FOOTBALL RECRUITING
- After a second visit to Missouri this past weeend, we talked with IMG Academy (Fla.) two-way lineman target Verdis Brown (STORY HERE). The 4-star prospect raved about his return visit to Columbia and while he plans to take all of his five of his official visits during his senior season, we feel confident Mizzou will get one of those officials for Brown.
- Another important visitor this past weekend was Memphis area ATH target Cam Jones, who talked with us about his trip here. The 3-star prospect released a Top 5 after his visit that included Mizzou, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi State, and Memphis. Jones is done with visits and is now deciding among his family and coaches what his next move will be, whether that's a commitment or taking official visits during his senior season.
-On both of the above we've been told the visits "went as well as you could hope," but neither is quite ready for a commitment at this point in time. Our thought is that Jones could make a decision sooner than Brown, who is a national level recruit. There is some question whether Jones has a committable offer from Tennessee, which would obviously help the Tigers' chances.
- We caught up with ASA College (N.Y.) defensive end target Najee Stevens-Mackenzie, who has been talking to defensive line coach Brick Haley and has a former teammate at Mizzou in redshirt junior defensive lineman Rashad Brandon. Stevens-Mackenzie is currently taking summer classes but is planning to take an official visit to Missouri at some point in November.
- We talked with Braden River (Fla.) head coach Curt Bradley earlier this week about Mizzou cornerback commit Tyrone Collins. There is another note to add from that conversation regarding Collins' teammate in 2019 running back Knowledge McDaniel, who the Tigers offered earlier this month when he was visiting with Collins. Bradley mentioned the Tigers sit well with McDaniel and are among his top schools early on.
-Florida OL Adonis Boone tweeted out his top ten earlier this week.
Missouri sits well here. Boone is planning to visit for Night at the Zou on July 21st.
-Speaking of Night at the Zou, that's the big demarcation line in this class. A lot of these out of state guys haven't had a chance to visit campus. The Tigers hope to get quite a few of them here that night. Last year, they got five commitments at camp or in the days after. That would be a good goal number for this year as well. Sunday, we'll have a story tracing the history of when during the year Mizzou has historically picked up commitments and look at how the current class compares to those from years past. Perhaps it will quell a few of the fears we have seen on here (and perhaps not).
- Some Mizzou targets that either committed elsewhere or omitted the Tigers from their recruiting list this week include:
Bryce Wheaton committed to West Virginia
Keivan Myers committed to Illinois
Sam James listed a Top 4 of West Virginia, Cincinnati, Maryland, and Mississippi State
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
We’ll start with 2020.
-A few of you noticed on the board this week that Josh Christopher, a rising sophomore in California, is considered one of the top players in his class. His cousin is Nicodemus Christopher who is Missouri’s strength coach and a great Twitter follow if you’re into that kind of thing. I asked a source if he’s on Missouri’s radar. The source said that while the staff’s focus is primarily 2018 and 2019, “I’m sure we’ll look.”
I think it’s worth noting that Nicodemus’ brother Garry is the strength and conditioning coach for Kevin Stallings at Pittsburgh and previously worked for Jim Sterk at San Diego State. So Missouri doesn’t have a major advantage in my eyes. I don’t want to speculate that much on a rising sophomore I’ve never spoken to or seen play. All I can say is Missouri is aware of him and plans to recruit him at some point.
-Now onto 2019. You’ll see we have a story up on Malik Hall. Hall is a class act. Great interview and very accommodating to the media. I think Missouri has a good shot at any kid that has played with Jontay Porter on MoKan because they have all gotten to know Michael Porter Sr. since he’s allowed at every session. And assuming Jontay reclasses, that really won’t end that much because he will be able to do the same thing with Coban.
Hall said he doesn’t plan to visit Missouri anytime soon but I’m going to go ahead and make a bold prediction that he visits campus sometime in the fall. I think if he’s got an open weekend he’d make the drive to CoMo. I say that as an educated guess and from having spoken to some sources on it.
-Also I’m trying to track down Alex Lomax. I haven’t spoken to him in ages and after speaking to some AAU people they really wonder where Missouri stands with him. Missouri is loaded with guards and doesn’t lose any point guards at the end of this season. A lot of people find it hard to believe that Lomax will be interested in playing behind Terrence Phillips AND Blake Harris his freshman year and then having to share the duties with Harris assuming no one leaves. So I plan to track him down. A source told me as I’m writing this that the staff’s priority is scoring wings. Lomax doesn’t fit that bill. So we’ll see what he says.
