I know why announcers defend Kim Anderson, but come on

Your Trifecta: Phillips-Nikko-Walton.

Like radiation, I figured all content related to this game should be contained in a single post so it wouldn’t toxify anything else.

Here are some game links, not that you want to click on any of them: MUtigers, The Trib, Post-Dispatch, KC Star, PowerMizzou, The Missourian.

Actually, I can tell the story of this game in three tweets. Behold:

This was the game we feared. Mizzou has been putting up a fight — which, in a lot of ways, has made the team’s struggle to find a win even more frustrating — but we kind of figured that this young, incredibly demoralized team was going to crack.

It cracked last night.

Actually, three more tweets:

Former players are watching.

Two more:

You’re going to hurt yourself bending over backwards that far, Seth.

This is Kim Anderson’s third damn season in charge. Frank Haith averaged 25 wins per year in his time in town; Anderson has 24 wins total. From listening to the spin announcers put on this from game to game, you’d think that Haith left Anderson with zero scholarship players, zero commits, and a witch’s curse on Mizzou Arena. You’d think the 2015 protests were so bad that the military took over both the school and the athletic program.

Frank Haith left Kim Anderson a really difficult hand. Very much so. And Anderson has bombed with it. It’s not that hard a narrative.

This is Kim Anderson’s team. It is a very young one, which is due in part to the fact that he hasn’t been able to keep guys in a Mizzou uniform. He sent plenty of away, but plenty more have left of their own volition. If he were to remain head coach for next year, at least a couple more would follow their lead.

No matter how hard the job Anderson inherited, he has not proven he can either recruit, develop, or retain high-end talent

On top of that, not that it has really mattered, but Anderson’s game management hasn’t really been up to par either — with all of the other issues at play, Mizzou is also 6-16 in games decided by one or two possessions. And only one of those six wins came against a team ranked better than 139th per Ken Pomeroy.

There is absolutely nothing to justify Kim Anderson getting a fourth year in charge, and there’s nothing left to defend the job he’s done so far.

And look, I realize it’s hard to be an announcer in a Missouri game right now. Your options are to either a) acknowledge how awful the Tigers have been, which isn’t fun and makes a head coach you’re 15 feet away from look awful, b) simply talk about other games and other teams, or c) spin like crazy. Option (c) is the nicest of the bunch. And since so many color commentators are former coaches (like Greenberg), the urges are to defend your brethren.

Plus, for approximately the 1,146th time, Anderson is a nice guy. Some of his former players might think otherwise, but announcers can relate to him and sympathize with him. They don’t want to say mean things. I do understand.

But come on. Twenty-four wins in three years. The players quit yesterday. It was a bit of a victory that it took this long. Just talk about other games instead of bending over that far backwards. Or maybe just talk about Mizzou’s opponent and don’t acknowledge the Tigers at all. That would be preferable to these mental gymnastics.

You’ve made me indirectly defend Frank Haith, guys. I don’t appreciate it.

To the stats. Cover your eyes.

I told you to cover your eyes. It’s not my fault.

From Sunday’s Study Hall:

So here’s a quick reminder of how Adjusted Game Score works. I use the same formula I’ve used for a long time regarding the value of different pieces of the box score. Points and turnovers have a weight of 1, for instance. Missed field goals, offensive rebounds, assists, and blocks are worth 0.7. Et cetera. [...]

Adjusted Game Score, then, takes the total number of Game Score points your team compiled it and divvies out credit based on the actual number of points your team scored. So if your team scored 61 points, but the Game Score points add up to only 50, everybody gets a proportional boost. It basically redistributes the points from a given game.

It works pretty well because most of the time, if your team scored, say, 53 points (as Mizzou did), the Game Score total is going to be between about 40 and 65.

Occasionally, however, you’ll get something weird.

Mizzou played eight guys on Saturday night (the normal nine-man rotation minus Frankie Hughes). Russell Woods’ raw Game Score total was 14.7. K.J. Walton’s was 7.7. Everybody else: minus-3.4.

So when you try to redistribute that among 53 points, Woods and Walton almost literally get all the positive points.

In 200 minutes on Thursday, 12 Mizzou players combined for 18.8 game score points. Terrence Phillips had 8.2, Reed Nikko had 6.6, and K.J. Walton had 5.5. The other nine players: minus-1.5.

So yeah. That resulted in some hilariously ridiculous adjustments again.

You’ve broken my adjustments, Mizzou. I don’t appreciate it.