Friday, January 06, 2012

Missouri Shoots The Lights Out Against Oklahoma

#6 Missouri 87, Oklahoma 49
It's rare that you have a game where one team is at the top of their game, hitting every shot and making every play, and the other team can't hit a shot to save their lives. When it happens you have 38 point blowouts. Mizzou hit 57% of their threes and had a 70.4 eFG%. In comparison, Oklahoma had a 36.1 eFG%. With Missouri now 14-0 and with a #6 ranking, it's got Missouri fans thinking Big 12 title and Final Four appearance. I feel like I've been pouring cold water on this team all season, and unfortunately I've got to do it again. Missouri is playing very well, but there are still question marks.

First of all, this kind of shooting differential isn't going to be typical. If Oklahoma and Missouri both shoot closer to their season average then this becomes a 10-15 point victory, not a 38 point victory. Remember that this Missouri team is coming off very narrow victories against Old Dominion and Illinois. And honestly, Missouri hasn't beaten an elite team all season long. They have a few decent wins (Illinois, California, Villanova, Oklahoma, Notre Dame), but not one of those teams is better than a bubble team. Missouri has only played one true road game all season, and it was that nail-biter to a mediocre Old Dominion team. Their biggest test of the season so far, by far, will be coming up on Saturday at Kansas State. If they come out of there with a double-digit victory then I'll really start becoming a believer. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Missouri fall.

As for Oklahoma, it's not new for them to struggle offensively against quality teams. Their only offensive weapon is Steven Pledger - keep the ball out of his hands and they struggle mightily to score. They have played three quality opponents all season long (St. Louis, Missouri and Cincinnati), and had an eFG% below 45.0 and scored under 1 PPP in all three games. It's no surprise that they lost all three games, too. They are still 10-3 overall this season, and will get on the bubble with a 9-9 or better record in Big 12 play, but I don't have a lot of confidence that Oklahoma can do that. And with a tough opening schedule (this road game at Missouri followed by a home game against Kansas on Saturday, then a road game at Oklahoma State and a home game against Kansas State), they could easily open up 0-4 in conference play if they're not careful. Honestly, I expect them to be underdogs in all of three of those upcoming games.

La Salle 80, Xavier 70
At this point I've already beaten to death the issues surrounding the Xavier/Cincinnati brawl. While the Bearcats rallied together after that fight and have played their best basketball of the season these past few weeks, Xavier has mentally fallen apart. Even Tu Holloway, who's always been a cold-blooded assassin on the court, looks scared and tentative at times. They've now lost five of six games since that fight, including a horrible loss to Hawaii and iffy losses here to La Salle and also to Oral Roberts and Long Beach State.

At some point, you have to figure Xavier is going to pick up the quality of their play. The roster and coaching staff is the same as it was when they were 8-0 with wins over Purdue, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati. But the question is: will the damage to their resume be too great to overcome? They're now 9-5 with a Sagarin ELO_CHESS that's spun all the way out to 79th. They'll need to get to 10-6 in conference play to feel good about their at-large hopes, and they'll try to get back on the winning track tomorrow at Fordham (ask Harvard fans if Fordham is a pushover at home). After that they head home for three important games, against Duquesne, St. Bonaventure and St. Joe's.

La Salle is now 11-4 with this win, though they're still a long way off from at-large contention. This is their first quality win, and they have bad losses to Delaware and Robert Morris. This win is a good start to Atlantic Ten play for them, and they'll try to keep the winning going on Sunday against UMass. They have a key stretch coming up January 14th and 18th when they'll play consecutive road games against Dayton and Temple.

Illinois 57, Northwestern 56
Northwestern looked like they were going to run away with this game in the first half. John Shurna had 17 first half points, concluding with a three that put the Wildcats up by ten with two minutes left in that half. But Shurna didn't score again until the final minute of the game, and his cold streak coincided with a brutal second half offensive performance for Northwestern. They finished the half 6-for-25 from the field with five turnovers. For the game they finished with only a 40.9 eFG%, their third worst shooting performance of the season (and the other two were against Baylor and Ohio State, two teams on another level defensively from Illinois).

This isn't a "bad" loss for Northwestern's resume, but it's a big problem. When you're a bubble team, you always want to try to steal some upsets, but the games you really need to take care of are the home games against other bubble teams. Illinois and Northwestern could very well be fighting for one of the final spots in the Field of 68 on Selection Sunday - this loss could be a big problem for the Wildcats. Their early season victory over Seton Hall is looking a lot better than it did at the time, but they've lost their four other games against the RPI Top 75. They're now 1-2 in Big Ten play, heading into a brutal part of their schedule (at Michigan, vs Michigan State, at Wisconsin). They probably need to get to 9-9 in conference play to earn an at-large bid, so it would behoove them to avoid a 1-5 start.

This is a big win for Illinois for the same reason it's a rough loss for Northwestern. It's arguably their best win of the season (they also have a home win over Gonzaga), and they're now a solid 4-3 against the RPI Top 100 with a 2-1 Big Ten record and a home game against bottom-feeder Nebraska up next. They also have home games coming up against Ohio State and Wisconsin in the next couple of weeks. A victory in either game would give them another win to brag about on Selection Sunday.

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