Another quick runthrough today...

• Shooting better. dominating BCI, winning the rebounding battle.  Pretty sure Mizzou will always win when they manage all three of those.
• We're not going to go into huge statistical detail, but here are some quick 1st Half vs 2nd Half numbers:
  
  First Half BCI: Mizzou 1.00, Tech 1.25
  Second Half BCI: Mizzou 5.33, Tech 1.00
  
  Actually, that's pretty much all you need to know.  Both teams shot roughly the same in the first and second halves, but when the ball wasn't in the air, Mizzou was dominating in the second 20 minutes.
  
  Oh yeah, and Mizzou outrebounded Tech 21-12 in the second half as well.  Tech lost its legs, and Mizzou found fifth gear.  It's a pretty thing to watch.

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.

• Thank goodness the starters came to play (at least in the second half) because the bench left much to be desired.  Miguel Paul was EASILY the second-best bench player last night, if that tells you anything.
• That sounded like more of a dig on Paul than I intended--he played pretty well last night, and as The Beef mentioned, making a couple shots could do wonders for his confidence.
• What a quietly great game from Mr. Coffee last night.  More minutes, and he may have flirted with a Jason Kidd-esque 10-10-10 triple double.
• Not much you can say about DeMarre and Tiller (other than "Hey Fran Frischilla, you've done way too many Mizzou games this year to screw up nicknames as badly as you did last night.  JYD = DeMarre, not Tiller.").  They played very DeMarre- and Tiller-like games last night, and they were the reason Mizzou outscored Tech at a 50-29 clip in the second half.
• More good minutes from Justin Safford.  Everybody knows I'm a Bowers man, but this is a very positive development.
• Kimmie...man, I love you and all, but damn.  I hope you've been saving all your good play for future moments in the postseason because it's been a while since you played with confidence.
• All Goose did was score--his only other non-zeroes in the box score were two defensive rebounds and a foul--but this team was points-challenged for a while, and Goose came through with what was needed.

Keys to the Game Revisited

(From Thursday's Preview)

1. Foul trouble. Fouls were evenly distributed--22 for Tech, 21 for Mizzou--but Mizzou's were spread out.  Tech's were much more costly--five in 28 minutes for Nick Okorie, who was about the only Red Raider shooting well, and four in 18 minutes for bench catalyst Darko Cohadarevic.  Win.
   
   
2. The 3-pointer.  Tech can beat anybody if one of their guards gets hot from long-range, but they were only 4-for-15 last night.  Mizzou allowed very few open looks, and it showed--Alan Voskuil was 1-for-7, John Roberson 0-for-3.  Okorie could have gotten really hot if not for foul trouble--he was 3-for-4.  But overall...win.
   
   
3. Turnovers.  Tech cut their turnovers in half from their first meeting with Mizzou--from 29 to 14.  That would be a win for Tech, only a) Mizzou had only 11 turnovers, and b) the improvement in turnovers coincided with a slide in rebounding differential.  We'll call this one a draw.

Alright, same time and place tonight, folks.  I must say, I think OSU's going to play VERY well tonight.

That said, I've been wrong about just about everything Big 12 Tourney-related, and I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.  So with that in mind...OSU 74, Mizzou 70.  Heh heh heh...