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1) It's always good to get the first one on board. Eli Drinkwitz did that yesterday when DeSmet DL Mekhi Wingo committed. It wasn't necessarily something we expected to happen, but it's not incredibly unusual for an in-state guy to jump on board more than a year in advance. Back in the day, guys like William Franklin and (if memory serves) William Moore, committed before the class ahead of them even signed. In general, the last few years, Missouri has had to wait until March or April to get the class started. It's not that that is late, but it's always nice to be able to have an in-state guy leading the class and jump on board to show the other guys it's okay to go ahead and commit to the new coach this early. As for what kind of player Missouri is getting, we'll get more info on that in the coming days. I'm not going to pretend to have spent a bunch of time studying the 2021 kids.
2) As for the 2020 class, we're still waiting on developments. Ennis Rakestraw visited and Sean talked to him. The reviews are very positive. But I'm just going to be honest: If the offers from Bama, UGA and Texas are committable, it's tough to see happening. I don't think Missouri has ever beaten out that level of (legitimate) offer list for an out of state kid. They got guys like Drew Lock and Terry Beckner who could legitimately have gone to places like that, but they were area players. Getting Rakestraw--if he can commit to those places--would be one hell of a feather in Drinkwitz's cap early on. We would expect a higher number of official visitors the next two weekends with Mizzou still looking to add probably eight guys for the late signing period (we think they'll hold a couple spots at least for potential transfers and such).
3) Let's move on to basketball now. Missouri lost a game against Alabama on Saturday which was not unexpected but still damaging. The issue with Mizzou's non-conference performance was that it missed most of its chances to give itself any cushion. So starting 1-4 in the league, which is probably the record most would have predicted when the schedule came out, hurts more than it would have had Mizzou beaten Charleston Southern and one of Xavier, Butler or Oklahoma. If they'd done that, you could still see a path to the tournament when the schedule lightens up a little bit. You can't now. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's time to stop talking about it as a real possibility unless they go reel off a 7-2 stretch or something. The Tigers are 9-8 and have slipped to 75th in both KenPom and the NET rankings. The goal for the team should still be the NCAA Tournament. But it's time for the rest of us to admit that's a thing that we look kind of foolish talking about right now.
4) In terms of huge weeks, this one is about as huge as it gets for the Tigers. They host Texas A&M on Tuesday night. The Aggies were generally thought to be one of the SEC's two worst teams coming into league play, They have actually been okay in SEC games, beating Ole Miss and Vandy and taking LSU to OT in a game they should have won. But they're still 157th in KenPom. If you're not going to win this game, it's hard to see many at all you are going to win. After that is a Saturday road trip to West Virginia. The Mountaineers are 14-3 and No. 9 in the NET rankings. There shouldn't be any real expectation of Missouri winning that game. But it is the type of game that offers you a chance to really turn things around and get going in the right direction. WVU is probably the best team Missouri will face all season (especially with Auburn sliding lately). It's hard to overstate how huge a win in Morgantown would be. The reality is it's probably not going to happen, but the potential upside is gigantic.
5) As far as why Missouri lost its two games last weekend, it's real simple: The opponents made shots and Missouri didn't. Mississippi State shot 54.5% from the field. Alabama only shot 44.6 but the Tide made 13 three-pointers (which is not an aberration for them). Missouri countered by shooting a combined 32.7% (36/110) from the floor and 22.2% (10-45) from three. You just can't win that way. It goes back to what we said all year: Hoping to win every game 55-52 isn't going to be successful in the SEC because there are just too many guys who are going to make some shots. The problem is, Missouri doesn't have anyone that can do that consistently. Missouri NEEDS to win 55-52 most nights because they just aren't built to go score 70 points all that often. They did it at Bama, but gave up 88. Against Mississippi State, Missouri had a combined 78 field goal attempts, free throw attempts and turnovers. Against Alabama that number was 105. So the Tigers scored 29 more points, but they also had 27 more opportunities to score points. According this, Missouri ranks 185th in offensive efficiency. Despite scoring 74 points against Alabama, the efficiency rating in that game was actually slightly below the season average. And the rating this year is a little below what it was last year when Mizzou finished 15-17. KenPom has them 110th...and having slipped to 65th in adjusted defensive efficiency.
