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Sometimes it’s best if you just accept you’re going to be uncomfortable.
The moment I saw this game on the schedule, I immediately grimaced and shifted in my seat. Not because I was pulling some woe-is-me Mizzou’d sad-sack fandom thing, but because I knew that going on the road to a place like Howard was going to cause discomfort while watching.
I figured Mizzou would win. I even thought the margin would be close to whatever the predictive metrics said it would… but at no point was I going to feel good watching this game.
For a moment it changed, as the Tigers opened up a 15 point lead in the first 9 minutes. They even expanded it to 20 points with 4 minutes to play in the 1st half. And then a trend began. Howard began doing that frustrating thing where they did enough to keep close, and then they banged in a whole bunch of threes. Things got uncomfortable for a little bit. Any time Mizzou would make a move, Howard would bang in a three or two. At one point they cut the lead down to 9. Eventually the damn broke again, the Tigers defense ratcheted up and forced some turnovers, they capitalized and expanded the lead back up to 21.
It wasn’t particularly fun to watch. Dennis Gates held out Annor Boateng, Trent Pierce, and Trent Burns again. The freshmen, Nicholas Randall and Aaron Rowe, didn’t see the floor. So there was a tight 9 man rotation. Mizzou used their extreme size advantage to punish the Bison around the rim. It’s game one, you’re 1-0.
Team Stats
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- It’s a new year and new team, but I didn’t envision Mizzou losing the BCI battle: 16 turnovers is a lot of turnovers, and Shawn Phillips had 6 of them. This is one of those things you hope is just game one junkiness, because Gates’s teams have always been good with the ball.
- The inherent size advantage was obvious all game long: And wow a +9.3 in expected rebound margin is not something I think we’ve seen under a Gates team. Average D1 rebounding tends to come in around a 32-33% offensive rebounding rate, just for context.
- Mizzou made 24 two poing FGs, Howard made 10: That’s obvioulsy a 28 point difference. Basically the only thing that was making Howard a threat was their three point shooting.
As frustrating as this was at times, Missouri was awful taking care of the ball, terrible at the free throw line, and were not clued in on shooters defensively. All of those things went against the Tigers and they still beat the expected margin by a bucket. If they take care of the ball, make their free throws and affect a few more open threes you’re probably looking at a margin north of 30. On the road against a team, who while they aren’t great, they’re not that bad either. Howard was picked 2nd in their league and have a chance to win their way into another NCAA bid.
There’s a lot to clean up, but considering you were down two to three key rotational players, beating the expected margin on the road during your first game while not playing very cleanly is certainly a result we should be happy about.
Individual Stats
Trifecta: Jayden Stone, Jacob Crews, Shawn Phillips Jr.
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I fully expect that Anthony Robinson and Mark Mitchell will play better games. So if either guy is going to deliver a stinker, let it be in a game where they’re favored by 19, and Jayden Stone and Jacob Crews and Luke Northweather combine to make 7 of 9 threes.
A quick word on Stone, as he’s been one of the pleasant surprised in the two early games (including the exhibition): but Stone was only ever a black box because he’s rarely been healthy and on a good team. But the shot selection has been refined so far, he’s taking good shots, and you can see how he can fit into a rotation much more than before where even the film was limited. Just clean up the turnovers.
Another pleasant surprise, maybe less of a surprise, has been Jevon Porter. Gates has been starting with a jumbo lineup with him, Mitchell, and Phillips, and Porter has played really pretty well. He was terrific on the glass, just allowing his size to impact things around the rim. And the combination of him and Phillips made life miserable inside the arc for the Bison. You can also see at least in the context of the game last night, that Gates trusts Jevon on the floor. While he was subbing like a mad man late in the game, Porter stayed on the floor. A valuable big who can handle the ball, and make free throws.
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I think it says something about Ant’s impact that he was really pretty terrible on offense, turned the ball over more than we’re used to with him, and he was still the highest on the team in plus-minus. I often talk about how dubious plus-minus can be as a stat, but in this case it shows how valueable Ant really is on both ends. It’s rare to have a guy who impacts the game as much as he does on the defensive end.
Phillips is obviously a monster around the rim, but he’s also got to be better in his decision making with his back to the basket. 6 turnovers is too many, and an 84.9 ORtg when you’re 8/9 from the floor leaves a lot out there. Dunks… good! Rebounds… good! Turnovers… bad!
One game is far from a big sample, but as a data point there’s work to be done still. I somehow think a team being led in usage by Phillips and Mack, instead of Mitchell and Robinson, should beat the Howards of the world. But Missouri is going to need more from their two leaders as things ramp up.
Mizzou heads back home on Friday, and again on Sunday. Let’s hope Annor and Trent, and maybe also Trent, are on their path to health.
I’ve moved the glossary to a static page at RockM+ to reduce the size of the bottom of this post.
So if you’re looking for what any of these stats mean, Check out the Glossary!
In attempting to update Study Hall, I’ve moved 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.
If there’s something you’d like to see more of an explanation on, drop a note and let me know!
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