Mizzou-KSU: Statistical Revenge (Part Deux)

Two quick notes before we dive in:

1) The Unholy Alliance may resume now.

2) As far as I can tell, this is the guy who called about 80% of last night's 49 fouls.  It was the short, dark-haired guy, and of the three (seen on this page), he seems the most likely culprit, especially since he averages more fouls called than the other two.  Either way...this crew is NOT welcome at any future 8pm (or later) weeknight tip-offs.  5:00 came awfully early this morning, and he's part of the reason why*.

* And yes, the game was super-physical, and it wasn't a game where only 20 fouls were going to be called.  No doubt.  But...49.  49!  Forty-nine.  The most fun first half of the year would have been even more fun had it not lasted almost 70 minutes.

Anyhoo...

• Going by their conference-play averages, shooting went pretty much according to form, but...yeah...BCI!  BCI!  BCI!  Considering the tight defense and physical play, the fact that Mizzou managed only 10 turnovers was damn impressive.  On defense, they took away KSU's ball movement, put their bigs up top on guards a lot (a neat strategic move by Anderson to prevent 3's...made useful by the fact that KSU's bigs are not a post-up threat at all), and generally made K-State miserable.
• First half numbers after the jump, but even taking into account KSU's 16-2 run in the second half (causing those strange spikes in the "lead safeness" graph), this game was dominated by ball control, and that game favors Mizzou...well, most of the time.
• Put another way, if Mizzou has a 2.90 to 0.57 BCI advantage, they will win 100% of the time.
• This wasn't just a virtuoso BCI performance, however--look at the rebound numbers.  When I was writing yesterday's "keys to the game," I completely ceded the rebounding advantage to the 'Cats.  Not the case.  Mizzou was persistent and aggressive, and it was a joy to watch.  Both teams crashed the offensive glass hard, but KSU was not able to discern an advantage.

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.

• What's so fun about this team is that, when it's clicking, everybody is contributing.  Despite the fact that two starters (English, Taylor) combined for -0.65 AdjGS points, Mizzou still took a 70-38 lead into the second TV timeout of the second half.
• Has anybody in the history of basketball been better at crazy tip-ins than Laurence Bowers Vroom Vroom Party Starter?
• I'm really starting to take DeMarre Carroll for granted.  I barely even notice the good things he does anymore--I only notice the bad.  My first memory of his play last night is the four straight free throws in which he thought the line was a foot closer to the basket than it was...but I didn't notice until this morning that he ended up 7-for-12 from the line.  I remember two or three times when he was horrific in putback situations around the basket...and I forget the eleventy billion offensive rebounds and successful putbacks that he had.  I don't think I'm truly going to realize what we have in him until next year, when we don't have him.
• When Mike Anderson had to put his starters back in midway through the second half to re-ice the game, he put in Taylor, Tiller, Lyons, Carroll...and Goose.  I love Kimmie English starting, and I have no problem with him continuing to do so, but Goose is majorly confident right now, and it's clear that the crunch time minutes will (and should) go to him.  Have I mentioned how much I love our depth?
• Solid work from Justin Safford.  He's not as explosive as Bowers or adept at defense/rebounds as Ramsey, but he can still play a role as an energy guy, and good things happened when he was in the game last night, as reflected by his per-minute stats.
• A word (okay, paragraph...okay, two) about Miguel Paul: he's not that great.  I can't tell what his ceiling is--mediocre? decent? very good?--but it's clear that he has a lot of holes in his game right now.  He doesn't fight over or under screens, he fouls a lot 25 feet from the basket, his jump shot comes and goes (and goes some more), he doesn't demand the ball as a point guard probably should...oh yeah, and he simply cannot weigh more than about 145 pounds.
  
  But with Zaire Taylor being the victim of a couple majorly ticky-tack fouls, Paul had to play quite a bit yesterday, and not only did he not hold the team back much (he struggled mightily during KSU's run, but he was on the court for much of MU's first-half surge too), but he found ways to make plays, and that was huge.  He had two outstanding steals (including one in the last five seconds of the half that led to a lovely Bowers putback) and one of the more gorgeous alley-oop passes you'll ever see.  He bought Mike Anderson quite a bit of time with Mr. Coffee in foul trouble, and as I said...when Mizzou was making its huge run in the first half, Paul was right in the middle of it.  If Mike Dixon hits the ground running next year, MP3 (are we still calling him that?) will be in a dogfight for minutes behind Zaire Taylor, but for one night at least, he was (mostly) fun to watch, even if his stats were, in the end, a wash.

And because the first half was such a thing of beauty, we'll look at it by itself and smile a cheesy smile for a moment.

1st Half

• How does a team go up 23 points at half on a decent, possibly Tourney-quality team?  By crushing them in shooting, ball control and even rebounding.  Really, when you think about it...how was Mizzou not up by 35??
  
  (Oh yeah, because Denis Clemente would randomly run the length of the court in 1.2 seconds for a layup.)
• When Mizzou puts up a BCI that is 16777% better than its opponents in the first half, I believe it will win 119% of the time.  Rough estimate.
• Paul and Safford were good, but this run was all about Hustle, Party Starter, and Goose.  (God, I love having so many nicknames.)

vs Big 12
Mizzou: 11-freaking-2

• He didn't do much today, but...DeMarre almost HAS to be 1st-team all-conference at this point, doesn't he?
• I almost don't want to mention this because I love the guy so much, but it's been a while since Kim English played well. Last four games: 0.87 AdjGS against KSU,  -0.29 against Colorado, -3.41 against Nebraska, 3.96 against Kansas.  Kind of hurts the average a bit (though his early-second-half buckets against KU were huge).

Title Watch

And in the absence of the Rachel Phelps Watch, which died last week, we offer you the Conference Title Race watch.  Here are the new, updated odds for winning the conference, once again as dictated by KenPom's game odds (for Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma).

KU's chances of winning the Big 12: 74.05%
MU's chances of winning the Big 12: 23.80%
OU's chances of winning the Big 12: 2.15%

If KU wins on Sunday...

KU's chances of winning the Big 12: 99.57%
OU's chances of winning the Big 12: 0.43%
MU's chances of winning the Big 12: 0.00%

If MU wins on Sunday...

MU's chances of winning the Big 12: 62.63%
KU's chances of winning the Big 12: 32.42%
OU's chances of winning the Big 12: 4.95%

So from a conference standings standpoint, this Sunday is the biggest MU-KU game since...what...1990?

And just for fun...

MU-KSU in pictures

And a prime LOLz or caption contest candidate...