Study Hall: Mizzou 105, Houston Christian 69

Nov 27, 2022 - 2:30 PM

Basketball is largely about ebbs and flows. The other team is going to score some, you’re going to score some, and the game usually comes down to who was able to string together more runs.

Missouri has an offense that, at least so far, has flowed a lot. And while the defense hasn’t been great, it’s been good enough to hold up for the Tigers until the next run. Yesterday Mizzou started on a big run, jumping out to a 16-0 lead, followed that run with a 9-0 run and had a 22 point lead before the second media timeout. While the teams played back and forth through the rest of the 1st half, Mizzou used an 8-0 run early in the second half to stretch the lead to 30. In all Mizzou had seven runs of 6 or more points totaling 60 points over both halves. Houston Christian had a single run of 6 or more points, a 7-0 run to cut a 35 point lead to 28 points with about 7 minutes to play in the second half.

So when I “tempted fate” before the game with a tweet about Mizzou going to 7-0, it wasn’t so much tempting fate as understanding that Houston Christian does not defend well and Mizzou scores the ball. The question wasn’t ever going to be whether Mizzou won or not, it was always going to be by how much?

Team Stats

• This team plays fast, so it’s normal for them to get to 75 possessions: and their 1.40 ppp was better than anything Mizzou put up last season (1.31 was the best last season against Alabama). In fact, Mizzou’s worst performance so far this season was against Lindenwood at 1.11 ppp, which would’ve been in the 10 best performances last year. Quite clearly, the competition hasn’t always been the best, but this is about what you should do when you face a team you should clear out.
• 76.2% from 2FG is quite good: what’s better is Mizzou scored 62 points in the paint, 21 made layups and 8 dunks, and just a couple made 2s outside of that. So 29 made shots at the rim. Houston Christian made 25 total field goals. That’s a good way to get to 72.4% in effective FG%.
• I’ve been tracking extra possessions so far this season: going into the game thanks to Mizzou’s ball handling advantage so far this season. Prior to this game they had 58 more possessions minus turnovers, they had another 12 yesterday. That puts them at 70 overall, in 7 games. If you turn the ball over you don’t get to shoot, if you don’t get to shoot you can’t score. So far Mizzou has simplified the game by making sure they get shots, and getting lots of shots at the rim.

The BCI has been nearly laughable at times it’s been so good.

Player Stats

Your Trifecta: DeAndre Gholston, D’Moi Hodge, Noah Carter

On the season: D’Moi Hodge 12, Kobe Brown 8, Noah Carter 6, Nick Honor 5, DeAndre Gholston 3, Tre Gomillion 3, Sean East II 3, Isiaih Mosley 2

If there was going to be a DeAndre Gholston game, I’ll take this one being it. I feel like I’ve harped on Gholston and his place and role within the rotation enough I probably don’t need to reiterate, but I loved this game from him. He took 10 shots, which is still probably a bit high, but of the 10 only one was a bad shot. That was the shot he took after he’d hit two 3s in a row and was 3 for 3 on the night. I don’t mind it, take your heat check 3, Dree.

Never let how good of a player D’Moi Hodge is get old for you. He’s not going to be perfect every game, but he plays hard and fast and even on a night when he seemed to be overlooked he still had 5 steals and 3 assists.

Noah Carter had an A+ game and mostly because he was good in his finishes at the rim. But man oh man, Nick Honor was nearly perfect. He had one pass where it was forced and he tried to thread the needle a little too much, but otherwise he made all his shots, had 3 assists, 2 steals and a 9% usage rate. I’ll take that when your Floor Rate is nearly 80% as well. Just the image of efficiency.

Overall it was a forgettable game for guys like Aidan Shaw and Isiaih Mosley. But if you consider the fact that Mizzou’s starting five jumped so hard on HCU that it was 11-0 before the first sub, it was 16-2 before Mosley saw the floor, and it was 23-3 before Shaw hit the hardwood... maybe guys were losing a little focus for an 11am tip off two days after Thanksgiving. I’m not making excuses; I’ll just say I understand.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that much green in the Floor Rate. 9 players hit 40% or better against SIUE, but 11 players hit that mark yesterday. Tre Gomillion had an 81% Floor Rate, and Nick Honor had a 78%... basically if they were on the floor Mizzou was scoring the ball.

Truthfully, I’m exhausted a little writing these. For one, Mizzou hasn’t been in a competitive basketball since the 2nd game, and even that never really felt like a game they’d lose. There are only so many different ways you can say “They beat the stuffing out of the other team” before it gets a bit tiresome. I don’t get tired of watching them blast other teams, but writing something different isn’t easy. The good news is we get our first real challenge with the game at Wichita on Tuesday. We’ll have a much clearer picture of how this team can adapt to playing a top 100 level team on the road.

The goal was always to be 7-0 going into the matchup with the Shockers. Find a way to win that game, hold serve against SEMO, and be undefeated for the home game against Kansas. Mizzou is projected to win a close game against the Shockers per KenPom. We’re now through the first 7 games and the record is as it should be. The next 7 are going to tell us a lot more about how this season is going to go.

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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 upon 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.

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.

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.

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.