Amari Davis looks to find fit at Mizzou
Amari Davis’ game has never fit a prototype. Since his days playing for Trotwood-Madison high school in Dayton, Ohio, high-major college coaches have told Davis he doesn’t have the shooting ability to play guard, doesn’t have the bulk or athleticism to get away with playing small forward at 6-foot-3. Rocky Rockhold, Davis’ coach at Trotwood-Madison, always heard the same question when college coaches came to watch Davis. What position can he play?
Rockhold’s answer: It doesn’t matter. After watching Davis average more than 30 points per game and lead Trotwood-Madison to a state championship as a senior, Rockhold believes Davis possesses an ability to score and to win that transcends position.
“Coaches would say, we don’t know where he plays, what number he is on the floor,” Rockhold said. “Is he a two, is he a three? And I’m like, well, the kid’s just a winner. He knows how to play the game. Put him wherever you want. I mean, if you have the right offense, put him wherever you want and he can produce for you.”
A Missouri team in the midst of a major roster makeover will hope Davis can prove his coach right. Davis landed at Green Bay after not receiving any scholarship offers from high-major schools out of high school. Even after earning Horizon League freshman of the year honors in 2019-20 and leading the Phoenix in scoring with 17.2 points per game last season, Tulane was the only school aside from the Tigers to extend an official offer to Davis after he entered the transfer portal.
But after building a rapport with Cuonzo Martin and his staff and announcing his commitment to Missouri on March 26, Davis is eager to prove that his game can fit at the highest level of college basketball.
“I definitely carry a chip on my shoulder,” Davis said. “I want to go out there, prove people wrong, prove to people that I can play at the next level and I can be good and compete.”
While Davis’ skillset might not perfectly fit the description of any one position (he said he’ll likely be a combo guard at Missouri), both he and Rockhold believe he’s an ideal match for the Tigers’ style of play. Especially with four-year starting center Jeremiah Tilmon expected to pursue professional opportunities, Missouri’s offense is generally initiated by penetration from its perimeter players. Getting past his defender is one of Davis’ strong suits, Rockhold said. Last season, the Tigers also ratcheted up the tempo and made a commitment to getting up and down the floor. Davis played that way at Trotwood-Madison and during his freshman season at Green Bay, before the Phoenix fired former head coach Linc Darner. Green Bay ranked seventh nationally in adjusted tempo that season.
Davis mentioned the stylistic fit with Missouri as one reason he pulled the trigger on a commitment just one day after receiving a scholarship offer from the Tiger staff.
“It fits my game well,” Davis said of Missouri. “They shared film with me on some of their games last year, some plays and some guys that were playing, and they were getting up and down the court, getting the ball off of rebounds and just pushing, not letting the other team set up, so I think I can be a threat in that position.”
Once Davis is able to get past his defender, he possesses a skillset rarely showcased by Missouri’s players last season: a consistent mid-range jumper. Davis shot 71-177 on “long” two-point shots last season, according to Barttorvik.com. Only two players on Missouri’s team last season, Tilmon and Kobe Brown, shot a better percentage, but the two combined to shoot just 93 such shots, little more than half of Davis’ mid-range attempts.
That he leans so heavily on mid-range, two-point jumpers has long been a knock on Davis’ game, and he said he’s continued to work hard to improve his three-point jumper. He didn’t make a single shot from behind the arc as a freshman at Green Bay before knocking down 23 threes in 24 games last year, though he still only shot 28.0 percent from long range. But Rockhold has seen how deadly Davis can be shooting longer two-point jumpers. He’s been consistently sinking such shots for as long as Rockhold has known him, since Davis was in the fourth grade. By the end of his high school career, Rockhold said Davis was “almost automatic” from inside the arc, regardless of whether it resulted from a catch-and-shoot opportunity or Davis creating his own shot with a pull-up jumper.
“There are times when he catches the ball and you just know it’s going in,” Rockhold said. “He’s in a spot you like him to be in, and you just know when he’s releasing it it’s going in. … There were times he’d let the thing go and I’d already be yelling the (defensive) pressure.”
Part of what makes Davis well-suited for an up-tempo style of play is not only his ability to handle the ball and score, but his aptitude for taking it away from other teams. Rockhold said Davis brings a unique ability to generate steals. By the end of his high school career, Trotwood-Madison used Davis as the “hot man,” or rover, in its trapping, pressure-happy defense. He got that role not because he struggled as an on-ball defender, Rockhold said, but because he proved adept at anticipating passes and jumping into passing lanes, either deflecting the ball or stealing it and scoring on the other end.
“I’ve never seen anyone as good as him at picking the correct angle to run the ball down on the next pass,” Rockhold said. “Like, he just got it. He understood, here’s the rotation, and I can’t run to where the ball went, because it’s not going to be there anymore. And just really good hands.”
In the past few years, it’s become commonplace for top performers in the mid-major ranks to finish out their college careers on a larger stage. That was never Davis' plan. It was only after Green Bay fired Darner and new head coach Will Ryan implemented a slower, less guard-friendly scheme that Davis sought to play elsewhere.
But now that he has the opportunity, Davis is eager to prove to all the coaches who passed over him as a high school prospect that he can contribute at the highest level. His numbers against high-major competition so far are cause for optimism. In seven games against opponents from the football Power Five plus the Big East and American conferences, Davis has averaged 14.7 points on 48.3 percent shooting.
He certainly has Rockhold’s endorsement. Rockhold called Davis “the model of consistency” and doesn’t expect a jump in competition to change that. If anything, he believes Davis’ path to Missouri will help fuel him to rise to the occasion. Add that to the list of reasons Rockhold feels Davis has finally found the perfect fit.
“I can tell you this for sure: He is going to play with a huge chip on his shoulder in a positive way,” Rockhold said. “He’s going to use it as motivation, like man, I had to earn every bit of this, and I’m not going to let it go. I know that’s who he is, and there’s no doubt he’s going to carry an intensity with him that makes a difference. … He’ll play with a certain passion that’s fun to watch.”
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