Study Hall: Mizzou 84, Eastern Washington 77

Nov 12, 2024 | Uncategorized

Written By

study hall 2022

From a good defensive game to an awful one.

Even after rewatching the last game against Howard I remain convinced the defense was very good. The Tigers merely fell victim to a shooting variance. Even Matt Harris did a deep dive into the effort on the Plus Forums and came away with the same conclusion. After two games my thoughts were the defense looked improved and could be on their way towards being the type of unit many envisioned under Dennis Gates.

Every game is different. What you hope is for your team to build off each one and impvoe in areas where they weren’t good. Going into the contest against Eastern Washington I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I hoped to see more of the same good defense just with fewer made outside shots from their opponent. It didn’t kick off that way. Against Howard Mizzou dominated early but found their opponent hanging in with their outside shotmaking.

Against EWU, the Eagles were the team who struck first blow going up 12-4 in the early stages. But the Tigers pounced and did so with emphasis. Although it seems like Missouri expected the Eagles to go away quietly after Mizzou dropped a 31-8 run over the course of a 10 minute span in the first half. Mizzou went from down 8 at 12-4 to up 15 at 35-20.

EWU had different ideas however. They outscored Missouri the rest of the way, putting up 57 points in basically 25 or so minutes. They scored 44 points in the second half with a 1.33 points per possession over the final 20 minutes. It’s hard to fathom really. It would be one thing if they scorched the nets from 3 point range. But that wasn’t the case, Mizzou’s defense was just carved up, and mostly at the rim.

If you’re familiar with a face cut, there were a lot of face cuts. It’s just what it sounds like. Where the offensive player cuts in front of the face of their defender. It usually happens when the defense is in a help position. Andrew Cook, a former NAIA All American and grad transfer from Carroll College just carved up the Tigers to the tune of 24 points on just 13 shots. He and teammate Mason Williams made 18 shots on 26 field goal attempts. The rest of the Eagles made just 11 of 30 attempts.

Fortunately for Missouri the Eagles only shot 36% from three, and fortunately they also had Caleb Grill.

Team Stats

2025 study hall eastern washington
  • 68 possessions is surprisingly slow for how quickly these two teams were playing: but a big part of the Eagles game plan was to make Missouri grind out possessions. During their run the EWU defense got a bit loose and shots were coming quicker. But when they made Missouri slow down it was a lot tougher for the Tigers to get the shots they wanted, which was primarily at the rim.
  • There’s a big difference in athleticism with this team and they are going to shoot more free throws because of it: they’re already 25th in free throw rate. I don’t know if they’ll remain that high through the year, but year one under Gates saw the Tigers with a 29.1% free throw rate, which increased to 31.7% last year. Currently the Tigers are at 55.8%. Free points is a good way to win close games.
  • What I don’t like is the 2FG%: mostly because Mizzou’s defensive 2FG% should be much better than to give up 64.5% against a team like EWU, where they’re giving up size all across the board. The Tigers missed sevearl shots you’d expect them to make, but the defense is where they need to be much better.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: Caleb Grill, Mark Mitchell, Tamar Bates

2025 study hall eastern washington

On the season: Tamar Bates 6, Mark Mitchell 4, Anthony Robinson II 4, Caleb Grill 3, Aidan Shaw 1

If you’ve read anything on this site about Caleb Grill over the last year and a half it was probably something about how streaky he is. I knew there was going to be a game in the non-conference slate which I would call ‘The Caleb Grill Game’, what I didn’t envision was it would end up being Grill saving Mizzou at the same time. There’s no question Grill has been struggling the first two games, he always plays hard and with high energy. But sometimes that energy can lead to bad things like turnovers, missed shots, fouls. Grill had two bad moments, missing three free throws in a row and a weird turnover where he and Ant Robinson just missed each other. Otherwise, a nearly flawless night for the 6th year senior. 33 points, 9 rebounds in 32 minutes. He’s not going to do that every night, but when he’s feeling it, you gotta feed him the ball.

I’m not sure anyone else here is worth writing about. Mark Mitchell was fine. He had an obvious advantage against anyone that guarded him but only managed 10 shots and 13 points. Frankly a 107.5 ORtg and 22.1% usage should be much better. And Tamar Bates is about the same. He missed a bunny late in the game which should have been an easy lay in. His ORtg is always good but he should be able to find a few more opportunities.

2025 study hall eastern washington

I really don’t love Josh Gray’s -17, especially in just 11 minutes. I realize this is the early part of the season and Dennis Gates is testing some rotations. I think Gray is still your likely starter in the post, but there’s also a reason why he’s never really played much beyond 20% of the minutes on good teams. He’s a good player, but early on you could see this probably wasn’t the game for him. And that’s ok. There will be games where you don’t need a 7’0 post guy to win.

Mizzou has enough size across the combo forward positions with Mitchell, Aidan Shaw, Trent Pierce, Marcus Allen, and Jacob Crews to compete, and with far more athleticism Gray and even Peyton Marshall should be treated a bit more like a luxury.

The gamble on Mizzou being good this year lies somewhere in the vicinity of them having vastly improved defense. That case took a bit of a hit against EWU, it doesn’t mean it’s erased but the evidence for being consistently good defensively doesn’t exist in the Gates era to date. The tools are all there. But it’s hard to get excited about growth when you see them get carved up by a former NAIA star and a guy who barely played at EWU a year ago.


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.

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.

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.

You Might Also Like

Injuries, obstacles mounting for Mizzou Wrestling

Injuries, obstacles mounting for Mizzou Wrestling

Cal Tobias/Rock M Nation The Tigers are currently without their three expected key contributors, two gone for the rest of the season For the second straight year, Mizzou Wrestling has begun its season with high hopes and expectations before seeing the year take a...

read more
Commute: Who is declaring for the NFL draft?

Commute: Who is declaring for the NFL draft?

The Morning Commute for Friday, January 3rd, 2024. Welcome to the Morning Commute We all need our moment, right? That’s the benefit of social media, it allows every one to play the title role in their own script. With that said I’m not sure I fully understand...

read more
Defending champs blow out Mizzou WBB

Defending champs blow out Mizzou WBB

Karen Steger Action Photography Tigers fall to South Carolina 83-52 Mizzou WBB (11-5, 0-1 SEC) competed early on with No. 2 South Carolina (13-1, 1-0 SEC), but faltered in the second half as the talent discrepancy showed. South Carolina ended the first quarter ahead...

read more

0 Comments