Arizona 72, Missouri 53: Study Hall

Your Trifecta: MGC, Shamburger, Post (!).

Your Season Trifecta: Clark 9 points, Teki 6, Shamburger 5, Rosburg 2, Allen 1, Post 1. Still no J3.

I already knew my expectations for this team were unique, but it became crystal clear when Mizzou lost by 19 and my reaction was "Alright, cool, I think we can work with this."

Missouri should be just decent enough to fall into the "Can beat almost anybody when the jumpers are falling" category this year, but as we've seen this year, the jumpers simply aren't going to fall that frequently. This team has to work to create decent shots on most possessions, and the Tigers aren't suddenly going to start creating a swath of easy baskets each night. They need the jumpers to fall; they did not yesterday. Combine that with some comeuppance in the ball-handling category, and ... voila, 19-point loss to a good team.

Arizona was simply better, but there was a pretty clear, symbolic exchange that basically ended the game: Late first half, Mizzou down 2, the Tigers get a breakout, and Namon Wright gets an wide-open look at a 3-pointer that would give the Tigers the lead. He misses, and Arizona goes down and makes a 3. Mizzou misses a chipshot near the basket, and Arizona makes a runner in the lane. Two good looks don't go down for Mizzou, two do for Arizona, and instead of holding the lead at the break, the Tigers are down seven. Arizona scored a knockdown early in the second half, and that was that.

Arizona 72, Missouri 53

• Mizzou outrebounded Arizona slightly and not only earned as many free throws* but made a good number of them. But while Arizona's shooting percentages from the field weren't particularly great, Mizzou's were awful. That's going to be the case in quite a few losses this year.
  
  * 45 fouls, 51 free throws in this one. In a game played at a 63-possession pace! I realize that Mizzou's style is going to invite lots of foulfests, but ... ugggggggh. Three of four regular season games have featured at least 43 fouls. It's four of six if you include exhibitions.
  
  
• Of course, that was only one reason why Mizzou couldn't keep up. The other: Arizona had more steals than Missouri had assists. I mentioned that I thought ball-handling could become a strength for this team, but while I still believe that, the Tigers weren't ready to play at Arizona's level just yet. Mizzou had nobody who could deal with T.J. McConnell (9 assists, 3 steals, 2 turnovers).

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

• Keanau Post played 25 minutes. Keanau Post played 25 minutes! And he still had another foul to burn! Obviously Rosburg had less luck, but the simple fact that they were able to combine for 39 minutes without both fouling out meant Missouri had decent size on the floor all game. They combined for 10 points and 12 rebounds, and Post made all four of his free throws. Sold! Give me that every game!
  
  
• Nice growth experience for J3, I think. Williams still doesn't have a plethora of crafty post moves at this point, and he still doesn't have an abundance of muscle, but he showed how he can get around those things and still put the ball in the bucket. He was 5-for-8 on 2-pointers, which was lovely ... and he missed the Trifecta because he was 0-for-2 on 3-pointers and 1-for-4 from the line.
  
  
• I loved the poise of Gill-Caesar and Allen. Hell, none of the freshmen looked completely out of place on the floor, even if Wright and Isabell didn't exactly shine. But Teki scored 13 points in seven field goal attempts and proved willing and able to take advantage of how the refs were calling the game and get to the line. He and Shamburger earned 18 of Mizzou's 26 free throws, and Allen had a nice early putback.

Summary

Missouri is physically impressive, willing to play hard defense, and able to crash the boards. I don't want to draw too many positives from a 19-point loss, but the Tigers looked better than they could have considering they were playing the No. 2 team in the country, and freshmen and sophomores accounted for 130 of 200 minutes. This was a growth opportunity, and I think Mizzou grew. We'll find out how much today against Purdue -- the Boilers are beatable, and a win would give the Tigers a third real game (likely against BYU) and avoid the Chaminade trap tomorrow in the seventh-place game.

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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 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.