Study Hall: Mizzou 83, Niagara 52

Your Trifecta: Denmon-English-Ratliffe. Your winner: totalloser! And thank goodness, as this is about as much of a boilerplate trifecta that we can hope for. If nobody had won this one, nobody was ever going to win...

Mizzou 83, Niagara 52

Our Four-Guard Lineup Can Beat Your Four-Guard Lineup

You better have size to beat Mizzou, because if you are just trusting that your backcourt can beat the Pressey-Denmon-English-Pressey/Dixon combination, you are probably going to be sorely mistaken. This game was right up Mizzou's alley, and it showed very quickly.

Who Needs To Press?

In approximately seven fewer possessions per game, Mizzou is averaging more steals per game thus far in 2011-12 (11.3) than they did in their first three games of last season (11.0). Obviously that isn't a perfect comparison, but ... while we're at it...

• Offensive Points Per Possession
  2011-12 (first three games): 1.22
  2010-11 (first three games): 1.04
• Opponents' Points Per Possession
  2011-12 (first three games): 0.90
  2010-11 (first three games): 0.81
• Rebound Margin (Acc. to Expected Rebounds)
  2011-12 (first three games): +2.4/game
  2010-11 (first three games): +4.3/game
• BCI
  2011-12 (first three games): Mizzou 2.43, Opponents 1.00
  2010-11 (first three games): Mizzou 1.73, Opponents 0.74

So basically, Mizzou's offense is significantly better (it's amazing what a dialed-in Kim English can do for you, huh?), and Mizzou's defense is a little worse overall. The defense has passed my eyeball test, though, so I'll just let that serve as a reminder that we probably shouldn't be drawing too many conclusions -- good or bad -- after three cupcake games. We'll begin to learn more when the 'real' games start on Monday.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

Well, since we already opened the "Last Year vs This Year" can of worms...

• Marcus Denmon
  2011-12 (first three games): 19.5 AdjGS/game, 0.61/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 8.8 AdjGS/game, 0.32/minute
• Kim English
  2011-12 (first three games): 14.9 AdjGS/game, 0.45/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 10.1 AdjGS/game, 0.38/minute
• Mike Dixon
  2011-12 (first three games): 10.3 AdjGS/game, 0.43/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 13.4 AdjGS/game, 0.63/minute
• Phil Pressey
  2011-12 (first three games): 12.7 AdjGS/game, 0.42/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 6.8 AdjGS/game, 0.33/minute
• Ricardo Ratliffe
  2011-12 (first three games): 12.3 AdjGS/game, 0.49/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 9.3 AdjGS/game, 0.42/minute
• Steve Moore
  2011-12 (first three games): 4.6 AdjGS/game, 0.37/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 5.4 AdjGS/game, 0.38/minute
• Matt Pressey
  2011-12 (first three games): 6.1 AdjGS/game, 0.23/minute
  2010-11 (first three games): 2.0 AdjGS/game, 0.17/minute

So five players have improved by a good margin out of the gates (anybody else forget that Denmon started slow last year, or was it just me?), one (Dixon) has not, and one (Moore) is basically exactly the same. This is good, of course, as Mizzou has also replaced Laurence Bowers and Justin Safford with Kadeem Green. They needed everybody else to improve.

To the checklist!

Marcus Denmon's Usage% needs to be 23% or higher. (Yes!)
Kim English's %T/O needs to be at 10% or lower. (Yes!)
Kim English's Floor% should be at 35% or higher. (Yes!)
Ricardo Ratliffe's %Fouled should be at least 10%. (No.)
Phil Pressey's Touches/Possession need to be 3.5 or better. (Yes!)
Mike Dixon's %Pass should be 55% or higher. (Yes!)
Steve Moore's Touches/Possession should be at least 1.0. (Yes!)

Six for seven. Best game yet.

Summary

This game was as easy as we hoped it would be. The real season begins Monday. For all intents and purposes, if this were a 12-game, football-esque schedule, the first game against the FCS school was a solid success. Now things get interesting.

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AdjGS: a take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds.  It takes points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account to determine an individual's "score" for a given game.  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.

Usage%: This "estimates the % of team possessions a player consumes while on the floor" (via).  The usage of those possessions is determined via a formula using field goal and free throw attempts, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.  The higher the number, the more prevalent a player is (good or bad) in a team's offensive outcome.  As you would expect, someone like Kim English has a high Usage%, while Steve Moore has an extremely low one.

Floor%: Via Basketball-Reference.com: Floor % answers the question, "when Player X uses a possession, what is the probability that his team scores at least 1 point?".  The higher the Floor%, the more frequently the team probably scores when the given player is involved.

Touches/Possession: Using field goal attempts, free throw attempts, assists and turnovers, Touches attempt to estimate "the number of times a player touched the ball in an attacking position on the floor."  Take the estimated touches and divide it by the estimated number of possessions for which a player was on the court, and you get a rough idea of how many times a player touched the ball in a given possession.  For point guards, you'll see the number in the 3-4 range.  For shooting guards and wings, 2-3.  For Steve Moore, 1.30.  You get the idea.

Anyway, using the Touches figure, we can estimate the percentage of time a player "in an attacking position" passes, shoots, turns the ball over, or gets fouled.