We’re going in a different order this time — player stats first. That’s where Mizzou’s win over Ole Miss was so interesting.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Porter-Robertson-Puryear

Mizzou is now 10-2 when Jontay Porter is among Mizzou’s three biggest contributors and 5-0 when he’s the top contributor. Kassius Robertson is this team’s alpha, but Jontay is the difference-maker. If Good Jontay shows up — and he has for three straight games — Missouri can beat absolutely anybody. And if he doesn’t show up...

• Porter in Mizzou’s six conference wins: 25.7 MPG, 14.7 PPG (56% 2PT, 48% 3PT, 19-24 FT), 1.8 ORPG, 6.5 DRPG, 2.7 BPG, 1.8 APG, 0.5 SPG, 1.5 TOPG, 17.7 Adj. GS PPG
• Porter in Mizzou’s five conference losses: 24.2 MPG, 5.0 PPG (38% 2PT, 21% 3PT, 4-6 FT), 1.2 ORPG, 5.0 DRPG, 0.8 BPG, 2.4 APG, 0.8 SPG, 2.4 TOPG, 3.5 Adj. GS PPG

Jontay delivers about 14.2 points’ worth of box score production more in wins than losses. That is staggering.

Meanwhile, Mizzou managed to win an SEC road game while getting minus-5.9 points’ worth of production from Jordan Barnett and Jeremiah Tilmon. That is almost inconceivable. But that’s how good Porter, Kassius Robertson, Kevin Puryear (19 points on 54% shooting the last two games), and Jordan Geist were.

FLOOR CHECK: When Mizzou has at least three guys at 40% or higher in Floor% (the percentage of one’s own possessions that result in points), the Tigers win. When they don’t, they lose. They had three against Ole Miss and most certainly needed all three.

Team Stats

This was like a typical Mizzou game, only exaggerated.

• Ball-handling disadvantage? Check. But wow, that’s one hell of a ball-handling disadvantage. That might be the biggest BCI disparity I’ve ever seen in a Mizzou win.
• Rebounding advantage? Check, but barely. Porter had four offensive rebounds, but the rest of the damn team had three.
• True shooting advantage? Check. The True Shooting advantage of 12.5 percentage points ended up making up for the ball-handling disparity. Well, that and...
• Fouls advantage? Check. Mizzou drew four more fouls and took five more free throws.

Seriously, though, Ole Miss so thoroughly dominated the ball-handling game that it almost made up for a massive shooting advantage. Whenever this Mizzou’s team’s season is over — whenever they are eliminated from whichever postseason tournament they enter (hopefully the big one) — ball-handling will almost certainly play the deciding role.

Mizzou’s still 6-5 in a tough SEC, though. The Tigers are so good at other things that they can account for ranking 322nd in offensive TO rate and 307th in defensive TO rate.