Mizzou Hoops Player Review: D’Moi Hodge

On March 22nd, 2022 Dennis Gates was announced as the next head coach at Missouri.

From there the roster reconstruction began in haste. From March 25th to April 19th, Mizzou took the commitments of 8 players, five of which came via the transfer portal. With heralded JUCO recruits like Sean East and Mohamed Diarra committing with top 4-star prospect Aidan Shaw, many people likely overlooked the addition of D’Moi Hodge.

We were optimistic about Hodge, an All Horizon League selection his last year. There was a lot to like, but I don’t think anyone could predict what would happen.

Hodge turned into one of the most exciting and fun players to don a Mizzou uniform for a while. Hodge was the ulimate play finisher. He wasn’t a guy who was going to create a lot of shots for himself or others, but he was going to run, get to his spots, and pull if he was open (which was often). What that turned into was one of the more exciting offensive performances over a season by a Mizzou Tigers in quite some time. He also added the season steals record at Mizzou, which was previously held by Lynn Hardy. And then because of those successes he was invited to the 3-point shooting contest at the Final Four where he took second, and played in the NABC All Star game.

Not too shabby for a JUCO kid who played for two years at Cleveland State before landing at Missouri.

Hodge averaged 15.4 points per game and a 116.1 Offensive Rating while at Cleveland State his last season. He turned around and put up 14.7 and 124.6 at Missouri. It’s not often guys get better when they move up, but Hodge did.

• Hodge shot 220 catch and shoot jumpers, he scored 1.22 points per shot on those.

D’Moi’s shot profile is really spectacular. Per Hoop-Math.com A 62.6% true shooting with ²⁄₃ of his shots coming from behind the arc, 28% of his shots at the rim, and just 4.8% of his shots as a non rim 2FGA. That’s the sort of Shot Profile Nate Oats would fall in love with. On his three point shooting, he attempted 250 threes and hit 100 of them. It helps to make your offense hum when you have a guy who can get you 1.2 points per shot from behind the arc.

Roughly 56 percent of Hodge’s shot volume consisted of catch-and-shoot 3s, which he made at a 41.4 percent clip. The senior led the SEC in 3-point attempts per game, with most of them coming above the break, either off hit-aheads in transition, kickouts from Nick Honor, skip passes from Sean East, or Kobe Brown finding him against hard double teams.

These are all different ways of saying that Hodge acted as MU’s best floor spacer. So, it makes sense that his absence from the lineup dented the Tigers offensively. When Hodge, who played 71.9 percent of minutes, did get a rest, MU’s raw offensive efficiency dipped 6.7 points per 100 possessions, and the value of its 3-point attempts fell to 0.98 points per shot — and below the Division-I average.

Sure, Hodge remained a potent cutter and excelled at leaking out on the break, but those rim finishes made up less than a third of touches. And when he wasn’t on the floor, MU improved from point-blank range.

And his defensive impact?

There’s more nuance here than you think. Hodge’s steal rate (7.5%) ranked fifth nationally, and you can’t undersell its importance. MU’s defensive goal was to tilt possession math, bleeding opponents and converting those into highly valuable scoring chances on the break.

Without a doubt, Hodge excelled at turning dribblers and using quick hands. But Hodge struggled at times in closeouts and giving up gaps. Meanwhile, he graded out as below average at tracking shooters around screens (1.053 PPP) and in isolation situations (0.955 PPP) last season. That might explain why lineups without him were slightly better as a whole on that end of the floor.

Still, Hodge’s presence served as leverage at keep inflection points for MU stylistically: keeping the floor adequately spaced and turning opponents over.

In scouting parlance, Hodge is a play finisher.

This season, Hodge only attacked the rim 28 times during half-court possessions, per Synergy. You rarely saw him catch, rip through and drive hard against a closeout. He was the beneficiary of another Tiger putting the defense under strain.

So, you evaluate lineups through that lens.

First, look at what happens when you swap out Noah Carter at the five. Hint: nothing good. With all due respect to Mohamed Diarra and Ronnie DeGray, neither could stretch the floor, bully drive from the elbow, or attack switches in the low block. Like Hodge, those two are play finishers. Opponents treated them as non-threats and rolled an extra body elsewhere.

And while you can’t easily see it in the lineups listed here, the composition of MU’s backcourt matters. Let’s take a quick look at Hodge’s colleagues, shall we?

It’s not hard to see that life gets hard when Sean East II runs at combo guard. But that’s also seemingly at odds with the first table showing a guard trio of Honor, East and Mosley with a plus-18 scoring margin? There’s no contradiction. MU deployed East to give Gholston a breather, and that could work — assuming it kept Carter and/or Brown on the floor. Take them out of the mix, and the scoring margin (-14) quickly got sideways.

That’s even true if you kept Honor, Hodge and Gholston together. Once Brown went to the bench, the ceiling lowered substantially. Honor’s fantastic at initiating the offense, moving the ball where it needs to go, and supplying timely shooting. Gholston created advantages, but his assist rate (14.4%) tells us Dree usually cashed them in himself. And East was at his best pushing the ball in transition.

Subtracting too much playmaking could cut Hodge out of the loop. And even if the ball did reach his hands, the defense was already loaded up.

Overview

Missouri was a really fun basketball team this past season. Winning obviously plays a significant part of that, but an equally significant part was the style of play. Leading the charge there was D’Moi Hodge.

Fans like when teams play fast. D’Moi Hodge attempted 35.3% of his Field Goals in transition. It’s also fun when your team gets layups and dunks, Hodge attempted ¹⁄₃ of his shots at the rim including 19 dunks. It’s also fun when your team makes three point shots, and Hodge took 250 of them. It’s also fun to watch your team force a lot of turnovers. So all Hodge did was set a program record for steals, and helped the defense force the 6th most turnovers and the 2nd most steals in the country.

Style of play only really matters if you win basketball games, and Hodge was a big key to winning this year. Missouri only lost twice where Hodge failed to meet his season average. He also led the team in the season trifecta, edging out Kobe Brown. Those two were far and away the most consistent offensive weapons, but as important as it was for Kobe to be there, D’Moi was the engine to the offense.

We called Hodge a “play finisher” above, and that’s true and very important. This is what the offense needed. Hodge’s ability to put real pressure on the defense with his run outs, and with his ability to get his shot off quickly was a significant driver to creating more space for others. He wasn’t a guy to break anyone down off the dribble but he was going to occupy a defender who could stick close to him to prevent those quick threes. And if he did get free, you just felt like the shot was going in.

D’Moi was a significant reason why this turnaround happened so quickly. Mizzou made the NCAA Tournament and won a game for the first time in a long time and you can credit Hodge’s production as a driver behind that. Mizzou was a fun team, and D’Moi was arguably the most fun guy to watch on that team.