In only one game...

[kso_FAN]

have our opponents had a higher eFG% (50.0-48.0), ORB% (44.6-39.6), FTR (93.5-60.0), and a lower TO% (30.1-27.4). 

The worst FTR we've given up all year. 

Our worst TO% of the year. 

The 4th worst ORB% given up all year. 

And it was still a one possession game in the last minute. 

On the road.

Yeah Mizzou, that's going to happen again.

[sys]

man, i wish i had your confidence.

[kso_FAN]

man, i wish i had your confidence.

Look at those numbers.  

We've beat them 5 straight times in the OOD.

Their best road win is @ Tech.  In OT.  

We should win this game, and do it with some level of comfort in the last few minutes*.

JMHO.

*Yeah, I'll be crushed if we lose.
  

[Johnny Wichita]

I'm still having a hard time not getting nervous for every single game. 

[mcmwcat]

man, i wish i had your confidence.

Look at those numbers.  

We've beat them 5 straight times in the OOD.

Their best road win is @ Tech.  In OT.  

We should win this game, and do it with some level of comfort in the last few minutes*.

JMHO.

*Yeah, I'll be crushed if we lose.
  

we've destroyed Mizzou in tOOD over that period as well.  i'm not as confident as I would be if the OkSU game hadn't destroyed me - the worst loss over the last 4 years.  losing to Mizzou would top that.

what scares me:  our defense ppp is = to ISU if we can't turn the ball over and mu doesn't turn the ball over

[sys]

i don't buy into the whole mu is a completely diff. team on the road angle.  1)  just don't believe that much in individual team anomalies.  2)  they're 3-3 in big 12 road games; of those 3 losses, only the ku game wasn't close.  and that game wasn't close because mu ran 6-6 guys at aldrich all game long and he threw them like half of the time, not because it was in lawrence.


i trust the kenpom %s on the game, and a 30% chance of a loss is plenty high enough to worry me.

[SwiftCat]

I'll play devil's advocate. Couldn't those numbers be related to how Mizzou plays? "Fastest 40 minutes in basketball?"

[doom]

I'm  because we need this game pretty badly. 

[kso_FAN]

I'll play devil's advocate. Couldn't those numbers be related to how Mizzou plays? "Fastest 40 minutes in basketball?"

No doubt, partially they are.  

But it was by far their best FTR of the year.  93.5%, while their next best was 54.7% against UMKC.  And it was their 2nd best OR% of the year.

So those 2 stats were more anomolies than the norm for MU, regardless of style of play.

[kcchiefdav]

I'll admit that most of my worrying is my natural fear of bad things happening to the Cats. With KSU teams, I just always feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point. That being said, Mizzou is a different animal on the road. If we can keep them from getting going from 3pt land (see Nebraska@KSU for examples of us not doing that) then we should win this one. Assuming we can keep their 3pt shooting down, the only other worry is the slashing drives to the hoop which teams have been killing us with, thus I think we'll be doing a fair bit of full court defensing and probably some zone as well.

GOD, I HOPE I'M RIGHT.

[pissclams]

man, i wish i had your confidence.

Look at those numbers.  

We've beat them 5 straight times in the OOD.

Their best road win is @ Tech.  In OT.  

We should win this game, and do it with some level of comfort in the last few minutes*.

JMHO.

*Yeah, I'll be crushed if we lose.
  

we've destroyed Mizzou in tOOD over that period as well.  i'm not as confident as I would be if the OkSU game hadn't destroyed me - the worst loss over the last 4 years.  losing to Mizzou would top that.

what scares me:  our defense ppp is = to ISU if we can't turn the ball over and mu doesn't turn the ball over

mcmw does a good job of describing how i feel going into this game as well.  

the bottom line is that if we play like crap against MU we will lose.  <----HBBIQ on display

[kso_FAN]

what scares me:  our defense ppp is = to ISU if we can't turn the ball over and mu doesn't turn the ball over

Again, I understand concern with MU, and they are good, maybe very good.

But GMAB with Gasaway's stupid stat.  

