For everyone talking about how things got to what we saw last night, there's really only one answer. Let me say first, Missouri should never be getting run off its own floor by UMKC. There's enough talent on this roster to avoid that. Last night was terrible regardless of the talent and the talent is better than last night. But how did we get here? Recruiting. It's not any more complex than that. We can talk till we're blue in the face about everything else, but here are facts. This team should be comprised of four recruiting classes. Here are Missouri's last four.
2018
Javon Pickett--Good, solid 4 year guy. Possibly the best player in this class
Xavier Pinson--Good three-year guy. This team could use him on the floor. You can place the blame for him leaving a year early on him or on Cuonzo and both probably deserve some of it. But overall, this was a recruiting success
Torrence Watson--Good signing at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. It didn't work, but nobody at the time thought they shouldn't take him
Parker Braun--Good get as a walk on. Less good that he was promised a scholarship for his final three years. Left after two. Not a major issue.
Christian Guess--I remember the night it happened. We were all at a bar in West Lafayette before Mizzou played Purdue. Didn't make sense then, never made any more sense.
KJ Santos--Didn't understand it day 1, didn't understand it day 100
2019
Kobe Brown--Good four year player. Was a starter on an SEC team. Success
Tray Jackson--Similar to Watson. Good get at the time. Didn't work out, but not going to knock Martin for getting him
Mario McKinney--Perhaps the most up for debate. Most fans liked this one. Never seemed to be a fit for Martin. I was surprised they took him at the time, so were a lot of people I talked to. Left after a year.
Axel Okongo--Let's just leave this one alone
2020
Jordan Wilmore--I won't write him off yet, but there were concerns when it happened and those haven't been alleviated
Ed Chang--I don't know if this ranks above or below Okongo. Since he never got on the floor at all, I guess below
2021
Yaya Keita, Trevon Brazile, Sean Durugordon, Kaleb Brown, Anton Brookshire
I'm not going to break these guys down individually because it's two games in and it's too early to make any judgement. My stance on this class hasn't changed. The hope was that it would be the 2008 class, which featured six three-stars. That group had a guy that turned into a 5-star (Denmon), two that were four-stars (English and Bowers) and one of the best role players in school history in Keith Ramsey. Even the project (Steve Moore) became a valuable piece by his senior year. But that group joined an established roster. Denmon and English and Ramsey were all immediate contributors on an Elite Eight team. If you're going to sign five three-stars, you need to be bringing them into a situation where they can be role players for a year and then take on larger roles in year two and you have to have at least two of them outperform that ranking. Those things may happen, but the reason you're going to see struggles this year is because the roster this year wasn't built to win big if none of them are ready to be major contributors right away and it doesn't look like any of them are.
Like I said, I'm not going to factor in the 2021 class here because it's too soon. But in the three classes before that you have zero top 80 players, one top 100 player, three top 150 players and FIVE commitments that literally the day they happened the first reaction of most was "I don't get it, what are we missing?" It turned out we weren't missing anything. Four of the five didn't pan out and the only one that made it more than a year on the roster is Jordan Wilmore.
If that's your recruiting over three years, you don't just have to hit the portal, you have to strike gold in the portal. Missouri's portal efforts this offseason were high in volume, but only one of them came from another high major program and he averaged nine and five for a bad team.
I want to stress, last night is disappointing and surprising even for people that had expectations set relatively low. But in looking at all this, I don't know how anyone couldn't have had expectations set really low. And the issue next year is the best player (Pickett) is the only one you know you're losing for sure.
I know a lot of people will say this is too long and they didn't read it and a lot will say "Thanks, we really needed another thread for this." But I thought it was worth laying it all out in one place to illustrate exactly how this happened. If we get the "Who cares it's the 13th scholarship" argument once, cool. You can't get it five times in three years. Because at that point, it isn't the 13th scholarship spot. It's like the eighth scholarship spot. Even if you give him Jackson and Watson as recruiting victories, they're 5/12 over the last three classes and three of those five are no longer on the roster.
