11d ago basketball Edit

King's Court: How the Tigers currently look at each position

Drew King • PowerMizzou

Basketball Writer

It’s been three weeks since Mizzou had its biggest five-day stretch of the offseason in which the team picked up a trio of transfers in Mark Mitchell, Tony Perkins and Marques Warrick. And a lot has happened in those three weeks — Anthony Edwards enacted a coup d'état in the NBA playoffs to try to crown himself the league’s best player, Kendrick Lamar and Drake took part in a rap beef that resulted in a loss for both parties, I took a few W’s off Jarod Hamilton in pick-up.

Not much has happened for the Tigers, though. We’re in a bit of a holding pattern with the black and gold. We know Missouri needs and intends to add one more big man. I wrote in detail about why it’s an important roster hole to fill here. There just hasn’t been much info on who they might be interested in. There were reports on a few names a couple of days after Mitchell announced his commitment. But a lot of those guys ended up somewhere else and there haven’t really been any new names that have made MU’s interest public since.

I don’t think it’s time to panic yet. With the portal now closed to new entrants, we at least know that Dennis Gates and his staff aren’t waiting to see if better options become available. The guys who are in the portal now are the only guys who are going to be in the portal. At this point, it’s just a matter of settling on a target and going after him.

I can’t tell you why it takes three weeks (or even longer) for that to happen. But it doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening. The team’s been pretty quiet about their intentions all offseason. We didn’t know there was real interest in Jacob Crews until suddenly he was committed. We were told that there wouldn’t be any visitors Easter weekend, and then suddenly Perkins was on campus. Crews was the Tigers’ only addition for a month before the next three all committed the same week.

I don’t think the concerns about what happened last year, when Mizzou waited until June to grab Connor Vanover, are completely invalid. But it seems like these past two months specifically, outside of the odd situation with Jevon Porter, the team’s gotten whoever they wanted in the portal. The fear that going winless in conference play would lead to shortcomings in the portal has mostly been put to bed. And so, I don’t know why that’d suddenly stop now. The team can offer serious playing time in one of the “big 2” conferences. I have no idea what kind of NIL funds it can offer, but I’d guess it’s not chump change. The appeal is there. I’d save my apprehension for once we know who the actual guy is and whether or not he’s capable of fitting in and playing at this level.

With that being said, I do think the wait to find out who Missouri’s next center will be has taken away from what Gates has accomplished with the four transfers he’s already brought in. The Tigers’ portal class ranks sixth in the country according to EvanMiya.com. What stands out to me the most about that is, while it’s not exactly a small class, it’s also far from the biggest. Among the 16 SEC schools (I have to get used to that number), 10 have brought in at least four transfers. The only team whose class ranks higher is Kentucky, which has brought seven players in through the portal.

Here’s how I currently view MU’s roster at each position:

GUARDS

Perkins, Warrick, Anthony Robinson II, T.O. Barrett

I can’t stress enough how important it was to get Perkins and Warrick. Say what you want about the hole at the five, this was the more important spot to get right. I think Perkins can give the team a steady hand on both ends of the floor. He’s huge for a point guard and puts that size to good use, bullying defenders inside and using his wingspan to get his hands on steals. Warrick — the nation’s career points leader — should provide a scoring punch in the backcourt.

We all know what Robinson is capable of defensively and any improvement he can make on the offensive end will lead to more minutes. I don’t know that we’ll see a ton of Barrett as a rookie, but I thought the same about Robinson last year, so who knows? Barrett might not ever be a big-numbers guy in his career, but that’s exactly why Mizzou fans are going to love him. I’m very confident he’ll be ready whenever his number is called.

The biggest question with this group is just how much of a threat they can be from beyond the arc. If you took the total numbers each player shot and made from 3 last year, including Barrett’s 12 games in the EYBL Scholastic League, they combined to go 29.5% from deep. The Tigers are going to need a significantly better number than that from the group next year to be a bubble team or better.

WINGS

Tamar Bates, Caleb Grill, Annor Boateng, Marcus Allen

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS WEEK'S KING'S COURT