Study Hall: Illinois 80, Mizzou 77

Dec 24, 2024 | Uncategorized

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study hall 2022

The math almost mathed for the Tigers against the favored Illini.

I look forward to Braggin’ Rights as much, if not more, than any other game on the schedule. Maybe you’re like me, and maybe you’re not… but I’ve never really hated Illinois. I’ve looked forward to this game because generally it’s a lot of fun and it’s always right before Christmas, and most of the time it’s a fun game.

Against someone like kansas, there’s this stress because you want to beat them so badly. With Braggin’ Rights, I want Mizzou to win for sure. But especially when Illinois is good, it’s not the end of the world if they lose. Even this year, Mizzou won’t be on the outside looking in on an NCAA tournament berth for dropping a neutral site game to one of the best teams in the Big 10.

Before the game, Matt Harris and recorded a preview podcast and as we were wrapping up I said if Mizzou could keep Illinois out of the 80s I liked their chances.

Dammit if they didn’t get close.

I imagine this game is going to bother Dennis Gates and his staff for a while. They didn’t play great, but they played well enough. Illinois didn’t play great either. I think both teams really deserve a lot of credit for forcing the other team to do things they didn’t really want to do. It was a grind. My main takeaway from watching is that both Illinois and Missouri are good basketball teams. But for Illinois the math was just slightly better than for the Tigers.

Team Stats

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There’s always a piece about rebounding here, because Missouri isn’t always good at it! But they were fine against Illinois actually. On the aforementioned podcast, Harris and I talked about the negative trend of the Tigers defensive rebounding. But mostly because we look at it from the ‘is the math mathing?’ perspective. And against Illinois the math did in fact math.

Dennis Gates has generally been willing to gamble away his defensive rebounding rate in favor of generating turnovers and valuing the ball yourself. It’s basically viewing the PPS thinking that you can, in fact, get more shots attempts. Mizzou shot the ball poorly, just 44.4% from 2FG and 23% from 3FG. But the Tigers attempted 1 more field goal than Illinois did, and then attempted 14 more free throws. It’s because they:

  • Didn’t get murdered on the glass: Illinois was +12 overall, but they were only +1 for expected ORBs. Rebounding isn’t unimportant, but the impact was nullified when…
  • You were plus 8 in the turnover margin: So minus 3 in Offensive Rebounds overall, plus 8 in turnovers. So in a 74 possession game you had a net of 8 more shots on offense.
  • The difficultly was in the 3 point shooting: Neither team shot well, but Mizzou shot worse and only made three of their 13 attempts. The Tigers were +6 points from 2FG, and +6 from the foul line. But -15 from three point range.

They just needed a little more shooting to get them over the hump.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Tony Perkins, Tamar Bates, Mark Mitchell

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On the season: Mark Mitchell 18, Tamar Bates 14, Anthony Robinson II 12, Caleb Grill 7, Trent Pierce 7, Tony Perkins 6, Marques Warrick 6, Jacob Crews 2, Aidan Shaw 1

It was not Ant’s day. He was disruptive from the tip but foul trouble derailed him, and Kylan Boswell’s physical defense made things more difficult on the offense end. I predict he’ll be much better at next braggin’ rights.

We’ve seen why Gates wanted Tony Perkins. What’s great about Perk is you barely notice how productive he is, but he just makes things happen. Everyone saw the dunk and it was loud, but 3 assists and 3 steals while going 8/9 from the line is a good outing.

2025 study hall illinois

This really felt like a game where Caleb Grill would have made a difference. Mizzou’s offense was laggy for most of the game, relying on rim attacks and free throws to conjure up points. Tamar Bates made a three. Jacob Crews made a three. Marques Warrick made a three as well. I thought they could’ve used Warrick’s shooting a bit more. And I did really like the lineup they wrapped the game up with: Perkins, Bates, Mitchell and Crews and Trent Pierce.

I’m a believer in Pierce as a defensive piece, he’s still figuring some of that out but he does a solid job of using his length to affect things. He’s not a stopper at this point but he’s formed into a plus on that end, and he rebounds. But more than that, he can stretch the floor. Not consistently enough yet but the threat is there, along with Crews. With those two you have two legit threats and three who want to attack the rim. That five-some nearly pulled it off.

Gates made his last substitution at 6:37 left in the game, right as Boswell was sinking two free throws to put Illinois up 10. That lineup then would rattle off an 11-0 run to take a one point lead. And I think they would have held onto the lead and won had the Tigers been fortunate enough to get a correct call or two.

With 2:14 to play a loose ball was knocked out of bounds by Tamar Bates, but only after he was tripped up by Boswell who was diving after the ball. I believe if the same sequence of events occurred in the first half they call that a foul on Boswell. Bates had a clear path to the ball, Boswell dove after the ball and did touch the ball. But he had no real chance at recovering the ball. And had he not dove Bates picks up the ball cleanly and can race to the other end for two points.

If Bates scores a layup or they call a foul he’s going to the line. That’s a two point lead. Instead Kasparas Jakucionis hit his third three of the game giving the Illini a three point lead and it put Mizzou in catch up mode instead of Illinois being in catch up mode.

Overall I don’t have too many complaints about the officiating. They called a lot of fouls, Mizzou was the more aggressive team and they benefitted by shooting more free throws. If they made a few more at the line or hit another three point jumper, we’re having a difference conversation. Instead, they’re off for a week, then face Alabama State before entering the gauntlet of SEC play. Where it’s Illinois or better night after night. I hope they’re ready.


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 on 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.

%Min: This is easy, it’s the percentage of minutes a player played that were available to them. That would be 40 minutes, or 45 if the game goes to overtime.

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.

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. This combined with Usage Rate gives you a sense of impact on the floor.

IndPoss: This approximates how many possessions an individual is responsible for within the team’s calculated possessions.

ShotRate%: This is the percentage of a team’s shots a player takes while on the floor.

AstRate%: Attempts to estimate the number of assists a player has on teammates made field goals when he is on the floor. The formula is basically AST / (((MinutesPlayed / (Team MP / 5)) * Team FGM) – FGM).

TORate%: Attempts to estimate the number of turnovers a player commits in their individual possessions. The formula is simple: TO / IndPoss

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.

In attempting to update Study Hall, I’m moving away from Touches/Possession and moving into the Rates a little more. This is a little experimental so if there’s something you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if there’s an easy visual way to present it.

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