Guard play both made (shooting) and broke (turnovers) Missouri's night in a loss to Ole Miss

Your Trifecta: Wright-Walton-Isabell.

Your Season Totals: Your Season Totals: Puryear 34, Phillips 24, Wright 23, Clark 18, Rosburg 15, Walton 15, Gant 14, Isabell 11, VanLeer 7, Woods 5, Allen 2. Freshmen 80, sophomores 50, juniors 23, seniors 15.

Well, in the moral victories department, this one also qualifies.

Games without a totally disastrous performance: 7. A season-high!

Unfortunately, when you're leading with 15 minutes left and then get outscored 32-14, it doesn't really feel like a moral victory. Mizzou made 52% of its 3-pointers and outshot Ole Miss overall but got manhandled in every other aspect of the game. That's disappointing.

Ole Miss 85, Missouri 76

• We had to figure the hot rebounding streak was going to end at some point since it barely made sense in the first place. This one was kind of weird, though, considering Ole Miss is a good offensive rebounding team (but was only +1.1 in terms of offensive rebounds) and a wholly underwhelming defensive rebounding team (but was +5.5 in terms of those). Foul trouble was a major issue with that, obviously -- I'm not sure how I feel about Mizzou's basketball Twitter account getting super-snarky about officiating on the road, but committing more fouls than a dramatically more physical team was a bit odd -- but regardless, this was an issue.
• A bigger issue: ball-handling. Twelve assists in 26 made baskets isn't bad for this team, but Mizzou was minus-9 in the turnovers department. That's nine extra possessions without a shot in what was basically a four- or five-possession loss. Terrence Phillips, Tramaine Isabell, and Jimmy Barton combined for five assists, three steals, and nine turnovers, and your guards have to be over 1 from a BCI perspective because your bigs (Puryear and Rosburg: 0 assists, five turnovers) are not going to be.

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

• Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. You knew Namon Wright had a 6-for-7 night in him from 3-point range, and Mizzou wasted it.
• This was one of Namon's best nights. Obviously three first-half fouls in nine minutes hurt drastically, but he was fantastic in the second half. Twenty points on nine shots and the best ball-handling (ratio-wise) on the team? Damn.
• Also: this was one of Russell Woods' worst nights.
• Because Cullen VanLeer's shoulder was knocked out of place and Isabell was cramping, we got an extended look at KJ Walton. The result: 11 points on five shots, three defensive rebounds, and four assists to two turnovers. I think we're going to like where his game is at when he's, say, a junior. Or maybe even a sophomore. Now just work on those free throws, KJ (70% for the year), because you're going to be going to the line a lot in your career. (And hey, maybe put on a few pounds.)
• For once, Kevin Puryear actually dragged Mizzou's FG% down. A rarity. But he was 3-for-12 (25%), and the rest of the team was 23-for-46 (50%). But again, shooting was not the problem. Everything else was.
• Jakeenan Gant is an interesting test case at the moment. He's made four of nine 3-pointers in the last five games, but I still wince at the thought of him taking one. How long until that wears off?

Summary

In a way, I'm impressed that Mizzou managed to average nearly a point per possession not only with 18 turnovers, but also without any production from Ryan Rosburg. The Tigers have quickly become reliant on him, and that security blanket was gone in Oxford.

Of course, that's what happens when you make your 3-pointers. You get margin for error. Unfortunately Mizzou didn't have enough. And unfortunately, Ole Miss still had the best player on the court. As good as Namon Wright was, Stefan Moody (29 points on 19 attempts, 8 assists, 3 steals, 3 turnovers) was once again ridiculous, and he was able to stay out of foul trouble enough to play 37 minutes. You hate that Mizzou was never able to keep pace with that guy, but I can't say I'm sad that he won't be around next year.

Three games remain. Pomeroy says Mizzou has a 20% chance of beating Texas A&M on Saturday, a 16% chance of winning at LSU next Tuesday, and a 30% chance of beating Florida the following Saturday. That means there's a 53% chance of winning at least one of the three (and an 13% chance of winning at least two). That would be nice. We've seen clear progress of late, even if it's more in the form of non-disasters than actual wins, and it would be a good feeling to reward that progress with one more actual victory.

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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.