Mizzou 72, Appalachian State 56: Study Hall

Your Trifecta: Bowers-Bell-Pressey. (Though according to the live thread, this was more like Bowers-Bowers-Bowers.)

So i'm in a weird spot here. We were doing some serious house rearranging yesterday, and in the process of DVR'ing about six football games, I somehow un-scheduled the recording of the Mizzou-ASU game. I see that it's on ESPN3, so I plan on watching it later today or tomorrow (I do have six football games scheduled for 'work' purposes). But in the meantime, I'm going to turn the tables. Below are the stats and my observations gleaned from both the stats and yesterday's ASU-MU live thread. I'll ask some questions for you to answer in the process.

Mizzou 72, Appalachian State 56

College Basketball

	Mizzou	ASU
Pace (No. of Possessions)	66.6
Points Per Possession (PPP)	1.08	0.84
Points Per Shot (PPS)	1.22	0.95
2-PT FG%	57.5%	35.6%
3-PT FG%	31.6%	35.7%
FT%	57.1%	69.2%
True Shooting %	55.2%	43.3%
	Mizzou	ASU
Assists	18	8
Steals	10	8
Turnovers	17	15
Ball Control Index (BCI) (Assists + Steals) / TO	1.65	1.07
	Mizzou	ASU
Expected Offensive Rebounds	12	14
Offensive Rebounds	16	13
Difference	+4	-1

Good News, Bad News Re: Ball-Handling

With Mike Dixon's official departure, we know that unless Jabari Brown is fantastic in this regard, Missouri could be a shaky ball-handling team. We should expect Negus Webster-Chan to potentially improve a bit in this regard as he gets a little more experienced, but NWC, Brown and Keion Bell are all stopgap point guards. Anytime Phil Pressey isn't on the court, Mizzou won't have a true point guard.

With that in mind, it is obviously a little disconcerting to see that Mizzou turned the ball over 17 times against a pretty poor Appalachian State team. That is pretty obvious bad news. The good news, however, is that Keion Bell was almost a better point guard than Phil Pressey yesterday, at least according to the stats. As you'll see below, Bell's %TO was just 3%, lower than Pressey's at 4%. (And they were both 4% or lower, which is great.) Bell's stat line as a whole, actually, was quite Dixon-esque. That's good to see, even if Laurence Bowers, Earnest Ross, Alex Oriakhi and Danny Feldman combined for 11 turnovers.

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Question No. 1: Did Bell look as good as his stat line? He was penetrating, getting to the line, dishing, playing good defense (three steals) ... did his performance live up to his stat line?

Question No. 2: How was ASU forcing all of these turnovers against Mizzou's bigs? Were they pressured or doubled, or did Bowers, Oriahki, etc., just get careless?

Question No. 3: Appalachian State was 5-for-14 from 3-point range (Jamaal Trice was 2-for-3, Nathan Healy 1-for-2, everybody else 2-for-9). Open looks or good shooting?

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These Rebounding Totals...

...are still a little jarring. Especially with Dixon gone, it is difficult to imagine a team's style and identity changing more in a single off-season.

Stupid Garbage Time Surges

In keeping up with the game on my phone, I was a little thrown to see just a 16-point margin at the end of the game. Then I saw that ASU made a lovely 12-4 run in the final three garbage-time minutes. Good for them, I guess.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

College Basketball

Player	AdjGS	GmSc/Min	Line
Laurence Bowers	24.4	0.94	26 Min, 23 Pts (9-11 FG, 3-3 3PT, 2-2 FT), 5 Reb (3 Off), 2 Stl, 3 TO
Keion Bell	15.9	0.64	25 Min, 12 Pts (4-10 FG, 1-3 3PT, 3-3 FT), 6 Reb (2 Off), 4 Ast, 3 Stl
Phil Pressey	12.3	0.40	31 Min, 5 Pts (2-7 FG, 1-6 3PT), 7 Ast, 4 Stl, 4 Reb (2 Off)
Earnest Ross	10.5	0.35	30 Min, 13 Pts (5-10 FG, 1-2 3PT, 2-4 FT), 9 Reb (2 Off), 3 Ast, 3 TO
Tony Criswell	9.4	0.49	19 Min, 10 Pts (5-8 FG, 0-1 3PT), 3 Reb
Ryan Rosburg	1.3	0.10	13 Min, 2 Pts (1-3 FG, 0-2 FT), 3 Reb (2 Off)
Alex Oriakhi	0.7	0.03	21 Min, 5 Pts (2-3 FG, 1-3 FT), 5 Reb, 3 TO
Corey Haith	0.4	0.35	1 Min, 1 Reb
Dominique Bull	0.0	0.00	1 Min
Danny Feldmann	-0.8	-0.41	2 Min, 2 Pts (1-2 FG, 0-1 3PT0, 2 TO
Negus Webster-Chan	-1.8	-0.06	28 Min, 0 Pts (0-4 FG, 0-2 3PT), 3 Reb (2 Off), 2 Ast, 2 TO
Stefan Jankovic	-2.1	-0.70	3 Min, 0 Pts (0-1 FG)

Player	Usage%	Floor%	Touches/ Poss.	%Pass	%Shoot	%Fouled	%T/O
Bowers	28%	58%	1.9	0%	68%	13%	19%
Bell	24%	43%	4.5	62%	26%	9%	3%
Pressey	14%	38%	4.9	82%	14%	0%	4%
Ross	24%	39%	3.5	51%	29%	12%	9%
Criswell	20%	59%	2.2	42%	58%	0%	0%
Rosburg	15%	29%	2.6	53%	27%	19%	0%
Oriakhi	17%	28%	1.3	0%	33%	35%	33%
Webster-Chan	10%	11%	1.9	66%	23%	0%	11%
Jankovic	32%	0%	2.0	0%	50%	0%	50%

• Six -- six -- different Missouri players had at least two offensive rebounds, including Phil Pressey. Yeesh.
• I've figured out what I want to see from Tony Criswell: as many free throw attempts as 3-point attempts. Clearly he's going to continue yanking up at least one 3-pointer per game, and I'll be okay with that as long as he's proving he has some physicality from time to time. In yesterday's stat line, he came off more like a shooting guard. A really big shooting guard.
• Mizzou's four freshmen (Rosburg, Bull, NWC, Jankovic): 45 minutes, -2.6 Adj. Pts. Not really what I want to see against a cupcake.

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Question No. 4: Phil Pressey had two offensive rebounds? Were they long caroms after 3-pointers, or was he actually mixing it up inside?

Question No. 5: The play-by-play says Tony Criswell was 4-for-4 on layups, 1-for-4 on jumpers. The 3-pointer aside, how far away were the other missed jumpers.

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Summary

You're my eyes and ears! I do want to watch this at some point, simply because I <3 Laurence Bowers. But in the meantime, let me know your answers to the five questions above.

Three more cupcakes till Illinois. Next up: SEMO on Tuesday.

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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.

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.