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1) Following recruiting is an inherently negative experience. How's that for an opening line?
Friday was a tough day for Missouri fans. Fardaws Aimaq, who was planning to take a visit to Mizzou, not only didn't take the visit, but then followed Mark Madsen to Cal on Friday morning. Within an hour, Caleb Love announced he was going to Michigan. And two of Missouri's highest-profile known targets were off to other programs.
It was rough that those two things happened on the same morning, but the simple fact of recruiting is you're going to miss a lot more than you get. Even the best programs miss more than they get. In college basketball, a handful of programs can mostly choose. But outside of that handful, everyone else has to recruit. And you're offering 40 kids to get four. Because most of them are going somewhere else. Let's figure a kid has 20 offers (that's low for some of the higher profile guys, but whatever). If I'm telling you I will put my money on one program and you can have the other 19, you're taking that deal every single time. Because your chance of winning is 19 times better than mine. That's really all that happened on Friday. The field beat Missouri a couple of times. It will happen far more often than it doesn't.
2) Is it a concern? Not necessarily. Aimaq and Love are good players. Missouri wanted both of them. Neither is irreplaceable in the portal.
Aimaq is big and got a lot of rebounds. Missouri will still sign a transfer who is big and, hopefully, gets a lot of rebounds. With Love, I'll say what I've said since the start: The PR of signing him probably would have been better than the player you were getting by signing him. I don't mean to minimize Love by saying that. He would instantly have been Missouri's most athletic player and also its player with the most NBA potential. There's a reason so many schools wanted him out of high school and a bunch did again out of the portal. But he hasn't unlocked all that potential yet. If Love was not from St. Louis and was not a kid that everyone here had focused on heavily the first time around, the angst over losing him would not have been nearly what it was. Again, I'm not trying to say it doesn't matter at all. The coaching staff wanted him, pursued him and didn't get him. So, by definition, it's a loss on the recruiting trail. And there was a big potential upside, not only with the player, but with bringing a St. Louis star in and having him succeed. But that upside was far from a guarantee.
3) Here's the main point: Dennis Gates has earned a little bit of leeway, don't you think?
In year one, he had an all-SEC player as the centerpiece of the roster. He surrounded that player with some guys from Cleveland State, a handful of mid-major transfers, two junior college players, one freshman and exactly one guy who had played at the high-major level (and Nick Honor was fine at Clemson, but not a guy who we were all jumping up and down celebrating the day he committed). And he took that roster to 25 wins, including the first one in the NCAA Tournament in 13 years. So maybe he'll find guys to fit what he's looking for even if he missed on a couple.
I've said this a number of times: If Kobe Brown returns for next season, I believe last year is the least talented roster Gates will ever coach at Missouri. And it won 25 games. It did that for two reasons: First, every player had his best year as a college basketball player under Gates. Second, every player understood and embraced his role on the team. Obviously neither of those things are guaranteed to be repeated, but we only have one year of a sample size and they happened in that one year.
4) Let's dive into that idea about the roster being better next year than it was this year:
Back are Kobe Brown (we're assuming for the sake of this discussion), Honor, Sean East, Aidan Shaw, Noah Carter and Kaleb Brown. Logic tells us those players are similar or better than they were a year ago. So that part's an upgrade. But how about the replacements:
Mo Diarra vs Jordan Butler: Diarra made six starts, played in 25 games, averaged 3.2 points and 3.3 rebounds, shot 40% from the floor and blocked 15 shots. Does anyone think those are unattainable numbers for Butler?
Ronnie DeGray vs Trent Pierce: DeGray played 168 minutes, scored a total of 35 points and had 30 rebounds. I'd be surprised if Pierce doesn't pass those numbers.
Dree Gholston vs John Tonje: Gholston played in all 35 games, starting 22. He was the third-leading scorer at 10.9 points per game. He shot 43% from the floor, 31% from three, averaged 2.4 rebounds and less than two assists per game.
Here are Gholston's numbers at Milwaukee the year before he came to Mizzou: 14.3 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 36% from the floor, 32% from three. All of his numbers other than shooting percentage dropped slightly at Mizzou (which is not a surprise, given that he was playing with more talent around him and against better opposition).
Here are Tonje's numbers at Colorado State last season: 14.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 47% from the field, 39% from three. Tonje's numbers last year are similar to Gholston's the year before Gholston got here, but Tonje is a more efficient player against better competition. It is not at all unreasonable to think Tonje is a similar or better player than Gholston.
Isaiah Mosley vs Anthony Robinson: They don't play exactly the same position so it's probably not a fair comp, but we're doing a man for man comparison here. If you're comparing Robinson to the Mosley Missouri thought it was getting, there's no comparison. But you aren't. You're comparing him to the Mosley Missouri ended up getting. That's 14 games (276 total minutes), 9.6 points, 2 rebounds and 2.5 assists. He shot 46% from the floor and 30% from three point range. The 9.6 points looks tough to replace, except that's the average in games he played. If you spread his scoring over 35 games, it would have been 3.9 per game. I don't expect Robinson to have a big role next year. But Mosley didn't have a big role this year. And there's still a chance Mosley is on the team next season.
D'Moi Hodge vs Curt Lewis: This one's a downgrade for now. That's not a shot at Lewis. Hodge was the second-leading scorer and led the SEC in steals. He made 100 threes and shot 40% from deep. That's tough to replace and Missouri isn't going to probably have a single guy who's going to do it. But they don't need a single guy to do it.
Because there are still two open spots on the roster. Those are likely to go to a wing (who will help in that Hodge replacement) and a big man. The big man is effectively taking Tre Gomillion's spot, the one significant departure we didn't account for in the above comparisons. So assuming Mizzou gets Brown back (stressing, we don't know if that's the case as of today) and adds two more players in the portal, there's at least as much talent on the roster next year as there was last year when Missouri won 25 games. None of that means Missouri will definitely have as good a season next year. It's just laying out why nobody should be panicky right now.
5) So who will Missouri add in the portal? We know they're definitely involved with Tamar Bates. So far as we know, Bates hasn't talked to anyone so we can't say exactly where things stand. We know Kadin Shedrick has the Tigers in his top five with Xavier, Kansas State, Texas and Duke. He visited Duke yesterday, is visiting Texas on April 18 and Missouri on April 19. We think they're involved with Jamarion Sharp, but Sharp has been silent since entering the portal and is exploring the NBA Draft process so there might not be clarity on that for a little bit. They're almost certainly involved with some other players more heavily than we know and hopefully there will be some clarity on that in the next few days.
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