Welcome to the new world of college sports where this is no off-season and there is no slow time. Another really busy weekend for Mizzou. Let's get to it.
1) Eli Drinkwitz added three more transfers on Saturday. If you somehow missed the news, here are the stories:
Ole Miss WR Dannis Jackson
Arizona State DL Joe Moore III
Florida State S Sidney Williams
This movement brings the total count to
16 transfers out and eight transfers in.
That puts the Tigers, as of today, at
88 scholarship players by our count. Again, this is not an official number. It is our best estimate. The number today really doesn't matter. By the first day of fall camp, Mizzou has to be at 85. There will be plenty more movement. The Tigers aren't done adding transfers and they aren't done losing them. We'll continue to track it throughout.
2) We're going to go a little bit out of order and bounce between sports, because we're expecting a Mizzou basketball commitment today as well.
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John A Logan guard
Curt Lewis is set to announce today. We know he has a Mizzou offer and took a visit this fall. He plays for
Tyler Smithpeters, who is the brother of Mizzou assistant
Kyle Smithpeters. We know some schools (Tennessee and West Virginia specifically) have been checking on Lewis. We don't know if those schools have offered or who else has at this point, but we're trying to get that information. Regardless, we think he announces a commitment to Missouri today. He's shooting nearly 50% from three-point range this year. He's 6-5, 220 pounds. He slides in nicely as a
DeAndre Gholston replacement for next year.
Lewis averaged 25 points a game and was his region's player of the year as a senior in high school. High major schools didn't recruit him because they thought he had no chance to qualify. He even committed to a junior college at one point. But he did qualify,
with the help of an Individualized Education Plan, and headed to Eastern Kentucky. Lewis redshirted his first year, then averaged 10.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.3 steals per game over two seasons. He is playing at Logan this year and will have two years to play at Missouri (or wherever he commits today).
3) As for the current Tigers, well, it wasn't a good weekend or a good week.
Missouri lost to Florida 73-64 because the Tigers couldn't shoot the ball and couldn't stop
Colin Castleton. A loss to Florida on its own isn't that bad at all. A loss to Texas A&M earlier in the week on its own isn't that bad at all. The two combined hurt, but are not a death blow to the season or anything. Mizzou is two games out of third place in the SEC. It is 1.5 games out of fifth. There are still 13 games to go. Arkansas and Mississippi State were 11-1 in the non-con and are now 1-4 in the SEC. LSU is also 1-4. Kentucky is 2-3. There's a long way to go.
This week revealed a very simple thing about this team: When shots aren't going in, they're going to have a really, really tough time beating anyone who's even decent (and the rest of the year, all they play is teams that are at least decent). That's hardly revelatory. Over the two games, Missouri shot 38.6% from the floor. It was 10/49 from three-point range. Contrast that with the wins over Illinois and Kentucky where Mizzou shot 54.3% from the floor and 20/45 from three-point range. It's not that complex. There are teams that can win games when they shoot 40%. Missouri is not one of them. This team is built to win with offense. When the offense isn't working, it's not going to win.
4) But there's still a very, very, very reasonable path to the NCAA Tournament.
I think Missouri will be about a pick em or a slight favorite against Arkansas at home. It will be an underdog to Alabama. It might be a slight underdog against Iowa State. Win two of those three and beat a couple below average teams on the road (Georgia, Mississippi State, LSU, Ole Miss are the logical candidates) and you're looking at 22 wins and safely in going to the SEC Tournament. I think 21 going to the tournament probably gets you in.
Winning on the road is HARD in a major conference. Outside of the 30-win teams, here are the conference road records of the last five Missouri teams to make the NCAA Tournament:
2021: 5-4
2018: 4-5
2013: 2-7
2011: 1-7
2010: 4-4
That's 16-27 overall. Winning on the road is HARD. If Missouri can go 2-7 or 3-6 on the road, it is almost certainly in the NCAA Tournament.
5) And the goal should never have changed from that. Everyone got giddy after the Illinois and Kentucky wins. And I get it. They were great wins and huge moments for this program. The truth is Missouri wasn't as good as it looked on those two days and isn't as bad as it's looked in the last two games. It's a long season. We are just barely over halfway through (and less than halfway if they win a couple games in the SEC Tournament and beyond). But anyone who started assuming an NCAA Tournament bid and lining up a seed was a little bit ahead of themselves. This is still a coach in his first year who brought in ten new players and had three guys who had ever played a meaningful minute in a high major basketball game.
Dennis Gates is still doing a hell of a job. If this team finishes above .500 in the SEC, wins more than 20 games and makes the NCAA Tournament, he's in the conversation for SEC Coach of the Year. The next five games are Arkansas at home, Alabama at home, at Ole Miss, Iowa State at home and LSU at home. If Missouri goes 3-2, I'll start assuming the NCAA Tournament. If it goes 2-3, I will still believe it is in the NCAA Tournament. We'll be at all five games. And I think I'll know after that LSU game if this is a tournament team.
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