-Since Christian Bishop committed to Creighton, it’s a lot easier to find out what happened now that it’s after the fact. I’ve been told by people close to the situation that Missouri thought Javon Pickett was a better player than Bishop hence why they took his commitment. Pickett’s ties to E.J. Liddell also helped his cause.
-For those worrying about Brandon Johns committing to Michigan, you’re using the wrong recruit to take shots at Cornell Mann with. Johns’ high school coach Steve Finamore told me months ago both Michigan and Michigan State offered him when he was in middle school. They’ve been on this kid for close to six years. Missouri never had a shot with him. And those kids in Michigan that get on both in-state schools radars that early, they’ll never have a shot at. It’s reality (barring the return of Dr. Detroit). How Missouri does with guys like Rocket Watts is more interesting if you ask me. It’s just early to jump to conclusions.
-Another Michigan target, Marcus Bingham, is announcing his decision at noon today. Can't imagine it's Mizzou. Our money is on Michigan State.
These situations are illustrations of what we've talked about in the past a few times: Recruiting nationally is a good thing. Good programs do it. But you have to also know who you are and understand reality. Prioritizing out of state kids who have national offers over in-state kids who are similar level players is a dangerous game if you're Missouri.
*Note: We are NOT saying Cuonzo Martin is doing this, however, we were told in the past that Mike Anderson and Quin Snyder both did EXACTLY this. If Anderson and Snyder had an in-state guy and an out-of-state guy who were viewed as very similar prospects, they usually went harder on the out-of-state guy (whether that was perception or reality can be debated, but people have told us this over the years). The danger is if you miss the out of state guy, coming back and convincing the in-state guy you wanted him all along can be tougher.
If Mizzou is good this year and then builds on it with a couple more good seasons, perhaps the program reaches a point where they can go get a national level recruit with no real ties to the program from another state. Right now, that's not all that realistic. We aren't saying that Mizzou shouldn't offer these guys. Not at all. You can't get them if you don't offer them. But when it comes down to prioritizing guys and where you invest more time and resources, you've got to be careful about spending too much energy on guys you aren't incredibly likely to get at the risk of losing guys you'd have a better shot with. It's the balance every coach has to weigh.
- After a second visit to Missouri this past weeend, we talked with IMG Academy (Fla.) two-way lineman target Verdis Brown (STORY HERE). The 4-star prospect raved about his return visit to Columbia and while he plans to take all of his five of his official visits during his senior season, we feel confident Mizzou will get one of those officials for Brown.
- Another important visitor this past weekend was Memphis area ATH target Cam Jones, who talked with us about his trip here. The 3-star prospect released a Top 5 after his visit that included Mizzou, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi State, and Memphis. Jones is done with visits and is now deciding among his family and coaches what his next move will be, whether that's a commitment or taking official visits during his senior season.
-On both of the above we've been told the visits "went as well as you could hope," but neither is quite ready for a commitment at this point in time. Our thought is that Jones could make a decision sooner than Brown, who is a national level recruit. There is some question whether Jones has a committable offer from Tennessee, which would obviously help the Tigers' chances.
- We caught up with ASA College (N.Y.) defensive end target Najee Stevens-Mackenzie, who has been talking to defensive line coach Brick Haley and has a former teammate at Mizzou in redshirt junior defensive lineman Rashad Brandon. Stevens-Mackenzie is currently taking summer classes but is planning to take an official visit to Missouri at some point in November.
- We talked with Braden River (Fla.) head coach Curt Bradley earlier this week about Mizzou cornerback commit Tyrone Collins. There is another note to add from that conversation regarding Collins' teammate in 2019 running back Knowledge McDaniel, who the Tigers offered earlier this month when he was visiting with Collins. Bradley mentioned the Tigers sit well with McDaniel and are among his top schools early on.
-Florida OL Adonis Boone tweeted out his top ten earlier this week.
Missouri sits well here. Boone is planning to visit for Night at the Zou on July 21st.
-Speaking of Night at the Zou, that's the big demarcation line in this class. A lot of these out of state guys haven't had a chance to visit campus. The Tigers hope to get quite a few of them here that night. Last year, they got five commitments at camp or in the days after. That would be a good goal number for this year as well. Sunday, we'll have a story tracing the history of when during the year Mizzou has historically picked up commitments and look at how the current class compares to those from years past. Perhaps it will quell a few of the fears we have seen on here (and perhaps not).
