sandwich.  Send him to The Diner for three Stretches every morning.  Dude needs to gain some weight as soon as humanly possible.  He had a really nice block and looked decent around the basket, but he's going to get pushed around this year.  Get 20 pounds on him, and he could be a really nice defensive force in future seasons.
• Not sure what to think about Steve Moore.  He looked neither good nor bad, really.

Keys to the Game Revisited

From Friday's preview.

1. Show up.  Mizzou did indeed show up.
   
   
2. Rebound.  A 54-24 rebounding edge, and a +15 margin in expected rebounds.  I consider those to be, uhh, pretty good numbers.
   
   
3. Marcus Denmon.  Like I said, he didn't show much beyond good defense, but he's got plenty of opportunities to show what he can do.
   

Summary

Eight!  Eight points in the second half!  Great defense is fun to watch.