TL;DR version: This roster is devoid of high level talent because of three years of very, very, very subpar recruiting.
2018
Javon Pickett--Good, solid 4 year guy. Possibly the best player in this class
Xavier Pinson--Good three-year guy. This team could use him on the floor. You can place the blame for him leaving a year early on him or on Cuonzo and both probably deserve some of it. But overall, this was a recruiting success
Torrence Watson--Good signing at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. It didn't work, but nobody at the time thought they shouldn't take him
Parker Braun--Good get as a walk on. Less good that he was promised a scholarship for his final three years. Left after two. Not a major issue.
Christian Guess--I remember the night it happened. We were all at a bar in West Lafayette before Mizzou played Purdue. Didn't make sense then, never made any more sense.
KJ Santos--Didn't understand it day 1, didn't understand it day 100
2019
Kobe Brown--Good four year player. Was a starter on an SEC team. Success
Tray Jackson--Similar to Watson. Good get at the time. Didn't work out, but not going to knock Martin for getting him
Mario McKinney--Perhaps the most up for debate. Most fans liked this one. Never seemed to be a fit for Martin. I was surprised they took him at the time, so were a lot of people I talked to. Left after a year.
Axel Okongo--Let's just leave this one alone
2020
Jordan Wilmore--I won't write him off yet, but there were concerns when it happened and those haven't been alleviated
Ed Chang--I don't know if this ranks above or below Okongo. Since he never got on the floor at all, I guess below
2021
Yaya Keita, Trevon Brazile, Sean Durugordon, Kaleb Brown, Anton Brookshire
I'm not going to break these guys down individually because it's two games in and it's too early to make any judgement. My stance on this class hasn't changed. The hope was that it would be the 2008 class, which featured six three-stars. That group had a guy that turned into a 5-star (Denmon), two that were four-stars (English and Bowers) and one of the best role players in school history in Keith Ramsey. Even the project (Steve Moore) became a valuable piece by his senior year. But that group joined an established roster. Denmon and English and Ramsey were all immediate contributors on an Elite Eight team. If you're going to sign five three-stars, you need to be bringing them into a situation where they can be role players for a year and then take on larger roles in year two and you have to have at least two of them outperform that ranking. Those things may happen, but the reason you're going to see struggles this year is because the roster this year wasn't built to win big if none of them are ready to be major contributors right away and it doesn't look like any of them are.
Like I said, I'm not going to factor in the 2021 class here because it's too soon. But in the three classes before that you have zero top 80 players, one top 100 player, three top 150 players and FIVE commitments that literally the day they happened the first reaction of most was "I don't get it, what are we missing?" It turned out we weren't missing anything. Four of the five didn't pan out and the only one that made it more than a year on the roster is Jordan Wilmore.
If that's your recruiting over three years, you don't just have to hit the portal, you have to strike gold in the portal. Missouri's portal efforts this offseason were high in volume, but only one of them came from another high major program and he averaged nine and five for a bad team.
I want to stress, last night is disappointing and surprising even for people that had expectations set relatively low. But in looking at all this, I don't know how anyone couldn't have had expectations set really low. And the issue next year is the best player (Pickett) is the only one you know you're losing for sure.
I know a lot of people will say this is too long and they didn't read it and a lot will say "Thanks, we really needed another thread for this." But I thought it was worth laying it all out in one place to illustrate exactly how this happened. If we get the "Who cares it's the 13th scholarship" argument once, cool. You can't get it five times in three years. Because at that point, it isn't the 13th scholarship spot. It's like the eighth scholarship spot. Even if you give him Jackson and Watson as recruiting victories, they're 5/12 over the last three classes and three of those five are no longer on the roster.
TL;DR version: This roster is devoid of high level talent because of three years of very, very, very subpar recruiting.