That's like saying if we didn't have the best FTR in the country or one of the top 10 ORB% in the country that our offense would be no better than some average team.  TO% is one of the 4 key components of defense, and we are very good at forcing them.  Its the key component in how we play defense.  Isolating a stat like that and then making some broad comparison is pretty dumb IMO (and mcmw, I'm not saying you are dumb, but I do think Gasaway's talking point is.)

And I agree completely with clams; if we play poorly MU can beat us.  We played poorly in Columbia.  But while MU has improved, I'd say we have probably improved more and if we bring a competitent game we should handle MU at home, barring MU going off from 3 like Nebraska or something.

[yosh]

Safford might be out.  Had a knee injury against CU and didn't return.

[sys]

pretty sure mcmw was being facetious.

[kso_FAN]

pretty sure mcmw was being facetious.

Could be, if so I missed it.

[steve dave]

Safford might be out.  Had a knee injury against CU and didn't return.

That would be amazing.  He's the Mizzou Ryan Anderson.   

[mcmwcat]

pretty sure mcmw was being facetious.

i know our defense isn't as bad as ISU's when we get zero turnovers.  you'd have to compare it to ISU's defense ppp when they get zero turnovers to get an actual comparo.

BUT ...  if the strength of our defense is that we force turnovers and the strength of mizzou's offense is that they don't turn the ball over then what???  forcing turnovers is a big part of the M.O. of the team.  but like you've noticed ... lately it doesn't 'matter what our FTR, TO% or OR% is.  we are shooting the fvck out of the ball.  

but it sure helps to have margin for error by getting some extra possessions by being + in the TO stat.  mizzou doesn't let you do that.  

[pissclams]

pretty sure mcmw was being facetious.

get with the program a-hole

[mcmwcat]

looking back our defensive TO% was about normal for us in the first game against Mizzou.  so

[kso_FAN]

looking back our defensive TO% was about normal for us in the first game against Mizzou.  so

Granted, we did cause them to have their highest TO% of the year, but I think we'll turn them over enough to get our defense going.

Speaking of TOs, I really hope Frank brings out his TO talking point from the game in Columbia: "I told our guys, if you get in trouble throw the ball into the 15th row.  Just throw it out of bounds as far as you can throw it.".

Hard to forget C-Merr's poor corner to point pass that led to a run-out for MU in that one.

[SleepFighter]

We did have "bad" tos against tech.

But the peggy positives have destroyed the nancy negatives this year.  Going to go with the peggy's for this one.

[EMAWzified]

We need to avoid the foul trouble that hurt us at MU and playing CMerr in critical minutes it led to.
We've been fouling less -- and drawing fewer fouls -- in recent games. Don't know if that means we're defending differently or refs have adjusted.

[steve dave]

So, apparently Stafford is getting an MRI this morning to see how the knee is. Hopefully he has a piece of metal in his heart that he didn't know about and it rips through his sternum like the baby alien from the movie Alien when they flip on the super magnets in the MRI machine.  That way he wouldn't be available for their game saturday. 

[Bookcat]

MU's pressure D will burn them if they use it foolishly.

I'd like to think that we'll be able to keep the score in our favor without Samuels and Sutton having to earn many fouls in the first half. If that is the case...game over in the second half.

We'll unleash the dobermans on them.

[kso_FAN]

We need to avoid the foul trouble that hurt us at MU and playing CMerr in critical minutes it led to.
We've been fouling less -- and drawing fewer fouls -- in recent games. Don't know if that means we're defending differently or refs have adjusted.

Very true.  That was an ugly game with a ton of foul calls.  I think we have gotten better about not getting as many silly foul calls, but it will be interesting to see how the game is called.  In 6 of our first 7 Big 12 games we had at least 25 fouls called on us and our first 3 games all had 30+, but we haven't had more than 24 called on us in any game since then.

And the Stafford injury situation could be big for MU.  Without him our frontcourt advantage becomes gigantic.  Of course, a great way to deny entry passes is pressuring guards, and MU does that as well as anyone.