Study Hall: Arkansas 84, Missouri 69

Your Trifecta: Gant-Allen-Isabell. Freshman, freshman, freshman. And another freshman (Teki) was fourth.

Your Season Trifecta: Your Season Trifecta: J3 35 points, Shamburger 31, Clark 24, Teki 16, Post 11, Gant 10, Allen nine, Wright eight, Isabell seven, Rosburg five. By class: sophomores 56, freshmen 48, seniors 41, juniors five.

I'm not capable of writing short posts, but really, the round-by-round scoring for this game tells you most of what you need to know.

Round 1: 10-9 UA
Round 2: 10-9 MU
Round 3: 10-10
Round 4: 10-8 UA
Round 5: 10-10
Round 6: 10-8 UA
Round 7: 10-9 MU
Round 8: 10-9 UA
Round 9: 10-9 MU
Round 10: 10-10

Over eight "rounds" (No. 1-3, 5, and 7-10) and about 33 minutes, Mizzou took the advantage. And two knockdowns (i.e. seven minutes in which the Hogs outscored the Tigers by a tidy 25-3) gave Arkansas a comfortable win.

I guess that's what a moral victory looks like, huh? We're becoming experts.

Arkansas 84, Missouri 69

• As I've written before, every game follows a different recipe to an eventual loss. In this one, Mizzou shot well and just about broke even in rebounding. But Arkansas dominated the ball control battle (as Mike Anderson teams tend to do), and as is the one constant among most of the losses, Mizzou fouled too much and drew too few fouls. (And again, as is customary in games featuring Mike Anderson teams, the home team benefited more from the whistles.)
  
  
• Over 80 minutes, Mizzou mostly handled Arkansas' pressure. The Tigers did for almost the entire game in Columbia, to the point where Arkansas backed off of its press because it wasn't working. It worked in Fayetteville, though mostly in spurts (again, as is customary). In Arkansas' game-clinching pair of runs, Mizzou committed nine turnovers; in the other 33 minutes, the Tigers committed just 11. The first run was sparked almost entirely by turnovers (and the second by Arkansas 3-pointers).

Mizzou Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post.)

• Freshmen: 65.7 Adj. GS points
  Everybody Else: 3.3 Adj. GS points
  
  
• Man oh man, have we been waiting for a game like this from the freshmen. As has been the case all year, a plus has been greeted by two minuses, and the performances by the five NON-freshmen was pretty horrific -- six points and three rebounds over 33 minutes for Rosburg and Post, eight turnovers from J3, two points on four shots from Shamburger, nothing from Bello. Still, we long ago entered into "just find hope for next year" mode, and four of five freshmen playing well certainly qualifies. As does any part of J3's game that didn't involve minor things like handling or passing the ball.
  
  
• Of course, though it probably goes without saying, it wasn't a perfect game from the freshmen. Teki still can't find his 3-pointer (he's now 4-for-25 since his return from injury, 1-for-22 not including the first Arkansas game, and 0-for-10 in February, and holy crap, is he due a major hot streak) but looked good in attacking the rim. Jakeenan Gant also attacked the rim and had two offensive boards and three assists but still got all sorts of muscled around at times on defense. D'Angelo Allen has found his jumper again after a massive cold streak, but he grabbed three rebounds in 25 minutes. Tramaine Isabell was responsible for half of Mizzou's 3s but did have three turnovers. And Namon Wright is now 10-for-37 (27%) from the field in his last six games. But STILL ... top four spots on this list. Hope!
  
  
• Boy, when J3 tries to do to much, he tries to do too much. You don't get games like his Mississippi State performance right now without also going through games like this and the first Kentucky game, but he's a sophomore trying desperately to lead. And he was almost by default asked to do too much passing and ball-handling against Arkansas' press.

Summary

Different script, same story. Mizzou continues to fight hard, and that becomes increasingly impressive with each passing game. But gritty effort and a few good individual performances were, as always, done in by dry spells and bad individual performances. This loss at least offered more hope than others had, at least. That's something, right?

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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.