Study Hall: Missouri 63, Auburn 61

Your Trifecta: Shamburger-Teki-Post.

Your Season Trifecta: Shamburger 39, J3 37 points, Clark 24, Teki 20, Post 13, Wright 13, Gant 13, Allen nine, Isabell seven, Rosburg five. By class: freshmen 62, sophomores 61, seniors 52, juniors five. Shamburger overtakes J3, and the freshmen overtake the sophomores.

Yes, the night belonged to Keith Shamburger. Yes, he and fellow senior Keanau Post combined for 56 minutes, 27 points (on 10-for-19 shooting), 10 rebounds, four assists, three blocks (one from Sham!), two steals, and only two turnovers and two fouls. Clearly. They're why we'll remember this game. But here are perhaps the two most encouraging notes from the win:

1. Teki Gill-Caesar was scrapping. One of the biggest issues for both Teki and Namon Wright this year has been making contributions outside of points. Their value was completely determined by whether their jumper was falling. But while Teki indeed made two of three 3-pointers last night, he also grabbed three offensive rebounds and stripped Cinmeon Bowers with 12 seconds left to set up Shamburger's game-winner. Assuming he stays for 2015-16, that version of Teki could be incredibly valuable.

2. Your last seven possessions of the year at Mizzou Arena:

48-56: Shamburger 3-pointer (Williams assist)
51-59: Gill-Caesar 3-pointer (Shamburger assist)
54-61: Williams 3-pointer (Shamburger assist)
57-61: Shamburger 2 FTs
59-61: Wright layup after Post steal
61-61: Missed Shamburger jumper after Williams steal
61-61: Shamburger jumper after Gill-Caesar steal

That's 15 points from four different players, three assists, four points off of turnovers, 2-for-2 from the line ... yeah, Shamburger had the largest role to play there, but everybody played a role. One of Mizzou's biggest problems this year has been having only two guys show up and never knowing which two guys that was going to be. Granted, this game was basically the same for the first 35 minutes or so -- Mizzou was down 59-51 with 3:30 left (to a 12-18 team at home), after all -- but we got a flash of something different in the last five minutes.

Missouri 63, Auburn 61

• After getting absolutely mauled on the glass by Georgia on Saturday, Mizzou turned the tables a bit last night, winning the Expected Rebounds battle by 3.9. Granted, Auburn's a pretty awful rebounding, but hey, so is Missouri. The effort was certainly there, even when Auburn held a cushion for much of the second half.
• Basically, rebounding gave Mizzou four more possessions than Auburn, and it's a good thing, as Auburn won the ball-control and foul-drawing battles. AU also shot 2-pointers better. But the boards and two 3-for-3 streaks from 3-point range helped to turn the tables.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

• Yes, the other late contributions were lovely, but wow, Shamburger. Leading your team in points, 2-pointers, 3-pointers, free throws, defensive rebounds, and assists while chipping in a steal and a block and turning the ball over just once? That's a hell of a way to go out at home.
• Keanau Post has never come close to living up to his four-star recruiting ranking, but I understand why recruiting services gave him benefit of the doubt. When he does something right (like scoring on that little baby hook), it looks so natural that you assume he's going to do it another seven times in a row.
• Two offensive rebounds, an assist, a steal, and no 3-point attempts in six minutes from Tramaine Isabell. I have no point to make here other than ... that's a strange game for you, T.

Summary

As with the Florida win, this game in no way guarantees future success. Mizzou still needs to bulk up, find a couple more pieces, grind away, and improve dramatically next year. But as with the Florida game, both the team and the fans got a reminder of how winning feels and what it takes to feel that way. After a laborious first 35 minutes or so, Mizzou sucked it up, found its offense, found its defense, and closed out a game for the second time in three contests. The more you do it, the more you believe you can do it.

And beyond that, it's always nice to send the seniors out with a win, especially when they both contributed so heavily to it.

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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.