
One of the least enjoyable 20 point wins I’ve watched in a while.
In the time since I’ve been writing about Mizzou Basketball, they’ve won a basketball game by 20 points or more 33 times. That’s in 324 games (having a Stathead.com account makes these look ups easy). If you haven’t been following along with every game and season, I’ve been here since the 2014-15 season. So a 10% rate of 20+ point wins isn’t super great, and only 8 of those wins were against teams I would not consider a low major. So either a mid-major or a high major. If you’re beating a mid or high major by 20, you’re feeling pretty good no matter how it played out.
Lindenwood is not a mid major, they’re a low major. They’re new to the D1 scene, Mizzou played them in their third ever game as a D1 school back in 2022. That game didn’t go great, the Tigers used a late 20-3 run to put the game away. That season the Lions finished 343rd in KenPom.com, this year they’re around 350th. That’s about 10 points per 100 possessions better than Mississippi Valley State.
Missouri won this game against Lindenwood by 20 points. And I’m not sure if there’s been a game in the time since I’ve been writing about Mizzou basketball where I’ve been as frustrated by a 20 point win.
I can think of several that might come close, but if you factor in expectations heading into the season there are very few that would compare. Maybe getting down to South Carolina State 29-13 in the 1st half last year gets there, but not quite. Mizzou ran away from them after playing horrible early on.
So why was this so frustrating?
We’re going to look at the numbers and it’s going to show a couple obvious plot points. From a psychological standpoint I would point to the night before a holiday in a nearly empty arena, and Lindenwood being the 6th game in a row where Mizzou would be the heavy favorites. And then there were the three previous games which were laughers.
It’s easy to see how the focus might wane a bit. Throw in a scary injury to your team captain… it all adds up to a flat performance.
Team Stats
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- Turnovers were obviously a big problem: Mizzou under Gates generally takes care of the ball. They equaled a TOR% of 27.5% or worse only two other times. 2022 against Kansas, 2024 against Mississippi State. Both times they got blown out by a good high major team. This time the gave the ball away on nearly 1 out of every three possessions and still had a PPP over 1.1. Giving the ball away is bad and Missouri probably cost themselves 9 possessions, or 13-14 points since they were getting 1.5 points per shot.
- If the turnovers weren’t bad enough, the Three Point shooting was also bad: just 5 makes on 22 attempts isn’t as bad as Howard but it was close. Mizzou has shot 35% on the season from outside, which would be about 2-3 more makes.
If Mizzou takes care of the ball, makes a few more threes this is a near 40 point win. And that’s not even with the amount of points of turnovers they could have limited by being more secure with the ball. Lindenwood was credited with 21 points off turnovers, plus or including (per SynergySports) 18 points in transition.
Player Stats
Your Trifecta: Tony Perkins, Marques Warrick, Trent Pierce
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On the season: Mark Mitchell 10, Caleb Grill 7, Tamar Bates 8, Anthony Robinson II 7, Marques Warrick 4, Tony Perkins 3, Trent Pierce 3, Aidan Shaw 1
Welcome to the 2024-25 college basketball season Tony Perkins! I’m not sure what was or is wrong with Perkins and why he’s been held out of action, but we really got to see what’s good about Perkins and why he was such a priority for Dennis Gates this past offseason. You barely noticed him putting up 18 points, 4 rebounds and a couple steals. He had a couple more turnovers than you might want, but otherwise a stellar entry to the season.
Trent Pierce is really stepping into the kind of role we’d hope he would. The shooting still hasn’t quite come around, everything looks like it should go in more but it just doesn’t yet. Another game of being excellent from 2FG, plus getting to the free throw line. He was also credited with a turnover that wasn’t his fault… hey I’m not here to argue with the official scorer. But Pierce threw a lob pass to Mark Mitchell and Mark should have caught it with two hands. Instead he went up with one and it bounced off his hand. That’s on Mitchell. The pass was fine.
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So much red in the TOR%. Way too much red in the ORtg.
I feel like I said most of what I wanted to say at the top. So I’ll be brief the rest of the way.
The struggle of November is behind us. From the start, I did not like the set up of the non-conference schedule. There was just too little to play with after Memphis. We talked about the Howard game, Mizzou played poorly against EWU, then had things maybe went a little too well for three games.
Then the day before Thanksgiving a matchup against Lindenwood. I’ll just say I’m happy that run is over, and Cal comes to town on Tuesday to provide something more challenging. This version of the Missouri Tigers can skip showing up to play the way they’re capable of against Lindenwood, but not against Cal and not against KU.
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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