Study Hall: Mizzou 90, Baylor 75

While you know about the Rock M Nation pick 'em, be sure to join the Yahoo!/SB Nation bracket contest as well! Before we can talk about Missouri's status in the West Region and the bracket as a whole, however, let us reflect on what we learned from the weekend.

Your Trifecta: PPressey-English-Dixon. Your winner: nobody!

For the first time Missouri history, five players scored 15 points in the same game. If that doesn't summarize the season in a single tidbit, I don't know what does.

Mizzou 90, Baylor 75

	Mizzou	BU
Pace (No. of Possessions)	66.7
Points Per Minute	2.25	1.88
Points Per Possession (PPP)	1.35	1.12
Points Per Shot (PPS)	1.73	1.19
2-PT FG%	61.3%	45.5%
3-PT FG%	42.9%	26.3%
FT%	80.6%	74.1%
True Shooting %	68.6%	50.1%
	Mizzou	BU
Assists	14	13
Steals	7	5
Turnovers	8	11
Ball Control Index (BCI) (Assists + Steals) / TO	2.63	1.64
	Mizzou	BU
Expected Offensive Rebounds	9	15
Offensive Rebounds	6	18
Difference	-3	+3

Your Prototypical Mizzou Win:

Strong shooting.
Great ball control.
Disadvantage on the glass.

That combination won Mizzou quite a few games this year, and while it is a bit alarming that Missouri got so dominated on the glass in each of the last two games, their domination of Oklahoma State on Thursday meant they were only minus-7 (in terms of expected rebounds) for the tournament.

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Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

Player	AdjGS	GmSc/Min	Line
Phil Pressey	20.4	0.55	37 Min, 15 Pts (4-8 FG, 1-3 3PT, 6-8 FT), 8 Ast, 5 Reb, 2 Stl
Kim English	19.9	0.55	36 Min, 19 Pts (6-10 FG, 5-8 3PT, 2-2 FT), 6 Reb, 2 Stl
Mike Dixon	13.9	0.49	28 Min, 17 Pts (3-8 FG, 1-5 3PT, 10-11 FT), 4 Ast, 4 TO
Marcus Denmon	13.3	0.40	33 Min, 15 Pts (4-10 FG, 1-4 3PT, 6-6 FT), 3 Reb, 2 Stl
Ricardo Ratliffe	12.7	0.45	28 Min, 15 Pts (7-11 FG, 1-1 FT), 5 Reb (4 Off), 5 PF
Matt Pressey	5.5	0.25	22 Min, 5 Pts (2-3 FG, 1-1 3PT), 2 Reb
Steve Moore	4.1	0.25	16 Min, 4 Pts (2-2 FG, 0-3 FT), 5 Reb, 2 Blk, 4 PF

• Nobody is going to complain about Kim English winning the tournament's Most Outstanding Player award. But honestly ... Phil Pressey may have gotten my vote. As we'll see below, he was simply incredible in all three games. That said...
• ...Kim English made 26 of 33 shots in three games and committed just two turnovers. Forget Good Kimmie or Bad Kimmie ... this was Best Kimmie.

Player	Usage%	Floor%	Touches/ Poss.	%Pass	%Shoot	%Fouled	%T/O
P. Pressey	18%	54%	5.1	75%	13%	10%	2%
English	18%	52%	1.5	32%	54%	9%	5%
Dixon	33%	40%	4.7	53%	18%	20%	9%
Denmon	22%	41%	2.0	27%	46%	22%	5%
Ratliffe	24%	53%	1.4	0%	86%	6%	8%
M. Pressey	7%	62%	0.4	0%	100%	0%	0%
Moore	11%	58%	0.8	0%	45%	55%	0%

To the checklist!

Marcus Denmon's Usage% needs to be 23% or higher. (Not quite.)
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. (Not quite.)
Steve Moore's Touches/Possession should be at least 1.0. (Not quite.)

Only 3-for-7, but pretty close to 6-for-7. Mizzou followed the script pretty closely in all three games.

Mizzou Player Stats -- BIG 12 TOURNAMENT

Player	AdjGS	GmSc/Min	Line
Kim English	23.2	0.70	33.0 MPG, 23.0 PPG (89% 2PT, 67% 3PT, 88% FT), 4.0 RPG, 1.7 SPG, 1.3 APG
Phil Pressey	19.9	0.60	33.3 MPG, 14.0 PPG (57% 2PT, 60% 3PT, 80% FT), 8.0 APG, 4.0 RPG, 2.7 SPG, 1.3 TOPG
Ricardo Ratliffe	12.8	0.47	27.0 MPG, 14.7 PPG (58% 2PT, 75% FT), 8.3 RPG, 1.3 BPG, 1.3 TOPG
Marcus Denmon	11.2	0.34	33.3 MPG, 13.7 PPG (47% 2PT, 27% 3PT, 100% FT), 5.7 RPG, 1.7 SPG, 1.3 APG, 1.3 TOPG
Mike Dixon	11.1	0.41	27.3 MPG, 13.3 PPG (62% 2PT, 31% 3PT, 80% FT), 4.7 APG, 1.0 SPG, 2.7 TOPG
Steve Moore	3.4	0.20	17.3 MPG, 2.7 PPG (67% 2PT, 0% FT), 4.3 RPG, 1.3 BPG
Matt Pressey	3.3	0.13	25.0 MPG, 4.3 PPG (60% 2PT, 29% 3PT, 50% FT), 2.3 RPG, 1.0 APG

Mike Dixon shot 46 percent, averaged 13 points per game, and dished 14 assists ... and made the fifth-best contribution to the box score for the tournament. That says it all.

Fourteen points on 58-percent shooting, eight assists, three steals, one turnover. That is just about the most perfect point guard stat line you're ever going to see. If Phil Pressey keeps that up, Mizzou will still be playing in three weeks.

Three Keys Revisited

From Saturday's preview.

PJ3

He was absolutely nonexistent in both games versus Missouri this year, and he has been magnificent thus far in the Big 12 Tournament: 49 points on 18-for-30 shooting, 18 rebounds. If Missouri can fluster him like they did during the regular season, Baylor is incredibly beatable.

Perry Jones III: 16 points (6-12 FG), 11 rebounds, four fouls. This was Jones' best performance against Missouri this year, but Baylor needed him to approach 30 points.

The Long Ball

Both teams can get smoking hot from the 3-point line -- Missouri with Marcus Denmon, Kim English, Mike Dixon and Phil Pressey; Baylor with Kansas killer Brady Heslip, Pierre Jackson and a couple of their bigs. If only one team gets hot, that's an advantage of, what, about 9-18 points?

3-Pointers: Mizzou 9-for-21 (43%), Baylor 5-for-19 (26%).

Neither team dominated, but ... advantage: Mizzou.

Flipadelphia

If PJ3 hasn't been the MVP of the Big 12 Tournament thus far, Phil Pressey possibly has. (Obviously Kim English has an excellent case as well.) He has been Great Flip for two straight games, and when Great Flip makes a sustained appearance ... well, to say the least, Missouri is ridiculously tough to beat.

Yeah ... he good.

Summary

Defense is still a concern. Rebounding is still a concern against the right team. But Mizzou just won three games in three days, with a seven-man rotation, by a combined 47 points. Are you willing to bet against them at this point?

---

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.