Mizzou and Brown a match the second time around
Kobe Brown knew what his future held. He had signed with Texas A&M in November. He was going to move to College Station and play for Billy Kennedy. And then Kennedy got fired, replaced by Buzz Williams.
“He was devastated how that went down at Texas A&M,” Greg Brown, Kobe’s father and high school coach, said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Brown said his son didn’t even want to talk to anybody about college basketball and wasn’t ready to re-start the recruiting process. Eventually, he opened things back up.
“It's been awful. I'm not gonna lie to you," Greg Brown said of going through the recruiting process a second time. "We had some wonderful schools that Kobe could have said yes to, but with everything going on everybody’s job is just up in the air."
The family didn’t want to go through another situation where Kobe’s coach might leave. And so they returned to a coach they had visited in October, who they felt was entrenched at his school.
“Coach (Cuonzo) Martin made such an impression on us. We’ve done our research,” Greg Brown said. “We saw the stability and the way coach Martin talks about Missouri and his vision for the program is just unreal. The people, he talks about how wonderful the fans are and the administrators and the professors.”
Martin also has an ironclad contract that all but assures Missouri will hang on to him for a few years. With Greg Brown being a high school coach who has sent a number of players on to play college ball, he has plenty of contacts in the profession.
“It’s kind of hard for them to pull a lot over my eyes. You can always find out what you want to find out,” he said. “He’s one coach that everyone says something good about. In this day and time you would think all coaches would say something positive but that’s always not the case. We love the plan that he has for Kobe and we love his honesty.”
That plan will involve allowing Brown—who has grown to nearly 6-foot-8 according to his father—to showcase some of his versatility. He has the body of a power forward, but played all over the court for his father at Lee High School.
“Kobe’s what everybody calls a versatile player,” Greg Brown said. “Really good three-point shooter, really good passer, whatever else you want to call him. His dream was to go to a place that was going to allow him to touch a little bit on everything that he does. I think coach Martin wants him to come in and play several roles and I think he’s going to give him the room to do so.”
The one area Brown says his son needs to improve doesn’t have much to do with his actual basketball skill.
“Kobe has to turn into more of a talker. That’s for sure,” he said. “As far as skillset, he’s not going to be lacking at all. It’s just a matter of he’s going to have to open his mouth a little bit more because Cuonzo believes in his players talking. Kobe talks, but it’s a little bit different than what Cuonzo expects.”
Brown joins Mario McKinney and Tray Jackson in Missouri’s 2019 class. The Tigers do still have a scholarship available, but Martin indicated on Thursday they probably wouldn’t use it in this recruiting cycle. It appears Kobe Brown is the final piece of the puzzle for the 2019-20 roster at Mizzou.
“I think he’ll fit in well,” Greg Brown said. “I think it’s just a good fit, man.”
The younger Brown will graduate next week. He will report to Columbia some time in the first week of June to begin classes and workouts with the Tigers.