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Study Hall: Mizzou 81, Texas Tech 59

By Bill Connelly
Presswire

I'm flying back home today, but here's something to tide you over...

Your Trifecta: English-Ratliffe-Denmon. Your winner: nobody!

Some links!

Mizzou 81, Texas Tech 59

Mizzou
 Tech
Pace (No. of Possessions) 57.6
Points Per Minute 2.03 1.48
Points Per Possession (PPP) 1.41 1.02
Points Per Shot (PPS) 1.53 1.40
2-PT FG% 40.7% 54.3%
3-PT FG% 61.5% 57.1%
FT% 68.8% 64.3%
True Shooting % 67.5% 61.3%
Mizzou Tech
Assists 18 11
Steals 4 3
Turnovers 8 15
Ball Control Index (BCI)
(Assists + Steals) / TO 		2.75 0.93
Mizzou Tech
Expected Offensive Rebounds 10 8
Offensive Rebounds 11 5
Difference +1 -3

Another Ridiculous Run

Here are Missouri's first 18 possessions of the second half:

Matt Pressey 3-pointer (35-30, 19:07)
Matt Pressey 3-pointer (38-30, 18:25)
Ricardo Ratliffe layup (40-33, 17:48)
Marcus Denmon 3-pointer (43-33, 16:32)
Kim English 1 free throw (44-35, 15:54)
Matt Pressey missed 3-pointer
Phil Pressey missed 3-pointer
Phil Pressey 3-pointer (47-38, 13:08)
Ricardo Ratliffe tip-in (49-38, 12:13)
Kim English 3-pointer (52-40, 11:38)
Kim English missed 3-pointer
Marcus Denmon 3-pointer (55-40, 10:10)
Marcus Denmon 3-pointer (58-40, 9:18)
Marcus Denmon missed layup
Mike Dixon 3-pointer (61-45, 8:26)
Marcus Denmon 3-pointer (64-48, 7:35)
Ricardo Ratliffe turnover
Mike Dixon 3-pointer (67-49, 6:21)

That's 13 scores, 35 points and some ridiculous dead-eye shooting in 18 possessions. As with last Saturday's Kansas game, Mizzou poked and prodded and scored enough to get by, then laid the hammer down. Only, Texas Tech isn't Kansas, and a nearly empty United Spirit Arena is not Allen Fieldhouse, and Tech never stood a chance of coming back, especially not at the pace at which they were playing.

Another Mediocre Defensive Performance

Texas Tech's offense is not very good; there's no way they should have averaged 1.04 points per possession, especially while grabbing almost no offensive rebounds. They are not a terrible shooting team (they are terrible at everything else on the offensive side of the court, but not shooting), but a True Shooting percentage of 61.3% is just too damn high, and it actually kept Tech semi-close for much of the game. When Mizzou averages 1.41 points per possession, they should win by 30-40.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

Player
 AdjGS GmSc/Min Line
Kim English 19.4 0.51 38 Min, 20 Pts (6-11 FG, 3-5 3PT, 5-6 FT), 3 Reb, 3 Ast
Ricardo Ratliffe 18.3 0.55 33 Min, 13 Pts (5-8 FG, 3-5 FT), 15 Reb (8 Off), 2 Ast, 2 Blk, 2 TO
Marcus Denmon 13.9 0.37 38 Min, 17 Pts (6-14 FG, 5-8 3PT), 3 Reb, 2 Ast, 2 Stl
Mike Dixon 11.0 0.42 26 Min, 13 Pts (4-7 FG, 3-4 3PT, 2-2 FT), 2 Reb
Matt Pressey 10.6 0.42 25 Min, 14 Pts (5-11 FG, 4-7 3PT), 2 Reb
Phil Pressey 5.4 0.17 32 Min, 3 Pts (1-2 3PT, 0-1 FT), 8 Ast, 3 TO
Steve Moore 1.6 0.20 8 Min, 1 Pt (1-2 FT), 3 Reb
Jarrett Sutton 0.0 0.00 0+ Min
Andrew Jones 0.0 0.00 0+ Min
Andy Rosburg 0.0 0.00 0+ Min
  • In his last 10 games, Matt Pressey had officially contributed -0.4 AdjGS points. That is the definition of "liability." Nice to see him back. As I've said for a while, Mizzou will absolutely need him to make his open shots come March. So far, so good.
  • Ricardo Ratliffe had three more offensive rebounds than the entire Texas Tech team combined.
  • Marcus Denmon missed his first five shots from the floor ... and then made six of his last nine.
Player Usage% Floor% Touches/
Poss.		 %Pass %Shoot %Fouled %T/O
English 23% 49% 3.4 48% 30% 19% 3%
Ratliffe 22% 46% 3.0 42% 29% 21% 7%
Denmon 23% 37% 2.5 44% 52% 0% 4%
Dixon 20% 48% 2.2 36% 43% 15% 6%
M. Pressey 26% 41% 2.4 35% 65% 0% 0%
P. Pressey 10% 46% 5.9 88% 4% 2% 6%
Moore 6% 52% 3.6 71% 0% 29% 0%

To the checklist!

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

Six-for-seven. So close. Damn you, Mike Dixon, and your "letting Flip Pressey get all the assists."

Three Keys Revisited

From Friday's preview.

Road Things

Always. Offensive rebounds, fouls and Phil Pressey.

Expected Rebounds: Mizzou +4
Fouls: Tech 19, Mizzou 14
Phil Pressey: 32 minutes, three points on two FG attempts, eight assists, three turnovers.

Phil Pressey was neither particularly good nor bad (which is amazing to say considering he had eight assists), so basically Mizzou went 2-0-1 in the Road Things department. That's a winner.

BCI

Win that and Mizzou likely wins the game with the amount of steals TX Tech gives up.

BCI: Mizzou 2.75, Tech 0.93.

That's a winner.

Hit Your Free Throws

Can’t let the easy points get away on the road, and we’ve had a few too many yips at the line lately.

Mizzou Free Throws: 11-for-16 (68.8%)
Mizzou Free Throws, Sans Steve Moore: 10-for-12 (83.3%)

We'll call that a draw.

Summary

27-4. 27-4! That's all I can think to say. Like others, I'm worried about the defense, but the offense has potentially begun to reach "best in Missouri history" level (actually, they probably began to reach that a while ago), and it's both so much fun to watch and so successful.

Next up for the Tigers, a quarterfinal match up against the winner of Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. Here's the full Big 12 tournament schedule and bracket.

---

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.

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