- Some Mizzou targets that either committed elsewhere or omitted the Tigers from their recruiting list this week include:
Bryce Wheaton committed to West Virginia
Keivan Myers committed to Illinois
Sam James listed a Top 4 of West Virginia, Cincinnati, Maryland, and Mississippi State
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
We’ll start with 2020.
-A few of you noticed on the board this week that Josh Christopher, a rising sophomore in California, is considered one of the top players in his class. His cousin is Nicodemus Christopher who is Missouri’s strength coach and a great Twitter follow if you’re into that kind of thing. I asked a source if he’s on Missouri’s radar. The source said that while the staff’s focus is primarily 2018 and 2019, “I’m sure we’ll look.”
I think it’s worth noting that Nicodemus’ brother Garry is the strength and conditioning coach for Kevin Stallings at Pittsburgh and previously worked for Jim Sterk at San Diego State. So Missouri doesn’t have a major advantage in my eyes. I don’t want to speculate that much on a rising sophomore I’ve never spoken to or seen play. All I can say is Missouri is aware of him and plans to recruit him at some point.
-Now onto 2019. You’ll see we have a story up on Malik Hall. Hall is a class act. Great interview and very accommodating to the media. I think Missouri has a good shot at any kid that has played with Jontay Porter on MoKan because they have all gotten to know Michael Porter Sr. since he’s allowed at every session. And assuming Jontay reclasses, that really won’t end that much because he will be able to do the same thing with Coban.
Hall said he doesn’t plan to visit Missouri anytime soon but I’m going to go ahead and make a bold prediction that he visits campus sometime in the fall. I think if he’s got an open weekend he’d make the drive to CoMo. I say that as an educated guess and from having spoken to some sources on it.
-Also I’m trying to track down Alex Lomax. I haven’t spoken to him in ages and after speaking to some AAU people they really wonder where Missouri stands with him. Missouri is loaded with guards and doesn’t lose any point guards at the end of this season. A lot of people find it hard to believe that Lomax will be interested in playing behind Terrence Phillips AND Blake Harris his freshman year and then having to share the duties with Harris assuming no one leaves. So I plan to track him down. A source told me as I’m writing this that the staff’s priority is scoring wings. Lomax doesn’t fit that bill. So we’ll see what he says.
-Since Christian Bishop committed to Creighton, it’s a lot easier to find out what happened now that it’s after the fact. I’ve been told by people close to the situation that Missouri thought Javon Pickett was a better player than Bishop hence why they took his commitment. Pickett’s ties to E.J. Liddell also helped his cause.
-For those worrying about Brandon Johns committing to Michigan, you’re using the wrong recruit to take shots at Cornell Mann with. Johns’ high school coach Steve Finamore told me months ago both Michigan and Michigan State offered him when he was in middle school. They’ve been on this kid for close to six years. Missouri never had a shot with him. And those kids in Michigan that get on both in-state schools radars that early, they’ll never have a shot at. It’s reality (barring the return of Dr. Detroit). How Missouri does with guys like Rocket Watts is more interesting if you ask me. It’s just early to jump to conclusions.
-Another Michigan target, Marcus Bingham, is announcing his decision at noon today. Can't imagine it's Mizzou. Our money is on Michigan State.
These situations are illustrations of what we've talked about in the past a few times: Recruiting nationally is a good thing. Good programs do it. But you have to also know who you are and understand reality. Prioritizing out of state kids who have national offers over in-state kids who are similar level players is a dangerous game if you're Missouri.
*Note: We are NOT saying Cuonzo Martin is doing this, however, we were told in the past that Mike Anderson and Quin Snyder both did EXACTLY this. If Anderson and Snyder had an in-state guy and an out-of-state guy who were viewed as very similar prospects, they usually went harder on the out-of-state guy (whether that was perception or reality can be debated, but people have told us this over the years). The danger is if you miss the out of state guy, coming back and convincing the in-state guy you wanted him all along can be tougher.
If Mizzou is good this year and then builds on it with a couple more good seasons, perhaps the program reaches a point where they can go get a national level recruit with no real ties to the program from another state. Right now, that's not all that realistic. We aren't saying that Mizzou shouldn't offer these guys. Not at all. You can't get them if you don't offer them. But when it comes down to prioritizing guys and where you invest more time and resources, you've got to be careful about spending too much energy on guys you aren't incredibly likely to get at the risk of losing guys you'd have a better shot with. It's the balance every coach has to weigh.
