The Morning Commute for November 1st, 2024

Welcome to the Morning Commute

Thankfully it’s the bye week, but while everyone is taking the week off I’ve been watching exhibition basketball. Why you ask? Good question, I say!

Mostly because I’m so very ready for hoops season to start.

When it comes to sports Basketball is my true love. Growing up it was something ingrained in my family, and while I loved baseball and football, basketball took over everything by the time I was in high school.

I miss coaching still to this day, and Rock M provides a necessary outlet of being in and around my favorite sport nearly constantly. The NBA is a fun outlet, but it’s like dessert to me. It’s sweet and sugary, it’s the best players in the world playing at the highest level. But college is imperfect, which makes it more interesting to me.

It helps a bit that I grew up watching the college game more than the NBA, as a kid I was obsessed with Michael Jordan (like a lot of kids), but when Mizzou was on television that game was on our TV. They weren’t on often in those days, but when they were we were watching.

Mizzou tips off on Monday at Memphis. Expectations outside the program are mild at best. For most a bubble season is the most the Tigers can hope for, with a bottom four finish being projected by most who are setting a pecking order. You can read my Mizzou preview here, and while I’ve got Mizzou at 9-9 and 7th it’s admittedly through tie breakers and there’s a cluster of teams from 7-11 to 11-7. The SEC is going to be a slog as there are probably 14 team with a legitimate chance of making the tournament. It all comes down to a few results here and there during conference play.

Yesterday at Rock M and Rock M+

If you missed this yesterday go back and take a look, Dan Keegan’s dive into teams using their backup QBs and how it’s gone:

I wanted to take a look at other peer teams in 2024 that have used multiple quarterbacks. There are 18 teams from Power Two programs that have given some semblance of meaningful playing time to multiple signal callers. There are three main reasons why they have played two quarterbacks: long-term injury to the starter, short-term injury, and juggling options. Some teams have been wildly successful with two QBs; others not as much.

Meanwhile as expectations shift downward, Quentin previewed the new Bowl possibilities, and Sammy took the time to aggregate all the Bowl predictions so far. THERE ARE OPTIONS!
I also suggest taking a few minutes and reading Dylan’s feature on Mizzou Soccers unassuming star Landis Canada:

As a freshman Landis started in EVERY game, playing 1399 minutes (one short, darn). This included a six-game stretch lasting nearly a month where she played every minute in a true iron-woman effort.

Dylan’s done a great job covering a soccer program with a still long road ahead.

FINALLY it’s over! The SEC team previews have all been wrapped up now thanks to the publishing of Alabama:

The heat has been on Nate Oats before. He’s mishandled some personnel situations and often shows a severe lack of polish when handling the media. But as it is, Oats is a basketball junkie. He doesn’t want to be bothered with anything that doesn’t involve basketball directly. So you might forgive him if his player is an accomplice to capital murder, and he screws up his answers when asked tough questions about it. He’s probably only wondering if the player is going to be at practice or not.

I like prodding our conference rivals here and there. There’s also a big glut of more hoops stuff coming today.

Abigail previewed the SEC Cross Country Championships, and Karen wrapped up fall softball coverage the same way Mizzou Softball wrapped up fall ball themselves, with a win:

In the bottom of the 5th, right after my colleague Quentin Corpuel called it an evening, the dam broke. Cahalan singled between Madison Uptegrove and Crenshaw walks and then Saniya Hill smashed a two-run triple to quickly make it 4-0. Hay then followed with a two-run homer to make it 6-0. But that wasn’t all! Madison Walker followed THAT up by launching an absolute moonshot to center that basically landed on top of the hill of the berm, making it 7-0. Kadence Shepherd then added a standup triple before Stefania Abruscato teed off with a homer of her own to make it 9-0. Oklahoma State transfer Haidyn Sokoloski walked, and savvy baserunning by Watkins brought in another run to make it 10-0. Kayley Lenger would add another run before the 10-run inning finally ended.

They were just waiting on Q to bail before unleashing hell.

Over at Rock M+, we’re talking about Matt Watkins new video series and his usage surplus player comps against the SEC’s preseason picks:

If you’ve been following our podcasts, you may have heard me reference “usage surplus.” Without going down a winding road of advanced numbers and theory, my thought process is this: Which players do our preseason projections see as the most vital to their teams? Put in slightly more in-depth terms, we projected minutes, usage and “PAR” (Points above Replacement) based on what that player/his profile should expect to realize coming into the season.

Based on those numbers and some Excel analysis, below are the most important players from each team in the conference. These might not be the best, but many are. No, instead, these are the players a team can mostly ill-afford to lose. The number in parentheses is the share of total team plays that a player projects to be involved in.

I also dropped a deep dive into the SEC Non-Conference schedules and made fun of Texas because they’re supposed to be good but have just an awful schedule.

Rock M Radio: A new Hoops show from Data Mizzou “The Verdict”

Episode one is for everyone, forthcoming eps will be for subs, so get subscribed. Regardless if you’re subscribed or not there’s a LIVE show tonight for Dive Cuts with myself, Matt Harris, and newly minted Dad for a second time, Blake Lovell! Join us as we preview the upcoming hoops season and go over what we can expect from the SEC.

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