Study Hall: Mizzou 62, Texas A&M 50

Your Trifecta: Oriakhi-Bowers-Brown. Your winner: Ausgiano.

Mizzou 62, Texas A&M 50

NCAA Basketball

	Mizzou	A&M
Pace (No. of Possessions)	64.8
Points Per Possession (PPP)	0.96	0.77
Points Per Shot (PPS)	1.32	0.86
2-PT FG%	47.1%	21.4%
3-PT FG%	38.5%	31.3%
FT%	71.4%	70.8%
True Shooting %	55.1%	36.5%
	Mizzou	A&M
Assists	15	4
Steals	5	12
Turnovers	19	12
Ball Control Index (BCI) (Assists + Steals) / TO	1.05	1.33
	Mizzou	A&M
Expected Offensive Rebounds	10	17
Offensive Rebounds	11	14
Difference	+1	-3

Pre-Garbage Time...

...the Points Per Possession averages were Mizzou 1.02, A&M 0.64. That late A&M run skewed things a bit, though the story here was clear: Mizzou was high-intensity on defense (which probably correlated a bit with offensive sloppiness), and A&M couldn't buy a bucket against either good defense or bad. I think we would trade a little offensive efficiency for defensive intensity, but I do think the two things were related. But that effort also translated on the glass, where A&M didn't pull in nearly enough second-chance opportunities.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

NCAA Basketball Stats

Player	AdjGS	GmSc/Min	Line
Alex Oriakhi	17.2	0.69	25 Min, 13 Pts (6-7 FG, 1-2 FT), 10 Reb
Laurence Bowers	13.2	0.55	24 Min, 10 Pts (3-7 FG, 2-3 3PT, 2-2 FT), 3 Reb, 2 Ast
Jabari Brown	11.0	0.37	30 Min, 10 Pts (2-5 FG, 1-2 3PT, 5-6 FT), 4 Ast, 2 Reb, 3 TO
Tony Criswell	7.5	0.42	18 Min, 10 Pts (3-7 FG, 2-2 FT), 4 Reb, 2 TO, 4 PF
Phil Pressey	5.0	0.16	32 Min, 2 Pts (0-1 FG, 2-2 FT), 5 Ast, 4 Reb, 3 TO
Earnest Ross	4.6	0.19	24 Min, 7 Pts (3-9 FG, 1-2 3PT, 0-3 FT), 10 Reb (5 Off), 3 TO
Stefan Jankovic	1.4	0.46	3 Min, 2 Pts (1-1 FG)
Negus Webster-Chan	0.8	0.28	3 Min, 3 Pts (1-2 3PT)
Keion Bell	0.3	0.01	34 Min, 5 Pts (1-7 FG, 0-4 3PT, 3-4 FT), 6 Reb, 3 Ast, 4 TO
Corey Haith	0.3	0.28	1 Min
Danny Feldmann	0.0	0.00	1 Min
Ryan Rosburg	-2.4	-0.47	5 Min, 0 Pts (0-1 FG)

Player	Usage%	Floor%	Touches/ Poss.	%Pass	%Shoot	%Fouled	%T/O
Oriakhi	19%	64%	1.2	0%	72%	18%	10%
Bowers	17%	45%	2.7	57%	34%	8%	0%
Brown	19%	40%	3.9	64%	14%	14%	8%
Criswell	29%	40%	1.9	0%	65%	16%	19%
Pressey	8%	37%	3.5	84%	3%	5%	9%
Ross	30%	20%	2.7	29%	44%	13%	15%
Bell	20%	22%	3.0	55%	22%	11%	12%
Rosburg	21%	0%	1.3	0%	50%	0%	50%

• Oriakhi was just begging for a technical foul yesterday, wasn't he? And poor Corey Haith got it instead.
• Four assists, huh, Jabari Brown? A little more of that, and we'll start to expect it from you. (A couple of those assists were absolutely gorgeous, too.)
• Not that this was the intent, but this ended up being a pretty nice 'conservation of energy' situation. Bowers only played 24 minutes, Oriakhi 25. And Pressey played 32 but didn't have to do much. Pretty much exactly what you hope for when you have to play a warm-up game while your next opponent (Ole Miss) gets a bye.
• Those were five horrific minutes from Ryan Rosburg. Alas.

Three Keys Revisited

From yesterday's preview.

Second chances

Both of these teams rank much better on the offensive glass than on the defensive glass. A&M doesn't shoot well enough to survive without second-chance opportunities, and Mizzou's biggest advantage often comes when Laurence Bowers, Alex Oriakhi and company are flying in on a shot from a Mizzou guard. If one team can derive an advantage on the defensive glass, it will go a long way.

Mizzou Expected Rebounds: +4

Win.

The supporting cast

When A&M beat Missouri, Elston Turner didn't really have that great a game. He was fine, mind you -- 15 points on 5-for-13 shooting, four assists, three turnovers -- but he wasn't dominant. But J'Mychal Reese scored eight points, Alex Caruso dished six assists to just one turnover, and Ray Turner was able to play 28 minutes (and score 12 points) without fouling out. If you whittle A&M's options down to Elston Turner and offensive rebounds, you can eventually shut the Aggies down. So, uh, do that.

J'Mychal Reese: 7 minutes, 0 points (0-3 FG)
Ray Turner: 22 minutes, 8 points (2-5 FG), 5 fouls, 4 turnovers
Alex Caruso: 30 minutes, 4 points (1-7 FG), 0 assists, 2 turnovers
Jarod Jahns: 10 minutes, 0 points (0-2 FG)

Yeah, I'd say the supporting cast was tamped down pretty well. Combine that with Elston Turner shooting 3-for-17, and you wonder how Mizzou didn't win by 30. (It was 21 before the scrubs came in, I guess.)

Flipadelphia

This will be a key for every game left on the schedule. Missouri is going to go as far in the postseason as Phil Pressey will take it. He is this team's engine. With Good Flip, Mizzou can make a Final Four. With Bad Flip, Mizzou could lose to A&M, then lose in the Round of 64 next week. If he is playing under control on offense and isn't a total liability on defense, Mizzou is a really, really dangerous team. He had four assists and seven turnovers and shot 4-for-11 from the field in Mizzou's loss to A&M. Do better than that, and Missouri probably wins tonight.

Phil Pressey: 32 minutes, 2 points (0-1 FG), 5 assists, 3 turnovers, 1 steal

It wasn't Good Flip or Bad Flip, it was Cruise Control Flip.

Summary

Mizzou's played high-level defense just enough that it will be disappointing anytime we don't see that from here on out. It did come with a price, I think -- sloppiness and turnovers -- but that's acceptable.

Now do it again tonight.

---

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 an offensively limited center, 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.