King's Court: Reacting to Tigers' first offseason moves
A week ago, Mizzou’s future was a pretty big mystery. Sisyphus never got over the hump and the Tigers officially failed to beat an SEC opponent in the 2023-24 season. The last game of the season went just about the same as every other conference matchup — Mizzou showed just enough fight to make you think they could pull out a win, then melted in clutch time.
Everyone was absolutely well within their rights to be pessimistic about what came next. When last season ended, head coach Dennis Gates had earned the benefit of the doubt. You could question some of the moves he made, but figured they’d make sense in the long run because of what he was able to accomplish in 2022-23, as well as in his three-year tenure at Cleveland State. This season undid all of that goodwill. Any loss of confidence in his ability to evaluate talent was warranted.
That being said, I think that Gates took a step in the right direction this week, locking in Tennessee Martin transfer Jacob Crews after the departures of Curt Lewis, Jesus Carralero Martin and Mabor Majak opened up a roster spot.
The three guys who entered the portal weren’t difference-makers at the SEC level. And I mean no disrespect when I say that — most people aren’t. I certainly am not. Lewis has been one of my favorite guys to interview since he committed to the Tigers. And if Missouri had some better top-end talent, maybe those three find a role on a winning team.
But Gates doesn’t need role players right now. He needs to find the guys that can get the program back on track. Crews might be one of those guys — the 19.1 points and 8.2 rebounds he averaged and the 41.4% mark he shot from three are all significantly higher than what any of Lewis, Carralero Martin or Majak have posted playing D1.
That’s not to say that Crews is going to be a slam dunk. We won’t really know that until November when the 2024-25 season starts. I came into this season thinking Connor Vanover was going to be a significant contributor for the black and gold— it didn’t turn out that way. I also came into the year not sure how well Dalton Knecht, a high-volume scorer from a Northern Colorado team that went 6-12 in the Ohio Valley Conference, would fit in at Tennesee. He proceeded to become the SEC Player of the Year. The point is, there’s a lot to like about Crews. He’s a husband and soon-to-be father. Talking with him on the phone, I got the impression he’s a very down-to-earth guy. He’s also coming from a UT Martin team that just won the OVC regular season championship. I’m still not ready to proclaim him the next Knecht, especially not knowing what the rest of the team is going to look like.
Figuring out how many others are leaving is possibly the biggest question mark for the team right now.
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