Harding drops to 0-10 all-time against Divsion-I opponents by starting the season with two losses at the Price Cutter Classic in Springfield, Missouri. I thought they might have a chance against UT-Pan Am, but that level of opposition is still too much for a Bisons squad that clearly has a lot of things left to figure out over the next few months.
Missouri State 86, Harding 67
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You’ll notice that I’ve added a few rows of shot selection info to the old presentation. Below the offensive efficiency rating, I’ve listed the two less-important keys (Offensive Rebound % and Turnover Ratio, and if that’s not an oxymoronic way of describing it, I don’t know what is). Then you have each team’s true shooting percentage (which is an overall rating comprised of two-point shooting, three-point shooting, and free throw shooting). Below that are each team’s 2-point and 3-point percentages made, and then the percentage of two-point and three-point shots attempted (relative to one another, so they total 100%).
On to the game…
This wasn’t an easy game for anyone who held the ball for more than a second or two at a time. The two teams combined for 52 total turnovers, with 32 of them belonging to Harding. I guess Trent Morgan and [new senior guard] Chris Dixon had the best results handling the ball, since Morgan was credited with five assists to go with his six turnovers, while Dixon had three of each. Matt Hall, Jacob Thies and Steven Barnett combined for 16 turnovers and just three assists.
Hall led the Bisons with 24 points, with Chris Dixon scoring 14 and Steven Barnett 10. Dixon and Thies had five rebounds each to lead in that category, which turned out to be a large advantage for Harding, despite the mostly small lineup.
The Bisons gave seven players the majority of the playing time: Barnett (31), Hall (28), Dixon (27), Morgan (27), new junior guard Calvin Rayford (26), Jesse Bynum (24), and Jacob Thies (21). Thies fouled out of the came, which probably explains Bynum’s significant minutes. Freshmen Kevin Brown and Matt Garner played a total of 13 minutes, while Brian Howard and Kellen Morgan were in for a total of three.
Guards Dixon and Barnett were the most efficient scorers, totaling 24 points on just 11 total field goal attempts, while Hall was still resasonably good, getting his 24 on 18 shots. Dixon ended up leading the team in game score at 16.8.
Inside shooting was the biggest problem for Harding, which I guess was to be expected. The Bisons made just 34.5% of their attempted twos, although they made up some of that ground by shooting 11-of-20 from outside. Hall and Dixon each made 3 threes, combining to go 6-of-9.
For Missouri State, Dale Lamberth and Deven Mitchell both reached 20+ points, with half of Mitchell’s 24 coming at the free throw line. MSU made 29 of 41 free throws, while the Bisons only managed 18 attempts (making 14). That was possibly the key to the game, as State finished with an impressive 66.1 true shooting percentage.
Texas-Pan American 83, Harding 64
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The Bisons dominated the boards for the second game in a row, but they still couldn’t keep their opponent from making a very high percentage of their shots. UTPA made 69% of their shots from inside three-point range and 47% beyond the arc, all while shooting more free throws than Harding attempted.
Harding couldn’t keep up the hot shooting from Friday night, but they did out-rebound a D-I team for the second straight game, pulling down a remarkable 45% of available offensive boards. That’s just the type of thing you don’t pick up from a box score by just glancing at it, since Pan Am actually had ten more rebounds (but in a lot more chances).
Matt Hall, unsurprisingly, was the leading scorer once again, this time shooting 6-of-14 from the field while dishing out five assists (with five turnovers). Trent Morgan provided some scoring assistance with 13 efficient points. Morgan had the team’s highest game score, even though it was just 9.5, and he and Chris Dixon tied for the team lead with four rebounds. Dixon had a rough game other than that – he fouled out scoreless in just 16 minutes on the floor.
HU took 26 threes in the game and made just 7, showing a huge difference between the two teams’ shooting performances. Hall, Calvin Rayford, and Matt Garner each made two threes, but they had 17 total attempts.
Four Pan Am players scored in double figures, with Brian Burrell leading the way at 20. Guard Paul Stoll made 11 of 12 free throws and scored 19.
Final Thoughts
Even though neither game was particularly close, I’m satisfied overall with the performance in the first two games of the year. It’s basically all downhill from here, so Harding should be prepared for Division-II and lower opposition from this point forward.
Next weekend, HU will be in Canyon, Texas for West Texas A&M’s tournament, the Buffalo Thanksgiving Classic. They’ll face Northeastern State in the first round on Friday. HU coach Jeff Morgan was the head coach at West Texas before taking the job at Harding.
jfwiii.net 
I would debate Harding having that much of an “outrebounding” advantage over UT-Pan Am. Looking at the play-by-play, most of Harding’s offensive rebounds were from missed 3’s in the second half and jumpers missed during garbage time. In many instances of a talent disperancy an outmanned/outsized underdog who misses a ton of three pointers will get a decent number offensive rebounds for the sole reason that on misses the ball caroms longer, which basically nullifies the opposing team’s post rebounders.
Just my take on it from a non-formulaic view anyway.
On another note, I was surprised UT-Pan Am controlled the game against Harding. There shouldn’t be that much of a talent difference between the bottom 50 of D-I teams and solid D-2 teams. Nonetheless, both those D-I games hopefully provided some things for Coach Morgan and the team to build upon for the rest of the season.
That would be an interesting study for me to tackle at some point:
1. Determine if the effect you describe is actually present (I can see how it would make some sense).
2. Find out how much of that effect is negated by the real importance of offensive rebounding, which is keeping the possession alive.
3. Figure out a better way to determine true rebounding skill.
I would only be able to do it for missed threes, since I don’t have data readily available for 2-point shot types (jumpers, layups, dunks, etc.).
As an aside, the reason I don’t have that data is that substitution info isn’t usually included in play-by-plays for college stats (at least from the D2 teams I’ve seen). That kind of data would be great, since you could do all sorts of crazy stuff with plus/minus stats. Since I haven’t seen that information in box scores, I haven’t bothered with the play-by-play stuff.
The more I think about it, I feel like I need the play-by-play data to really find anything in such a study. I would have to look at it on a game level, which with all the two-point shots mixed in, probably wouldn’t tell me anything significant.
Perhaps someone else has already done a similar study that will allow me to simply use the results.
Sorry this is off-topic, but I didn’t know if you saw that Chop-n-Change is looking for another writer:
http://mvn.com/mlb-braves/2007/11/19/c-n-c-looking-for-new-writer/
I know you’re busy with work and your Harding coverage, but I thought you might be interested. I enjoy Chop-n-Change, but generally regard your commentary to be easily as good.
I hadn’t seen that yet…thanks for the tip. It would work well for me since I’m already an MVN writer.
They like pretty firm commitments at MVN, though, and I’m not sure I could give them that. While I tried to get out one post a week about the Braves, I didn’t always succeed.
That’s the short answer, I guess.
Also, I found it funny that Will used a comma improperly and showed poor style in his sentence calling for good grammar (I think most bloggers are more resilient than to be personally ruined by constant grammar mistakes, but I have seen an article or two ruined by them…if you know what I mean). I make mistakes just like everyone else, but that was still amusing.