The plan going into the season was to reach Jacksonville and go 1-1 while you’re there. Beating Florida State was always going to be a tall task since they feature a roster which is fully formed. We saw in 2018 what a deep and talented Seminoles roster can do to a moderately talented team with a short bench.

Back in that NCAA Tournament game, FSU raced to an early lead and just sort of kept Missouri at a distance until they ran out of gas. In that game, Mizzou was depleted at the end of the season and Michael Porter, Jr was just a shell of himself. In the end, it was only a 13 point loss, but there was a second half 15-0 run which put the game away.

This game went about how that game would’ve gone, had Missouri been forced to play an overtime game the night before.

I said before the game on twitter that I’d remove my finger from the panic button if Mizzou kept it to within 10 points. I said to Matt Harris before the game I didn’t think Mizzou would be within 15 points of FSU.

The finger is still on the button. Mizzou was 23 points worse than FSU. They went into the game against SMU at 113th in KenPom and came out of the FSU game 116th in KenPom. So not much has changed. Let’s do stats.

Team Stats

• The FSU numbers are really absurd: you have to go all the way back to 2009 to find the last time an opponent had an Effective Field Goal percentage north of 70%. That time it was Texas A&M, a road game at the end of the season. FSU was aided by a 76.7% shooting from 2FG which has not happened to Missouri in the KenPom era. They attempted 30 2FGs, made 23 of them, which included LOTSA dunks, and while it felt like they were just rebounding everything...
• Missouri actually WON the rebounding battle: wild. A +1 in the expected rebound margin isn’t really saying much, but both teams were able to control the defensive boards. It probably helped that FSU didn’t miss many shots, and it’s hard to rebound something that goes through the net.

It’s hard to derive much from a butt-whipping quite like that one. But the lesson seems to be that a great defensive team met up with a good defensive team, and the great defensive team turned 17 of Missouri’s turnovers into 24 points, while Missouri turned 16 of FSU’s turnovers into just 9 points. Being +15 in the points off turnovers category goes a long way. FSU was also 14-4 in fast break points, and 39-12 in bench points.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Amari Davis, Kobe Brown, Yaya Keita

On the season: Kobe Brown 10, Ronnie DeGray III 7, Javon Pickett 3, Jarron Coleman 2, Amari Davis 3, DaJuan Gordon 2, Yaya Keita 1, Jordan Wilmore 1

If there’s a positive to take away from this Jacksonville adventure, it’s Amari Davis started playing with more aggressiveness in finding his shot. After attempting just 11 total shots against Kansas City and Northern Illinois, he took 13 and 9 shots in the semi-final and final and while the offense was ugly last night, it was nice to see Davis attacking the rim, even amongst the trees on the Seminole front line. Davis is a natural scorer, and for a team devoid of consistent scoring, they could use him to be a more consistent contributor.

The other breakout is Kobe Brown. Pardon my skepticism on running offense through Brown, but he hasn’t shown us he can be efficient when taking a higher volume of possessions. His usage dipped, but he was still really good all weekend. After laying an egg against Central Michigan, Brown has been really good. He’s averaging 16 points and 7 rebounds per game. If he can keep doing that while shooting over 60% in True Shooting or Effective FG, I think you’re looking at a guy taking the next step.

Yep, Yaya was the 3rd guy in the trifecta. It was that kinda night.

I’ll probably ignore the 73% floor rate from Sean Durugordon, because it was mostly against the walk-ons of Florida State. But it’s easy to see why he’s such an intriguing prospect. I wouldn’t call him bouncy but Durugordon has great lift.

Somehow I don’t think Martin envisioned getting 11% usage from Boogie Coleman and 28% usage from DaJuan Gordon on most nights. Or Javon Pickett at 27%. Or six players in double digits for Turnover rate.

At this point in the season there’s only so much progress which can be made on the development of the players who are running out there each and every game. We’re starting to understand the strengths, and many weaknesses, within the composition of the roster. You can tweak and move things around a little here and there but you’re only going to improve the margins.

The lineup which seem to be the best offensively — Davis, Coleman, Brown, DeGray, Gordon — aren’t the best defensively because they give up size and strength around the rim. The lineup which seems to be the best defensively — Davis, Brown, Gordon, Pickett, and Wilmore — can lock up a lot of teams but are susceptible because no defense is impermeable and there are too many offensive black holes. There is enough there to find a balance which can help this team be better on a more consistent basis. It’s just up to Martin to buy in as much as his players seem to have.

He needs to find more minutes for Keita and Brookshire, and Durugordon, too. But you don’t have to completely sell out on the future for the sake of the present. Those three need to see more time in order to develop. And if you want to make strides this year the ceiling with those three takes off with more looks. Brazile is a guy who you’re going to take what you can get this season.

This was always going to be a tough game for Missouri to be competitive in. As I said, Florida State is fully formed and recognized for what it is— a deep and talented team who can legitimately go 11 deep without much drop off. When they’re making shots it’s tough for anyone to compete because of the way they defend. The goal for this trip was largely how Missouri matched up with SMU, a team who was hoping to be an NCAA bubble team but might be more likely an NIT squad. Being in contention for that type of competition at the end of the season was what we considered progress this year, no? Something to improve up for next season.

I’m sure Matt and I will have more time to dive into this on the podcast, but I think I’m still right where I was a week ago. My finger is on the panic button, I’m not pressing it yet. But it’s there. There’s a big game on Friday.

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True Shooting Percentage (TS%): Quite simply, this calculates a player’s shooting percentage while taking into account 2FG%, 3FG%, and FT%. The formula is Total Points / 2 * (FGA + (0.475+FTA)). The 0.475 is a Free Throw modifier. KenPomeroy and other College Basketball sites typically use 0.475, while the NBA typically uses 0.44. That’s basically what TS% is. A measure of scoring efficiency based on the number of points scored over the number of possessions in which they attempted to score, more here.

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%): This is similar to TS%, but takes 3-point shooting more into account. The formula is FGM + (0.5 * 3PM) / FGA

So think of TS% as scoring efficiency, and eFG% as shooting efficiency, more here.

Expected Offensive Rebounds: Measured based upon the average rebounds a college basketball team gets on both the defensive and offensive end. This takes the overall number of missed shots (or shots available to be rebounded) and divides them by the number of offensive rebounds and compares them with the statistical average.

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.

Offensive Rating (ORtg): Similar to Adjusted game score, but this looks at how many points per possession a player would score if they were averaged over 100 possessions.

Usage%: This “estimates the % of team possessions a player consumes while on the floor” (via sports-reference.com/cbb). 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 sports-reference.com/cbb: Floor % answers the question, “When a Player 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.