6) There are two players who seem to be key in assessing what Missouri can do offensively.
Javon Pickett: There isn't really a logical explanation for it, but as Pickett's offense goes, so goes Missouri.
Here are his stats in nine wins: 38/75 (50.6%), 10.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 0.8 turnovers
Here are his stats in eight losses: 13/42 (31.0%), 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 turnovers
Pickett averages two and a half times as many points (on 20% better shooting), nearly twice as many rebounds and nearly three times fewer turnovers in Missouri's wins than in its losses. Again, I can't tell you exactly why, but when Pickett plays well, Missouri usually wins. All six of his double figure games have been Missouri wins. All three of his scoreless games have been Missouri losses.
Mark Smith: Smith tends to play well against the bad teams on Missouri's schedule and not very well against the good ones. You'd expect the numbers to dip some against the better competition, but probably not as much as they have.
In seven games against teams outside the top 100: 13 points per game, 33/66 (50%) from the floor, 22/45 (48.9%) from three-point range
In ten games against top 100 teams: 9.4 points per game, 29/83 (34.9%) from the field, 20/62 (32.3%) from three-point range
Smith makes a lot more shots from everywhere on the floor in games against bad competition. He has more made field goals, more made two point shots and more made three point shots in seven games against sub 100 competition than he does in ten games against top 100 competition. Smith has scored in double figures in just 3/10 games against top 100 teams (and one of those came in a 4/14 from the field effort against Alabama). He has scored in double figures in five of seven games against non top 100 teams and had at least nine points in six of those games. If you take out a scoreless, 0/4 performance in the opener against Incarnate Word, Smith is averaging 16.3 points per game against the other six sub 100 team and shooting better than 50% from the field and the three-point line.
In other words, if Smith and Pickett play well, Missouri has a chance to beat most of the teams on its schedule. If they don't, the Tigers are going to lose a lot.
1) It's always good to get the first one on board. Eli Drinkwitz did that yesterday when DeSmet DL Mekhi Wingo committed. It wasn't necessarily something we expected to happen, but it's not incredibly unusual for an in-state guy to jump on board more than a year in advance. Back in the day, guys like William Franklin and (if memory serves) William Moore, committed before the class ahead of them even signed. In general, the last few years, Missouri has had to wait until March or April to get the class started. It's not that that is late, but it's always nice to be able to have an in-state guy leading the class and jump on board to show the other guys it's okay to go ahead and commit to the new coach this early. As for what kind of player Missouri is getting, we'll get more info on that in the coming days. I'm not going to pretend to have spent a bunch of time studying the 2021 kids.
2) As for the 2020 class, we're still waiting on developments. Ennis Rakestraw visited and Sean talked to him. The reviews are very positive. But I'm just going to be honest: If the offers from Bama, UGA and Texas are committable, it's tough to see happening. I don't think Missouri has ever beaten out that level of (legitimate) offer list for an out of state kid. They got guys like Drew Lock and Terry Beckner who could legitimately have gone to places like that, but they were area players. Getting Rakestraw--if he can commit to those places--would be one hell of a feather in Drinkwitz's cap early on. We would expect a higher number of official visitors the next two weekends with Mizzou still looking to add probably eight guys for the late signing period (we think they'll hold a couple spots at least for potential transfers and such).
3) Let's move on to basketball now. Missouri lost a game against Alabama on Saturday which was not unexpected but still damaging. The issue with Mizzou's non-conference performance was that it missed most of its chances to give itself any cushion. So starting 1-4 in the league, which is probably the record most would have predicted when the schedule came out, hurts more than it would have had Mizzou beaten Charleston Southern and one of Xavier, Butler or Oklahoma. If they'd done that, you could still see a path to the tournament when the schedule lightens up a little bit. You can't now. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's time to stop talking about it as a real possibility unless they go reel off a 7-2 stretch or something. The Tigers are 9-8 and have slipped to 75th in both KenPom and the NET rankings. The goal for the team should still be the NCAA Tournament. But it's time for the rest of us to admit that's a thing that we look kind of foolish talking about right now.
