The Morning Commute for October 11, 2024

Welcome to the Morning Commute

The SEC Announced it’s tip times for Men’s and Women’s Basketball yesterday. Here’s the tweet from the official Mizzou Hoops page:

If I may, a moment to complain.

I don’t often get up in arms about things like when a game is played. We all have our preferences, but for the most part I’m happy to watch any time they want to play as long as it’s not in the middle of the night.

But I’ll happily find something to complain about with some of these non conference times. Missouri has arguably two of the best non-conference games in the country on an annual basis and each game is scheduled for Sunday at noon? Going up against the NFL.

At least the MU-KU game isn’t up against the Chiefs who play Sunday night. But the Braggin’ Rights game is up against the Chiefs, and it doesn’t feel right playing that game in the day time. Braggin’ Rights needs an 8pm Central tip time to feel right.

Instead we’ll be watching just after brunch. It feels weird.

Yesterday at Rock M and Rock M+

• We’re still doing our best to preview this game against Umass, including Dan’s between the numbers take:

Quarterback Taison Phommachanh is like a poor man’s Thomas Castellanos, scrambling when necessary and hitting the occasional deep ball. But he, and the infrastructure around him, is not enough to threaten Mizzou’s defense. At 107th overall in the country, this is one of the worst offenses in the sport.

Oh boy! I know it’s hard to predict what a team will look like when you schedule 6-8 years out but also THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULDN’T SCHEDULE THAT FAR OUT! Motion to move to scheduling games two years out at most? All in favor say Aye!

• Quentin’s column on the season within a season was a good one:

The difference was that, unlike the other defeated giants, Mizzou was trounced from the get-go; its 24-0 halftime deficit was its greatest since 2021. Through five games, the Tigers look more like a contender for the Music City Bowl rather than the College Football Playoff. It’s why Drinkwitz felt the need to say that the sky, which has existed as long as the universe, was not going to do something it had never done in almost 14 billion years.

Closer to four and a half billion, but otherwise correct!

• Sammy’s still going to write these even if Mizzou gets themselves all the way out of the picture, so they might as well win enough to be in the picture!
• Mizzou Soccer whipped Ole Miss last night, Dylan Previewed that game, and Sunday’s matchup at Mississippi State:

Next on the schedule is two teams close in distance but far away in terms of success: Ole Miss (5-9, 0-5 SEC) and Mississippi State (10-1, 4-0 SEC).

• SEC Previews have kicked off, starting with South Carolina! You should read it because hoops season is coming.
• Over at Rock M+, we’re talking about Player rankings, as designed by our own DataMizzou:

As a brief background, Miya utilizes something called the “Bayesian Performance Rating.” It’s a pretty unique thing in college basketball as it identifies player-level data on BOTH ends of the court. For all of the great metrics we have out there, most are either 1. Team Oriented and/or skewed heavily to offensive performance. BPR’s stated purpose is to have a number that reflects the number of points per 100 possessions better/worse a player makes his team if he were on the court with 9 other average players. It’s not a perfect measurement, of course. Defensive impact in a team sport like basketball is hard to quantify perfectly. Yet BPR for my money is the best tool we have to get a glimpse how how impactful an individual player was.

There was only one hangup I have with his system. As you can see above, it’s a rate based measurement. Meaning, the measurement is limited to a rate per 100 possessions. I don’t believe it properly accounts for how much/how little the player in question is on the court. So…I fixed it.

Behold: The PAR Rankings!!!

Some of what he developed we applied to the previews, I think they’re a lot better this year FWIW.

Rock M Radio: How much fun can it be previewing UMass?

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