****A quick note on the Chamber, especially since our four man operation has been reduced to two (don't worry, this isn't a prelude to telling you you're going to get less information): We're doing the Daily Down Low throughout the week and trying to post as many updates as we can on recruiting information throughout the day. So by the time we get to Friday, a lot of the information that might have been in the Chamber in the past is already going to have been in one of those posts on the board. Rather than go through everything for the week and recap it all in the Chamber, we'll link the Daily Down Low from each day at the beginning so you can go back and read for some other things you might have missed. Some of the Chamber will likely be a recap for those who spend the most time on the board, but we simply don't have the time to put everything that's been on the board recruiting wise in here again. So, if you feel like you're missing something, check our other posts on the board throughout the week***
DDL MONDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-5th
DDL TUESDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-6th
DDL WEDNESDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-7th
DDL THURSDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-8th
We'll start with some recruiting news in both football and basketball:
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
For weeks we’ve talked about Victor Bailey Jr. and how his ties to Missouri have been an asset in the Tigers’ recruitment of him. But like in a lot of marriages, mom is the quarterback of the house. When I spoke to Bailey over the summer, he said the toughest part of his recruitment is his mother’s schedule, which is why he doesn’t really get to take a lot of visits. For those that don’t know, Bailey’s mother is a former Olympic sprinter (has a silver medal I believe) and current track coach at Texas.
Bailey currently has another official visit lined up with Oregon and the Tigers are still trying to set a date with him for an official visit. In-home visits start this weekend and the coaching staff is currently trying to line up a visit with Bailey, but they want to make sure his mother will be able to be home for the visit so they can make more progress.
Is Missouri still in the mix? By all means yes. It’s just that the mother hasn’t been in the loop as much with her son’s recruitment and now that things are serious she wants a front row seat for it all. And you can’t blame her. We’ll continue to follow the situation. For those wondering about Oregon, the Ducks are in the mix for Bailey, but I’ve been told they have a few guys on their wish list ahead of him.
This weekend Missouri also has a trio of hoops visitors in Talen Horton-Tucker, Carte’Are Gordon and Duane Washington Jr. Horton-Tucker is a 2018 kid out of Chicago, where he currently attends Simeon, the school that produced Jabari Parker and Derrick Rose, among others. He’s an Emmanuel Dildy recruit so it appears his contacts up there are already paying off. Washington I have no clue about. Could be a diamond in the rough, but my indication is he’s a backup plan. We’ll try and talk to both guys on how the visit went. As for Gordon, it’s his second trip to town in roughly six weeks. Kansas is still the leader for him but clearly Missouri is clearly putting up a fight.
FOOTBALL RECRUITING
This week Missouri did something interesting by offering a trio of high school teammates in Los Angeles as Deommodore Lenoir, Rahyme Johnson and Nick Pickett all picked up offers. They attend Salesian High School and are from the same area as another Tiger target, junior college cornerback Keisean Nixon. Missouri appears to be in great shape with Nixon. I spoke with Pickett late last night who said that Oregon is currently in good shape with him and he’s taking an official visit to Utah next weekend. Lenoir is currently a Oregon commit and Johnson is a former UCLA commit. Missouri clearly has its work cut out for it in Pac-12 country. Pickett said all four players talk constantly about playing in college together and Missouri provides them an interesting opportunity to do that in a different part of the country. If the Tigers can get multiple guys on campus at the same time, I think things could get interesting.
We also spoke with Connor Robbins, who is a massive offensive lineman out of Florida. He’s 6-foot-8 and said Glen Elarbee speaks to him daily. Robbins said he’d like to take an official visit to Missouri, he just needs to work a date out. We believe the Tigers are looking to add at least one more offensive lineman to the 2017 class and he’s one of the priorities. Robbins said he knows a lot about Missouri as a school, he’d just like to learn more about the football program. He’s another one we’ll keep you posted on.
Interesting story on Tennessee lineman Ollie Lane, who got an offer from the Tigers earlier this week. Long story, short we happen to know someone who is a friend of Lane's family. The kid got a text from Elarbee this week saying Missouri was offering him. He'd never heard from Mizzou, never visited, never talked to a coach, so his first reaction was that he wasn't sure if this was a legitimate offer. After some investigating, the offer was legit. Missouri had watched film of his first couple games and loved him, so jumped in with an offer trying to beat some other schools to the punch.
This illustrates a major difference in Barry Odom's approach to recruiting vs Gary Pinkel's. Pinkel was measured...sometimes too measured. The entire staff had to meet and approve an offer. With Odom's staff, it appears the approach is to offer first and ask questions later. There are positives and potential negatives to this approach.
The positives are that if a kid turns out to be every bit as good as you thought, down the road you can tell him "See we were the first ones to offer you and we knew how good you were all along" (even if it might not always be true. The negative is if the kid doesn't turn out to be what you thought he was on film, you end up having an offer that disappears. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It happens all the time in recruiting. But what if you offer a kid early and he tries to commit before you're ready? It's not an impossible situation, but it's one you'd probably rather not confront. It's why we still don't believe there are going to be a lot of out of the blue early offers like this in-state.
You have to be a little more careful with how you approach and treat kids in your own state than you do out of state. You're going to have to recruit high schools in Missouri every single year. Maybe not so much in some of these other places.
Another thing we're waiting to see with this staff is, how do they approach official visits? Are they going to use more during the season, showcasing game day, or will they do as Pinkel did and reserve them for December and January to showcase the individual attention? My guess is the latter. Missouri's game day is fine, but it doesn't compare to some of the other places these kids might see. Plus, the home schedule this year isn't the most attractive.
