On the night that was supposed to be a two-hour coronation of the crown prince of Missouri basketball, Michael Porter Jr. played all of two minutes and seven seconds. But while everybody's all-American sat on the bench, a bag of ice intermittently on his left hip, his teammates blitzed the Iowa State Cyclones 74-59 and the nation got the answer to a question many have asked all through this glorious black and gold offseason: Why should we believe Porter will be any different than Markelle Fultz or Ben Simmons?
Because he’s got a team around him.
Make no mistake, if Missouri is supposed to be everything its fans hope it can be, Porter will play a major role in that. But the Tigers were pretty good without him on Friday.
“He said ‘Coach, my leg, it’s not feeling right’ and that was pretty much it,” head coach Cuonzo Martin said of Porter. “He was in the book so that’s why he was on the floor. If we didn’t have him in the book, then I wouldn’t have him on the floor.”
While Porter sat, graduate transfer Kassius Robertson bounced back and forth between point guard and shooting guard and played a solid game despite 3-for-12 shooting in a team-high 34 minutes Jordan Barnett and Kevin Puryear, last year’s alpha dogs, led this team as well, combining for 32 points and 11 rebounds on 11-of-17 shooting. Fellow top 50 freshman Jeremiah Tilmon went for 14 points and seven rebounds and managed to stay on the floor showing off a non-stop motor in 25 minutes. Heck, when Iowa State looked like it might have some interest in turning this thing into a game, Jordan Geist sparked the Tigers with five points and a truckload of energy including a three-pointer that put Mizzou up 57-39 with 12:30 to play.
“I think we have a complete team. Michael is definitely one of our marquee players," Puryear said. "But we have a lot of guys that can play and I think sometimes we don’t get enough credit for that.”
“With Mike not playing very much, it shows a lot about this team," Barnett said. "We have the potential to be a really, really good team when it’s all said and done.”
Fultz was rated as the No. 5 prospect in the country out of high school, but emerged as the consensus No. 1 freshman in the country last year and lived up to the billing with 23.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.9 assists. But Washington had only three other players average more than 5.9 points per game and limped to a 9-22 record that got Lorenzo Romar fired and ultimately allowed the Tigers to land Porter and his younger brother Jontay.
In 2015-16, Simmons was the consensus No. 1 freshman coming in and averaged 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists in an all-American freshman season. But LSU finished 19-14 and did not make the postseason.
Porter Jr. committed to Missouri in March, the first step in a miraculous offseason that had the Tigers—a pathetic 27-68 in the last three seasons—receiving top 25 votes. They were picked fifth in the Southeastern Conference in the preseason voting. But there was a healthy dose of skepticism. Sure there was some talent. But outside of Porter, was there really enough to take one of the worst high major teams in the country to the heights some have been talking about?
Ultimately the next 30-plus games will provide that answer. But Friday night was certainly an indication that Cuonzo Martin has done a lot more than land the nation’s top player. He’s surrounded Porter with plenty of pieces.
"I was halfway through the game,” Iowa State head coach Steve Prohm said, “I said all the fireworks and whistles and bells, I haven't even seen him play yet."
“Mike’s a talented basketball player and we’re a good basketball team,” Martin said. “We’re trying to be a good program. As a staff we position practices okay, when Mike’s not out there or if Mike’s on this team, how do we score the ball?
“For my money, Kevin Puryear’s a starter. Michael Porter is the starting four man, but Kevin Puryear is a starter in this league. He just happened to come off the bench for us. Jontay Porter is a starter in this league. He just happened to come off the bench for us. We have talented guys.”
Mizzou Arena was sold out for the first time since March 5, 2013. The Frank Haith-led Tigers blitzed Arkansas in Mike Anderson’s return to Columbia 93-63.
“Last year we didn’t get many games like that,” Barnett said. “I could honestly count on one finger how many games we got like that.”
“Zero fingers,” Puryear said.
Many of the fans may have come to see the home town phenom in his first college game. While they saw very little of him, they hardly left disappointed.
On this night, 15,061 were at full throat from pre-game introductions throughout a dominating performance in which Missouri never trailed. For a night, Mizzou basketball was back from the depths of a Kim Anderson-induced hell. And—on the floor at least—it had almost nothing to with Michael Porter Jr.
