The most glaring weakness on Missouri's basketball roster after Dennis Gates took over for Cuonzo Martin was the lack of a point guard. Gates appears to have filled it.
Junior college point guard Sean East announced his commitment to Missouri Friday on his social media account. East, who spent last season at John A. Logan Community College, is the fifth new commitment for Missouri since Gates took over as head coach and the second new addition from the junior college ranks.
East started his college career at Massachusetts in 2019-20. He appeared in all 31 games, starting 20, as a true freshman for the Minutemen, averaging 9.3 points and 4.9 assists per game. He transferred to Bradley as a sophomore and averaged 9.0 points and 3.7 assists per contest. He scored four points when Bradley played at Mizzou. He then spent the past season in the junior college ranks, where he put up 20.9 points, 5.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. East led Logan to a Region 24 championship and was named the region player of the year.
Gates made East a clear priority when he hosted him for a recruiting visit on the weekend of March 26. East also visited BYU and South Florida in recent weeks. Also included among his top six schools were Oregon and Kentucky.
Mining the junior college ranks for talent is nothing new for Gates, whose 2021-22 Cleveland State roster featured three junior college products. Jucorecruiting.com lists East as the No. 2 junior college prospect in the country — behind only Mohamed Diarra, who has already committed to the Tigers. East's coach at Logan, Kyle Smithpeters, has been mentioned as a candidate to join Gates' staff as an assistant coach. Missouri has one assistant coach opening after the hire of Dickey Nutt on Thursday.
With the addition of East, the Missouri roster has now reached the NCAA limit of 13 scholarship players, although more movement is always possible.
PowerMizzou will work to get ahold of East to discuss his decision. Stay tuned for further updates.
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