Since 1970, Missouri has played a total of 30 road games against an AP top 5 ranked team including their game against the 5th ranked Florida Gators last night. The Tigers are now 4-26 in those games.

So with that in context, it’s time to think about all the things that went right and try to spend less time on all the things that really went wrong.

Missouri’s first half was nearly flawless. They were up 16 points, had made half of their 14 three point attempts, forced 8 turnovers and gave up only three of their own. They also shot 58.8% from inside the arc, and were +2 in raw rebounds on the glass. They held one of the top offensive rebounding teams in the country to just 4 offensive rebounds in 15 missed field goals. The defense was playing with tenacity, the shots were falling, and the Tigers put up 50 points against a really solid defensive team in their building.

The second half was like… the opposite of all that, but not in a bad way. The shots weren’t falling. They weren’t getting calls. Their starting guard and senior leader was kicked out of the game for an elbow nut shot that I assume was less intentional than the officials deemed. Losing Tony Perkins, and then watching Anthony Robinson II pick up his fourth foul was tough. I had a lot of issues with how the game was called, especially when Missouri was attacking the rim and not drawing fouls when it looked like they were getting fouled.

But it didn’t deter Mizzou. They scrapped. They clawed. Dennis Gates inserted T.O. Barrett into the game, despite Barrett not seeing any floor time for the last two games. All Barrett did was come in, dish out an assist, not turn the ball over, and make Walter Clayton, Jr’s life hell for the 6 minutes of action he played.

For as much fun as the first half was, the second half was more impressive. The Tigers were given no advantages and found a way to hold on.

• I’ve been skeptical of Mizzou’s rebounding numbers since conference play: and within reason, it’s one thing to beat Vanderbilt and LSU, two teams at the bottom of the pyramid in size, and even play Auburn to a relative draw since they made a lot of shots… but with the Gators, they usually collect 41% of their misses, and creating extra opportunities via the offensive glass. But whatever Gates sold to his team entering conference play on their rebounding has worked. Mizzou’s collected expected rebound margin in SEC play is +8.5. They’re out rebounding their opponents by nearly a couple per game.
• Not only not getting crushed on the glass but winning the glass: is how you really make the math work. Mizzou is still forcing turnovers (currently 3rd in the conference), and now they’re preventing opponents from getting second shots (also 3rd in Defensive Rebounding rate). These efficiencies gave Mizzou +3 2FGA, +4 3FGA, and even on the road against a team that shoots a lot of free throws they were only -2 attempts at the line… regardless of how poorly officiated the game was.
• Really that’s what the game came down to: Gates and his squad erased the Gators biggest advantage… possession math. Other than sending inappropriate pictures to co-eds, Todd Golden is most known for creating a heavy possession math advantage for his teams and Missouri removed that advantage. 7 more shot attempts from the field, roughly one from the line. And Mizzou had just 8 turnovers despite losing Tony Perkins for nearly 10 minutes of basketball, while Ant was saddled with 4 fouls.

Your Trifecta: Caleb Grill, Mark Mitchell, Tamar Bates

On the season: Mark Mitchell 23, Tamar Bates 20, Anthony Robinson II 17, Caleb Grill 11, Marques Warrick 9, Trent Pierce 9, Tony Perkins 9, Jacob Crews 2, Marcus Allen 1, Aidan Shaw 1

Caleb Grill showed up. But before we talk about him, I want to talk about T.O. Barrett. Talk about grown man minutes. After sitting for 33 minutes of action, Barrett was thrust into the game as a method of protecting Ant from foul trouble. Barrett was awesome. He collected a defensive rebound on possession one, and an assist on the next possession. His only other notable stat was an awful foul call (he didn’t foul Walter Clayton on that shot with 2:39 to play, Clayton missed the first two of three shots… ball don’t lie). So without stats you might think Barrett mostly just avoided trouble, but his defense (which we knew would be good) was exceptional on UFs best player and made Clayton’s life difficult. He entered the game with a 4 point lead, and had the Gators not sank a late three when Mizzou had the game in hand, would have helped the Tigers to a draw in 6+ minutes of action against a top 5 team on the road. Great job, T.O.

Mizzou’s free throw rate was down, which tamped down Mark Mitchell’s impact in the scoring column. There were several shot attempts where it looked like he was fouled and didn’t get a call. Maybe it was just the headband flying off his head but it seemed like he should’ve gotten at least a few more FTAs.

On Grill, this is what you knew he was capable of. He’s always had the motor, but his consistency of being a top shooter has been hit or miss over the years. What’s been the more remarkable growth for Grill is the consistency. He’s still got the flamethrower capability, but even after a few misses he’s not far off from canning the next one. That was evident against Vanderbilt when he sank two big late threes. But a return to the flamethrower was just what Missouri needed to crack the Florida defense and give them an enormous cushion in the first half.

Tamar Bates played a terrific floor game, and deserved better than his 1-6 from 3FG. He rebounded and collected steals, the threes just didn’t fall. The same for Jacob Crews, maybe if he sinks one more three we feel good about his minutes but he rebounded and also got a couple steals. Crews also didn’t get credit for some of the rebounds he helped create with tip outs.

This really was a terrific team win. Everyone who entered did at least one thing positive. Even Peyton Marshall crushed Alex Condon a couple times.

On his birthday, Gates had his guys ready to go. Missouri played with the kind of energy defensively they had against kansas. In playing with that energy the Tigers picked up the biggest win in college basketball to date. Maybe Alabama in a semi-neutral court win over Houston. But the Gators are still 6th in KenPom.com and 7th in the NET. Doing those kinds of things, along with beating KU changes expectations on the season. Missouri is no longer simply expected to make the tournament. Now, it’s about how high of a seed they can attain. At 3-1, you’re no longer looking at scrapping to 9-9 in conference play. But can you push that to 11 wins or 12? Beating Florida at Florida showed you the ceiling on this Tigers team, again.

Now imagine if they played a full clean 40 minutes.

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.