They will still have plenty of unofficial visitors (and some officials) on Saturdays during the season. However, this weekend appears to be pretty light. In terms of legitimate prospects, the only one we know will be in town is Ronnie Perkins, who is likely to come to most Mizzou home games--if not all--to watch his brother play. The reason is pretty simple: We're hearing quite a few kids are planning to come down next weekend for the UGA game. We expect to have a pretty solid visitor list in the Chamber for next weekend's game.
DDL MONDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-5th
DDL TUESDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-6th
DDL WEDNESDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-7th
DDL THURSDAY: https://missouri.rivals.com/news/daily-down-low-september-8th
We'll start with some recruiting news in both football and basketball:
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
For weeks we’ve talked about Victor Bailey Jr. and how his ties to Missouri have been an asset in the Tigers’ recruitment of him. But like in a lot of marriages, mom is the quarterback of the house. When I spoke to Bailey over the summer, he said the toughest part of his recruitment is his mother’s schedule, which is why he doesn’t really get to take a lot of visits. For those that don’t know, Bailey’s mother is a former Olympic sprinter (has a silver medal I believe) and current track coach at Texas.
Bailey currently has another official visit lined up with Oregon and the Tigers are still trying to set a date with him for an official visit. In-home visits start this weekend and the coaching staff is currently trying to line up a visit with Bailey, but they want to make sure his mother will be able to be home for the visit so they can make more progress.
Is Missouri still in the mix? By all means yes. It’s just that the mother hasn’t been in the loop as much with her son’s recruitment and now that things are serious she wants a front row seat for it all. And you can’t blame her. We’ll continue to follow the situation. For those wondering about Oregon, the Ducks are in the mix for Bailey, but I’ve been told they have a few guys on their wish list ahead of him.
This weekend Missouri also has a trio of hoops visitors in Talen Horton-Tucker, Carte’Are Gordon and Duane Washington Jr. Horton-Tucker is a 2018 kid out of Chicago, where he currently attends Simeon, the school that produced Jabari Parker and Derrick Rose, among others. He’s an Emmanuel Dildy recruit so it appears his contacts up there are already paying off. Washington I have no clue about. Could be a diamond in the rough, but my indication is he’s a backup plan. We’ll try and talk to both guys on how the visit went. As for Gordon, it’s his second trip to town in roughly six weeks. Kansas is still the leader for him but clearly Missouri is clearly putting up a fight.
FOOTBALL RECRUITING
This week Missouri did something interesting by offering a trio of high school teammates in Los Angeles as Deommodore Lenoir, Rahyme Johnson and Nick Pickett all picked up offers. They attend Salesian High School and are from the same area as another Tiger target, junior college cornerback Keisean Nixon. Missouri appears to be in great shape with Nixon. I spoke with Pickett late last night who said that Oregon is currently in good shape with him and he’s taking an official visit to Utah next weekend. Lenoir is currently a Oregon commit and Johnson is a former UCLA commit. Missouri clearly has its work cut out for it in Pac-12 country. Pickett said all four players talk constantly about playing in college together and Missouri provides them an interesting opportunity to do that in a different part of the country. If the Tigers can get multiple guys on campus at the same time, I think things could get interesting.
We also spoke with Connor Robbins, who is a massive offensive lineman out of Florida. He’s 6-foot-8 and said Glen Elarbee speaks to him daily. Robbins said he’d like to take an official visit to Missouri, he just needs to work a date out. We believe the Tigers are looking to add at least one more offensive lineman to the 2017 class and he’s one of the priorities. Robbins said he knows a lot about Missouri as a school, he’d just like to learn more about the football program. He’s another one we’ll keep you posted on.
Interesting story on Tennessee lineman Ollie Lane, who got an offer from the Tigers earlier this week. Long story, short we happen to know someone who is a friend of Lane's family. The kid got a text from Elarbee this week saying Missouri was offering him. He'd never heard from Mizzou, never visited, never talked to a coach, so his first reaction was that he wasn't sure if this was a legitimate offer. After some investigating, the offer was legit. Missouri had watched film of his first couple games and loved him, so jumped in with an offer trying to beat some other schools to the punch.
This illustrates a major difference in Barry Odom's approach to recruiting vs Gary Pinkel's. Pinkel was measured...sometimes too measured. The entire staff had to meet and approve an offer. With Odom's staff, it appears the approach is to offer first and ask questions later. There are positives and potential negatives to this approach.
The positives are that if a kid turns out to be every bit as good as you thought, down the road you can tell him "See we were the first ones to offer you and we knew how good you were all along" (even if it might not always be true. The negative is if the kid doesn't turn out to be what you thought he was on film, you end up having an offer that disappears. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It happens all the time in recruiting. But what if you offer a kid early and he tries to commit before you're ready? It's not an impossible situation, but it's one you'd probably rather not confront. It's why we still don't believe there are going to be a lot of out of the blue early offers like this in-state.
You have to be a little more careful with how you approach and treat kids in your own state than you do out of state. You're going to have to recruit high schools in Missouri every single year. Maybe not so much in some of these other places.
Another thing we're waiting to see with this staff is, how do they approach official visits? Are they going to use more during the season, showcasing game day, or will they do as Pinkel did and reserve them for December and January to showcase the individual attention? My guess is the latter. Missouri's game day is fine, but it doesn't compare to some of the other places these kids might see. Plus, the home schedule this year isn't the most attractive.
They will still have plenty of unofficial visitors (and some officials) on Saturdays during the season. However, this weekend appears to be pretty light. In terms of legitimate prospects, the only one we know will be in town is Ronnie Perkins, who is likely to come to most Mizzou home games--if not all--to watch his brother play. The reason is pretty simple: We're hearing quite a few kids are planning to come down next weekend for the UGA game. We expect to have a pretty solid visitor list in the Chamber for next weekend's game.
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