Martin excited about Mizzou's roster rebuild
A year after returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2017-18 season, the Missouri basketball team is going to look very different.
Six Tiger players have opted to enter the transfer portal since the team’s season ended at the hands of Oklahoma in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Two of those were seniors looking to take advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted to all players by the NCAA. The team’s other three seniors, Jeremiah Tilmon, Dru Smith and Mitchell Smith, all either have or are expected to sign with agents and explore professional careers. The end result: Missouri will have to replace more than 80 percent of both its scoring and minutes played from a season ago.
The roster overhaul has been the source of some consternation for Missouri fans. But the architect behind it, head coach Cuonzo Martin, is excited by the opportunity to infuse his program with fresh blood.
Martin, who spoke with reporters via Zoom on Wednesday for the first time since his team’s season ended, said he wasn’t bothered by the number of defections from Missouri’s roster, and he expressed optimism about the players brought in to replace them.
“I think our staff did a great job with the three (transfers) that we currently have,” Martin said. “Now we have two scholarships available, and there are guys, we’ve honed in on a few guys. So we’re excited about where we are now.”
Missouri has already signed eight newcomers that will join the roster this summer: five high school prospects and three transfers. The three transfers — Green Bay’s Amari Davis, Ball State’s Jarron Coleman and Kansas State’s DaJuan Gordon — have a lot to do with Martin’s optimism. Each of the three plays in the backcourt and still has three years of eligibility remaining.
Martin said he isn’t worried about Davis and Coleman making the jump from mid-major leagues to the SEC. He cited Kassius Robertson and Dru Smith, both of whom have earned first-team all-SEC honors under Martin’s tutelage at Missouri, as proof that mid-major players can find success after transferring up a level. He also noted that both Davis and Coleman have demonstrated the ability to get to the basket and score, and those traits tends to translate. Davis led Green Bay with 17.2 points per game last season and shot 47.0 percent from the field for his college career, while Coleman averaged 13.8 points and shot 42.5 percent from three-point range a year ago.
“If you can play, you can play,” Martin said. “I’ve never been caught up in levels. … The one thing we try to do a lot of, as a staff, once those guys made decisions is spend a lot of time not just talking to the prospects and their grassroots coaches, but also other coaches in their leagues, and I think like in Amari’s case, and even Boogie’s case, Boogie Coleman’s case, they had other coaches in their leagues call us about them, like those are talented players, because they can score and they do what they do.”
Gordon, meanwhile, brings a high-major pedigree to the Tiger roster. The former top-100 recruit out of Chicago battled injuries at Kansas State but managed to score 9.1 points per game last season. Martin said Gordon will bring a toughness and an edge to Missouri.
“A guy that can defend, a guy that can get a double-double on the perimeter, a guy who my college assistant coach coached him, so he’s coming from a program where he was taught the game, a level of toughness, how to compete, all of that,” Martin said of Gordon. “And he got all that tough stuff out of high school, so you’re talking about someone who’s coming in that brings an edge to your program. That’s something I think we need: a willingness to defend, rebound, play hard, run the floor. Not afraid to challenge teammates in the right way.”
Missouri isn’t done scouring the transfer portal, either. Martin said Wednesday that the staff has identified a handful of players that it is pursuing to fill its final two scholarships. It’s possible the team keeps one of its 13 scholarships open, as it did last season, but Martin said “we feel like we can get what we’re looking for.”
Asked what traits he’s looking for in those additions, Martin mentioned scoring ability and at least one player who can provide a presence in the low post. That doesn’t necessarily mean a traditional center, however.
“That’s not necessarily a four or five, it’s just a guy that can play on the interior, a physical brand, a level of toughness, experience, all those sorts of things,” Martin explained. “But scoring, no question about it, you can always add that, and I think just interior presence. And again, we’re recruiting a range of guys anywhere from 6-6 to 6-10, so that really doesn’t matter.”
Missouri is far from the only program that has both lost multiple players to the transfer portal and used the portal to bring in reinforcements this offseason. Transfer numbers have been growing steadily across college basketball in the past few seasons, but this year, they exploded. That’s due in part to the NCAA not only announcing Wednesday that all players will be able to transfer one time without having to sit out a year, but also granting all players an extra season of eligibility, so an entire class of players that would have had to graduate were able to remain in college. According to VerbalCommits.com, nearly 1,400 Division I players had entered the transfer portal as of Wednesday afternoon.
But Martin isn’t bemoaning the transfer deluge like some of his peers. For one, he believes transfer numbers will recede in the coming seasons after so many players exhaust their one free transfer. And while he cautions his players about transferring for the wrong reasons and about making sure doing so doesn’t cause them to fall behind academically, he believes student-athletes have the right to pursue a better opportunity at a new school.
“I think it’s a great thing on both sides,” Martin said. “Give guys an opportunity to be successful and do what they want to do. If they want to go somewhere else and play and be successful and have fun — whatever they’re looking for, give them that.”
That said, Martin acknowledged that the transfer market has changed the way coaches construct their rosters. Freshman classes the size of the one Missouri has arriving this offseason — the Tigers have signed five high school prospects and are still in pursuit of former Texas commit Tamar Bates — will likely become rare. Gone, too, are the days of redshirting a player or two, which Martin said his former college coach, Gene Keady, used to do every season. With each player being able to transfer once without penalty, Martin admitted that coaches better be able to offer each incoming freshman either a starting spot or an immediate role that allows him to play about 15 to 20 minutes per game. Otherwise, that player will likely be lost to the portal.
“You always have to be honest and transparent, but if you’re recruiting a high school guy, he’s coming into your program as a starter because that position is available, or he’s a guy that’s going to give you 15-20 plus minutes a night,” Martin said. “If not, chances are you’ll probably lose him. And so you know that going into it.”
Speaking of the incoming freshman class, Martin is high on them, too. He proclaimed Wednesday that wing Sean Durugordon, who has been attending classes and working out on campus since January, is “one of the best athletes I’ve been around.” In-state forward Trevon Brazile will bring similar explosiveness, he believes, and his high school teammate, guard Anton Brookshire, will join Coleman in providing some much-needed three-point shooting ability. Martin compared Kaleb Brown’s combination of passing ability and size to that of a young Draymond Green and said that St. Louis center Yaya Keita has been progressing well after tearing his ACL last fall.
Still, as excited as Martin may be about each new arrival, essentially putting together a new group from scratch during the offseason will be a challenge — especially for a team that was one of the most experienced in the country a season ago. But Martin is relishing the opportunity to reshape his roster. Normally even-keeled during press conferences, he took every opportunity to articulate his excitement for next season, despite the fact that the majority of the players who will be showcased haven’t arrived on campus yet.
For Martin, they can’t get there soon enough.
“I love the challenge of it, man,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed the practicing. June and July, that’s like Christmas to me, so to speak, when you have guys on campus weight-lifting, working together, having fun.
“I’m really looking forward to June. I think we’re excited as a staff to get here in June. I think if we add one or two other pieces, I really like where we are.”
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