Study Hall: Missouri 81, Texas 67

Your Trifecta: PPressey-English-Ratliffe. Your winner: nobody. And why? Because as with yesterday (only with Flip instead of Kimmie), all but one person who had Flip first, had Ratliffe second.

Phil Pressey in the Big 12 Tournament: 63 minutes, 27 points (5-for-9 on 2-pointers, 5-for-7 on 3-pointers, 2-for-2 on free throws), 16 assists, six steals, three turnovers. I have no idea how he was credited with only four assists -- my guess would have been about eight -- but he has simply been incredible thus far. Hopefully he's got another 40 good minutes in him.

Missouri 81, Texas 67

NCAA Basketball

	Mizzou	UT
Pace (No. of Possessions)	61.9
Points Per Minute	2.03	1.68
Points Per Possession (PPP)	1.31	1.08
Points Per Shot (PPS)	1.42	1.05
2-PT FG%	57.1%	43.1%
3-PT FG%	45.5%	38.5%
FT%	73.3%	57.1%
True Shooting %	63.7%	47.7%
	Mizzou	UT
Assists	15	10
Steals	7	4
Turnovers	8	12
Ball Control Index (BCI) (Assists + Steals) / TO	2.75	1.17
	Mizzou	UT
Expected Offensive Rebounds	10	14
Offensive Rebounds	8	20
Difference	-2	+6

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

NCAA Basketball

Player	AdjGS	GmSc/Min	Line
Phil Pressey	24.7	0.69	36 Min, 23 Pts (8-13 FG, 5-7 3PT, 2-2 FT), 4 Ast, 2 Reb
Kim English	23.2	0.70	33 Min, 23 Min (9-10 FG, 3-4 3PT, 2-2 FT), 2 Ast
Ricardo Ratliffe	18.4	0.61	30 Min, 18 Pts (7-12 FG, 4-5 FT), 14 Reb (5 Off), 3 Blk, 3 TO, 4 PF
Mike Dixon	9.4	0.37	25 Min, 10 Pts (4-7 FG, 2-4 3PT, 0-2 FT), 3 Ast
Steve Moore	5.4	0.38	14 Min, 4 Pts (2-3 FG), 4 Reb (3 Off)
Marcus Denmon	0.2	0.01	36 Min, 2 Pts (0-10 FG, 0-5 3PT, 2-2 FT), 6 Reb, 3 Stl, 2 Ast
Matt Pressey	-0.2	-0.01	26 Min, 1 Pt (0-2 3PT, 1-2 FT), 3 Ast, 2 TO

• It just blows my mind that this team can get a 0-for-10 performance from its best scorer, have their best scorer in this game miss some minutes after taking a knee to the quad ... and beat a solid team by 14 points. The amount of firepower here is just incredible. Denmon's cold? Hello, Flip Pressey. English is hobbling in the tunnel by the locker room? Unleash hell, Mike Dixon.
• Texas still dominated on the offensive glass (from a defensive perspective, the 'Horns are the worst possible matchup for Kim English at the 4-spot -- Kimmie had zero rebounds), but Ricardo Ratliffe and Steve Moore (eight combined offensive rebounds) did nice work in nabbing some second-chance opportunities of their own.

Player	Usage%	Floor%	Touches/ Poss.	%Pass	%Shoot	%Fouled	%T/O
P. Pressey	22%	61%	3.4	61%	34%	6%	0%
English	20%	77%	2.4	47%	40%	9%	4%
Ratliffe	32%	44%	2.2	0%	59%	26%	15%
Dixon	20%	48%	3.6	64%	25%	8%	4%
Moore	12%	67%	2.0	66%	34%	0%	0%
Denmon	18%	13%	2.2	47%	40%	9%	4%
M. Pressey	10%	25%	2.9	74%	8%	9%	8%

To the checklist!

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

So it was 5-for-7, and one of the two misses was really, really close (Pressey had 3.4 touches/possession instead of 3.5). Through two games, this team has played exactly how it need to play in the postseason. Now do it seven more times.

Three Keys Revisited

From yesterday's preview.

The Glass

This one needs no explanation. Mizzou beat Texas twice, but they did so by only 12 points, in part because they couldn't grab a rebound. Limit Texas to one-and-done, and you put a lot of pressure on either J'Covan Brown, or somebody quite a bit less likely, to get smoking hot.

Expected Rebounds: Texas +8

This kept Texas in the game for quite a while. The 'Horns were not particularly hot from the field, and Phil Pressey and Kim English were just torching the nets in the first half, but nine offensive rebounds on 18 missed field goals gave them enough second chances to stay within seven points at the break. It eventually didn't matter, of course, but it did for a while. Texas is just a horrific matchup inside for English and Mizzou; power to the Tigers for going 3-0 versus them anyway.

Denmon Vs. Brown

Technically, it's Denmon, Kim English, Mike Dixon ... somebody, anybody. Brown is easily one of the most high-volume scorers Mizzou has faced this year, and while they did a much better job of limiting his opportunities in the rematch, he can be allowed to go off a bit as long as someone can match him, or at least come relatively close. Mizzou's supporting cast (which changes from game to game) is infinitely more explosive than Texas', but as we saw in Columbia, Brown can single-handedly keep Texas in the game.

J'Covan Brown: 36 minutes, 21 points (8-20 FG)
Kim English: 33 minutes, 23 points (9-10 FG)

Granted, Marcus Denmon wasn't The Man this time around, but wow, was English hot. English was so good that he and Denmon combined to shoot better than Brown (9-for-20). Great, great performance.

Good Flip

We got Great Flip in Columbia and Decent Flip in Austin; in all, he was easily Mizzou's best player over the full 80 minutes, and if he is as good as he was, either against Texas or against Oklahoma State last night, Missouri will be very, very tough to beat.

Flip Pressey: 36 minutes, 23 points (8-13 FG), four assists, no turnovers, one steal.

Good gracious, has he been good so far this week.

Summary

The Beef and I were debating yesterday whether we wanted to see Kansas or Suddenly Great Baylor in the finals if Missouri was lucky enough to make it. I honestly didn't know the answer, but ... we get Suddenly Great Baylor. Let's see what happens. No matter what Joe Lunardi thinks, Mizzou still has a shot at a 1-seed if they can pull off the win (though, granted, St. Louis might be out of the question -- hello, West Region); but it's something to play for beyond simply another trophy. Both teams are smoking hot right now ... this is going to be fun.

---

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.