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1) Dennis Gates has started quickly on the recruiting trail. Missouri's new coach grabbed a commitment from junior college transfer Mohamed Diarra on Friday and followed that up by landing Milwaukee transfer DeAndre Gholston on Saturday. That gives Missouri, as of today, 11 scholarship players with two spots remaining. Obviously that number is likely to change. We don't know what's going to happen with Trevon Brazile, who is currently in the transfer portal, or Aidan Shaw, who opened up his recruitment. If I had to handicap it right now, I'd give the Tigers a better chance at getting Shaw back than Brazile. It seems likely to me if Javon Pickett plays one more year he'll do it somewhere else. Of course, there's no guarantee that all 11 guys who are currently on our scholarship chart will be at Mizzou next year either. If I had to guess, more than one probably won't be. Which means we're nowhere close to the end of the roster shuffling.
2) The rest of the commitments are likely to come from the junior college ranks or the portal. We reported on Saturday that John A Logan CC point guard Sean East was visiting Missouri. We're hoping to be able to follow up with East's family soon. Gates has already been publicly tied to at least 11 transfers and that number is very likely to grow this week. We'd set the over/under on the number of new faces on this roster next season at 6.5. That means we think there are probably at least four more new guys to be added. Missouri currently has five players set to play their final season in 2023 so you're probably not looking at any more than one more senior, and maybe none. The rest of the additions will likely be juco players or transfers with more than one year to play just for the sake of balancing the roster.
3) The real question on everyone's mind is when Gates is going to start adding assistant coaches, or if he's just going to continue to recruit like a wildly energetic one-man band. The truth is we don't know. It would not be a surprise to see names added to the coaching staff as soon as today. All but eight teams are done with their seasons (four in the NCAA Tournament and four in the NIT). The most recent information we have is that both Jerrance Howard and Chin Coleman look unlikely at Mizzou. Cleveland State still hasn't named Gates' successor, so that could be a part of the timetable as well. The Final Four generally serves as somewhat of a coaching convention, so it's entirely possible that no staff news becomes official until after that. An evaluation period opens on April 8, which is a week from Friday. It would make sense to have the staff in place by then.
4) How should you feel about what Gates has done so far? That's up to you. Obviously he's getting out there with the intentions of remaking this roster as quickly as he can. The portal makes that easier to do than it ever has been. In Diarra, Gates landed a versatile 6-10 forward who reminds you of the mold of athlete that plays for Florida State. At least one service has him as the top junior college prospect in the country and his coach told us he fielded calls from basically everyone in the country on Diarra. That's a quality addition. Gholston is a little less clear. He's a big guard who looks pretty athletic, but the main competition was UIC, Butler and Richmond. He was considering playing for Gates at Cleveland State before Gates took the Missouri job. On the surface, a lot of people won't like that. And that's a fair viewpoint early on. The reason to be optimistic is Gates' history of taking guys who weren't necessarily big-time recruits at Florida State and turning them into big-time players. In no way am I predicting that Gholston is going to be in the NBA next year, but the new coach should get the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he's looking for until he proves that benefit is unwarranted. Also, there's a lot of pieces left to fall into place before we can really start to judge his first class.
5) The first week of Gates' tenure is the reason I felt Missouri needed to make a change, though. The interest in the program had hit a low point. There wasn't a lot of hope for the future. The best case scenario if Cuonzo Martin was that there would be a fair amount of roster turnover and he'd hit in the portal, which would be the opposite of what happened last year. But the truth is, most didn't expect that because recent history told them they shouldn't. With Gates, he may not hit either. The fact is, we have no idea whether he's going to be better or worse than Martin. But that at least leaves the door open things are going to improve. With no change, you knew what you were getting. With a change, you don't know. And while that's not necessarily a positive, at least it could be. There's hope and renewed interest for at least a couple of years. I'm skeptical that will turn into anything in terms of butts in seats and money flowing into the program until Gates shows he can win, but at least people are interested again and open to the possibility it will get better. Had Martin stayed, that wasn't likely to be the case.
