Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning

1) Saturday's loss to Arkansas changed nothing for Missouri. It was a game Mizzou was supposed to lose in a place it pretty much always loses. KenPom gave Missouri about a 20% chance of winning, which made it the least likely win left in the regular season. They lost it, so be it. The focus now becomes winning the final four. If you can do that, you're going to end the regular season 17-14 and you'll get to the NIT. If you lose one, you'll be 16-15 and whether you get to play anymore is going to rely on what you do in Nashville. Here are the KenPom chances to win each:

at Vandy: 52%

vs Mississippi State: 47%

at Ole Miss: 35%

vs Alabama: 42%

Despite those percentages saying Mizzou will go 1-3, KenPom predicts them to go 2-2, finishing the regular season 15-16. Barring a strong run in the conference tournament, it wouldn't get them to the postseason. It would likely mean a 15-17 or 16-17 finish. It would in no way be progress from last season. It would be an identical record which what should be a better roster. Yes, it would mean seven conference wins as opposed to five, but I'm not counting that as significant progress. It would be treading water in a year Mizzou was supposed to get downstream a little bit (or upstream depending on how you want to look at it). In other words, Mizzou has to do better in the last four. It has to be a minimum of 3-1 and then win one in Nashville.

2) Beyond the record, let's look at where Missouri has gotten better and where it's gotten worse. In each of these categories, I'm listing the 2018-19 number first and the 2019-20 number 2nd. National rankings will go in parentheses

KenPom ranking: 68/104

NET ranking: 77/89

Offensive efficiency: 107 (127th)/104.6 (131st)

Defensive efficiency: 97.2 (51)/98.4 (107)

Just looking at those broad numbers, Missouri is actually worse this season than it was last season. That could change over the next 4-6 games. The numbers are close enough that maybe Mizzou is going to rise. I think there's a chance it could get higher than 77 in the NET, but there's almost no chance it's getting better than 68 in KenPom. The offense is similar to what it was last season. The defense is, and definitely end up being, worse.

Let's look at some more numbers.

vs top 50 teams: 1-11/4-8 (2 or 3 to go)

vs top 100 teams: 7-17/6-11 (3 to go)

Missouri played a better schedule last year (KenPom had last year's schedule as the 21st most difficult, this year as 73rd). That's the main reason the rankings were better last year. That's mostly because the SEC was a lot better last year than it is this year (only Georgia and Vandy ranked outside the top 100 last year, Vandy and A&M do this year with Georgia and Ole Miss on the edge). Just on the surface, my impression is that Missouri has been more competitive this year. It has certainly beaten more good teams. But here's a number:

Double digit losses: 11 in 2019, 10 in 2020. So are they more competitive? The numbers seem to tell me they're actually almost identical.

3) How about the specific statistical categories?

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