4) In terms of huge weeks, this one is about as huge as it gets for the Tigers. They host Texas A&M on Tuesday night. The Aggies were generally thought to be one of the SEC's two worst teams coming into league play, They have actually been okay in SEC games, beating Ole Miss and Vandy and taking LSU to OT in a game they should have won. But they're still 157th in KenPom. If you're not going to win this game, it's hard to see many at all you are going to win. After that is a Saturday road trip to West Virginia. The Mountaineers are 14-3 and No. 9 in the NET rankings. There shouldn't be any real expectation of Missouri winning that game. But it is the type of game that offers you a chance to really turn things around and get going in the right direction. WVU is probably the best team Missouri will face all season (especially with Auburn sliding lately). It's hard to overstate how huge a win in Morgantown would be. The reality is it's probably not going to happen, but the potential upside is gigantic.
5) As far as why Missouri lost its two games last weekend, it's real simple: The opponents made shots and Missouri didn't. Mississippi State shot 54.5% from the field. Alabama only shot 44.6 but the Tide made 13 three-pointers (which is not an aberration for them). Missouri countered by shooting a combined 32.7% (36/110) from the floor and 22.2% (10-45) from three. You just can't win that way. It goes back to what we said all year: Hoping to win every game 55-52 isn't going to be successful in the SEC because there are just too many guys who are going to make some shots. The problem is, Missouri doesn't have anyone that can do that consistently. Missouri NEEDS to win 55-52 most nights because they just aren't built to go score 70 points all that often. They did it at Bama, but gave up 88. Against Mississippi State, Missouri had a combined 78 field goal attempts, free throw attempts and turnovers. Against Alabama that number was 105. So the Tigers scored 29 more points, but they also had 27 more opportunities to score points. According this, Missouri ranks 185th in offensive efficiency. Despite scoring 74 points against Alabama, the efficiency rating in that game was actually slightly below the season average. And the rating this year is a little below what it was last year when Mizzou finished 15-17. KenPom has them 110th...and having slipped to 65th in adjusted defensive efficiency.
6) There are two players who seem to be key in assessing what Missouri can do offensively.
Javon Pickett: There isn't really a logical explanation for it, but as Pickett's offense goes, so goes Missouri.
Here are his stats in nine wins: 38/75 (50.6%), 10.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 0.8 turnovers
Here are his stats in eight losses: 13/42 (31.0%), 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 turnovers
Pickett averages two and a half times as many points (on 20% better shooting), nearly twice as many rebounds and nearly three times fewer turnovers in Missouri's wins than in its losses. Again, I can't tell you exactly why, but when Pickett plays well, Missouri usually wins. All six of his double figure games have been Missouri wins. All three of his scoreless games have been Missouri losses.
Mark Smith: Smith tends to play well against the bad teams on Missouri's schedule and not very well against the good ones. You'd expect the numbers to dip some against the better competition, but probably not as much as they have.
In seven games against teams outside the top 100: 13 points per game, 33/66 (50%) from the floor, 22/45 (48.9%) from three-point range
In ten games against top 100 teams: 9.4 points per game, 29/83 (34.9%) from the field, 20/62 (32.3%) from three-point range
Smith makes a lot more shots from everywhere on the floor in games against bad competition. He has more made field goals, more made two point shots and more made three point shots in seven games against sub 100 competition than he does in ten games against top 100 competition. Smith has scored in double figures in just 3/10 games against top 100 teams (and one of those came in a 4/14 from the field effort against Alabama). He has scored in double figures in five of seven games against non top 100 teams and had at least nine points in six of those games. If you take out a scoreless, 0/4 performance in the opener against Incarnate Word, Smith is averaging 16.3 points per game against the other six sub 100 team and shooting better than 50% from the field and the three-point line.
In other words, if Smith and Pickett play well, Missouri has a chance to beat most of the teams on its schedule. If they don't, the Tigers are going to lose a lot.
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