I went to the Come Home Tour event in Jefferson City, Mo., on Tuesday. I went in not really sure who I was going to see other than Dennis Gates or what was going to be said. I had zero expectations that there was going to be anything newsworthy to come out of it.
And then something very newsworthy came out of it.
I had some other notes on the evening and got the chance to talk to Caleb Grill. One quote from Grill that stood out to me came after Calum McAndrew from the Columbia Daily Tribune asked him if there was any benefit to Mizzou having the season it just had.
“Yeah,” Grill said. “And things like injuries happen, things like that happen. So I think the hunger is gonna be a lot higher and I think people, you know, are gonna doubt us next year and I think we'll prove a lot of people wrong this year. That's gonna be my mentality going forward. And you know, each day throughout workouts in the spring, I feel like we've brought a real high intensity to our workouts. So it's looking really promising next season.”
Gates is certainly recruiting like somebody looking to prove people wrong. I mean no disrespect when I say the head coach is a robot with a microphone in front of his face. He’s the exact same person after a 20-point win as he is after a blowout loss. His comment about the bat signals is very out of character for him … which is why I completely believed him when he said it.
And sure enough, a day after he said he would and two days after Iowa transfer guard Tony Perkins picked the Tigers (and two days and a few hours after @GabeD said he’d set the over/under this week at 2.5 transfers), Gates got on the board by earning a commitment from Northern Kentucky guard Marques Warrick.
I wrote last month that replenishing the backcourt had to be the No. 1 priority for this team coming into the offseason. Losing Sean East II and Nick Honor left a sizeable hole at the point guard spot, with freshman Anthony Robinson II remaining as the only player on the roster who could fill the position. Robinson showed promise as a stymying defender in his rookie year, but asking him to run the show for a team looking to make it back to the NCAA tournament would’ve been a huge ask for him.
The presence of Perkins and Warrick, two seniors entering their fifth year, takes a significant amount of pressure off of Robinson, who should now be able to continue maturing at an organic, unrushed pace. Here’s how I see the pair of Missouri newcomers fitting in with the black and gold.
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