It’s really hard to win in Allen Fieldhouse.

In fact, it’s pretty danged hard to be competitive in a game at Allen Fieldhouse. That place, in the years since Bill Self has been running the professional organization some call a collegiate basketball team, is a place of nightmares. Under Self, Missouri has had five defeats of 21 points or more, 10 double digit losses, four single digit losses, and four wins. Yesterday marked the 20th game, so success against KU hasn’t been easy over the years. The worst loss over those years was 33 points. That game was the return trip to Lawrence after a Quin Snyder-less Mizzou team set Thomas Gardner loose in an overtime win in Columbia.

This loss was worse than that loss. The end of the Quin Snyder era had been considered the lowest point for the program. Then Kim Anderson happened. Maybe this team is the next version.

But Self had incentive. He didn’t want to ever play this game again. His hand was forced because his cheatin’ ass had an FBI and NCAA shaped cloud over the program and they needed something. So his plan was to 50 ball Mizzou if he could. And he got close. Maybe this all makes you feel better, maybe it doesn’t. I’m not sure it should.

Inasmuch as we can talk about what happened, we’ll do it here.

Team Stats

• Honestly I thought the offense did better than I expected: It’s hard to get upset about how the poor scoring went when we consider what this team has looked like in the half court all year.
• The defense though: woof

Keeping this simple here. But the hope for this season was Cuonzo and his roster would be able to be competitive defensively, and do enough on the offensive end to make things interesting. But while there have been flashes of this team being good defensively, they were not that. I don’t know if the scout was wrong, or if the players didn’t execute the scout, but early and often good shooters were left more open than they should’ve been. And when you let kansas shoot over 50% from deep you’re very likely getting blown out.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Javon Pickett, Sean Durugordon, Trevon Brazile

On the season: Kobe Brown 19, Amari Davis 11, Ronnie DeGray III 8, Javon Pickett 7, DaJuan Gordon 5, Jarron Coleman 4, Sean Durugordon 2, Trevon Brazile 1, Yaya Keita 1, Jordan Wilmore 1

Not the trifecta you needed to keep this game close.

Honestly, I don’t know what it is about Rivalry games and Javon Pickett, but I’d like for him to bottle whatever it is and use it in other games. and no I don’t think he needs to average 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting, but just a consistent presence on both ends would be nice.

That the second highest game score came from a guy who played 6 minutes, well that’s a problem. Durugordon is intriguing for a lot of reasons, but he seems at least adequate at scoring the basketball. And if Missouri is going to continue to be mediocre to poor on defense, maybe running out better offensive players will make the learning curve shorter.

I’m also all in on Trevon Brazile.

In two of the last three games, Jordan Wilmore has lost his senses and fouled in an egregious way. He’s high usage and currently running out a 73 Offensive rating. Worse, his defensive rating when on the floor is also poor. And he started! Against Kansas! Of all the things that I can’t figure out it’s this. If you’re trying to win basketball games, it would seem that Wilmore is no longer helping in that endeavor. I can buy you think he’s a project, and you want to find minutes for him when you can. But I would not be robbing Yaya Keita or especially Trevon Brazile of minutes since it seems like their trajectory is different than Wilmore's. Maybe Jordan’s curve of development is long. But Brazile looks ready, and while Keita is hit and miss, I think you still need to run it with him when you can.

This roster is flawed, but it’s not hopeless. I don’t know why you can’t find 15 or so minutes for Durugordon. Brookshire wasn’t great yesterday but he played 19 minutes and was only -4. Meanwhile Amari Davis played 25 and was -40. Pickett played 33 and was -35. Some of that is when guys were playing, but in the first half while Missouri was getting blow out, Brazile was the only bench player with a basket. Durugordon didn’t see the floor, but Kaleb Brown did.

I don’t know what the answer is for this team to have what we would deem an good season. Frankly that part has passed us by. But there can still be progress made. But I think you have to buy in on the youth. I’ll keep saying it, and we’ve seen signs. But more of Brazile, more of Brookshire, and more of Durugordon.

The SEC is a borderline disaster right now. Alabama and Auburn look good. LSU is still undefeated. Everyone else?

Kentucky lost to Notre Dame. Arkansas got blown out by Oklahoma. Tennessee still can’t score. Mississippi State lost to Colorado State, and Texas A&M lost to TCU, while Ole Miss got blown out by Western Kentucky. There’s room to pick up wins, even with this weird oddity of a roster. But they need to make the plays starting real soon.

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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.