Mizzou-Cornell: Statistical Round of 32!

Yeah, no way am I not patting myself on the back for this one.  Nailed it...for once.  Poor shooting and paranoid offense (doing whatever it took to avoid a turnover) kept the first half slow and close.  In the second half...not so much.  Mizzou once again methodically wore their opponent down and pulled away.

• While Mizzou's BCI was thrown out of whack in the first half because of only one turnover, check out CU's:
  
  First Half BCI: Cornell 2.00 (6 assists, 3 turnovers)
  Second Half BCI: Cornell 1.00 (5 assists, 1 steal, 6 turnovers)
• If there's a concern to take from this game, it's simply that Cornell rebounded well.  A 4-board margin based on expected rebounds is pretty hefty, and while CU's actually bigger than Marquette, they're not that much bigger.  Mizzou will simply have to rebound better on Sunday.

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 think it's safe to say that anytime DeMarre and Leo combine for 7 assists and 0 turnovers, Mizzou's going to win the game.  Combined with 13-for-23 shooting (9-for-9 from the FT line), 4 offensive rebounds (all from Leo), 13 defensive rebounds, 2 steals and a block (from DeMarre), and...yeah, Mizzou's senior bigs came through in a major, major way.
• Kim English in the last two games: 5-for-8 from 3-point range, 5-for-5 from the FT line, 20 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 turnover.  It appears he's (however momentarily) plowed back through the freshman wall.  Which is a good thing because...well, Goose was bad today.  Really bad.
• JT Tiller did have three of MU's four turnovers, but otherwise he had a Tiller-esque game: 11 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists...and Ryan Wittman went 2-for-7 from 3-point land.
• So um...Laurence Bowers?
  

Keys to the Game Revisited

(From Monday's Preview)

1. The 3-pointer. Take Kim English out of the picture, and Mizzou shot 2-for-16 from 3-point land.  That could have killed Mizzou against a better team, but luckily Cornell was pretty miserable too, going just 6-for-21.  Harvard needed to go about 11-for-21 to have a chance.
   
   
2. The offensive glass.  Cause for concern.  Cornell grabbed too many of them, and Mizzou didn't grab enough.
   
   
3. Turnovers.  Cornell only had 9 turnovers (4 from Mizzou steals), but according to Mike Anderson, they were so focused on holding onto the ball that they were quite distracted from actually running their offense, so...in a roundabout way this was still a winner for MU.

Marquette-Utah State

So while we eagerly await ghtd36's next Better Know an Opponent piece, let's check out what we can glean from Marquette beyond this week's earlier preview.

• The Golden Eagles held a very strong offensive rebounding team to an extremely poor showing on the boards--if Utah State had just grabbed an average number of offensive boards, they'd have probably won the game.  This could be a strength against Mizzou, especially if the Tigers are shooting poorly again.
• Marquette managed only 7 assists in 17 FGs, and against a defense that allows a pretty high BCI, they had a pretty poor one.
• Maurice Acker (Dominic James' replacement): 24 minutes, 5 points, 2 assists.  Meanwhile, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews shot 6-for-26 (1-for-9 frmo 3-point range) and had 3 assists and 7 turnovers.  Almost no way do they play that poorly again on Sunday, but the turnovers are an encouraging sign, to be sure.
• The game was played very much at USU's pace (62 possessions), and if Marquette's that susceptible to Mizzou's pace, this thin team (they played 7 guys against USU) will be dead tired with 10 minutes left.

Sunday prediction (since I clearly know what I'm talking about, ahem): Mizzou shoots poorly enough and Marquette rebounds well enough to take a lead into halftime, but (get this) Mizzou wears the Eagles down in the second half and moves on with a 78-69 win.