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After a whirlwind month, the Chamber is taking a little bit of a breather this week. Not that there's no info, just that we've had a month with eight additions to the basketball roster and a full coaching staff hired coming off a coaching search and now we are regrouping a little bit before we get to the next big recruiting period.
FOOTBALL RECRUITING
- Missouri coaches have been hitting the road this week and furthering their relationships with in-state high school coaching staffs. Among the schools they've stopped by that we've noticed on social media include Lutheran North, Marquette, Vianney, Parkway North, St. Pius X, Raytown South, North Kansas City, Liberty, Boonville. They've also started expanding beyond the state as they were at Tulsa Union yesterday and have certainly made other stops.
- A couple of quarterback dominoes have recently fallen, obviously not in Missouri's favor as JJ Kohl pledge to Iowa State and recent offer Zane Flores committed to Oklahoma State. Missouri remains in the mix for Brock Glenn, but a recent offer from Auburn could be a game-changer however time will tell there. In-state product Sam Van Dyne has a Missouri offer and is still communicating with the staff, but we don't get the impression he's a take at this time. Avery Johnson and Gabarri Johnson are still on the market, but don't feel either are considering Missouri seriously right now.
- Interesting new walk-on offer to Iowa Western C.C. wide receiver Micah Manning, former Lee's Summit product and the older brother of 2023 WR target Joshua Manning. Obviously, a good play to entice the young Manning to play on the same team with his younger brother.
We chatted with Micah and he told us he would "love to play for the home town team, so I'm grateful they even see me in this light." Micah said he's impressed with WR coach Jacob Peeler and his resume and they are "just getting the ball rolling." He plans to visit Missouri at some point and also said that teams like Iowa, Iowa State, and Nebraska were also interested in potential walk-on opportunities as well.
- Rivals.com national analyst Ryan Wright dropped by spring practice for IMG Academy and provided updates on their top guys. With five-star edge Samuel M'Pemba, he's got future stops to LSU, Alabama, Penn State, and Oregon planned.
- We'll be at the Rivals Camp Series stop in Indianapolis on Sunday. This camp should feature some targets from the state of Missouri and other states throughout the South and Midwest region. Jeremiyah Love and Amir Herring are a couple of notable names that will be in attendance, we'll provide a more extensive list of expected participants when we get them and will have coverage throughout the week.
- Ole Miss transfer DB Keidron Smith is deciding today. He took an official visit to Missouri a couple of months ago. All the information we have is that he'll go to Kentucky. The Wildcats were considered a strong leader early in the process. Mizzou tried to make the flip, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
- As far as on campus visits, it's going to be light for a little while. Our information is that Missouri's big push is scheduling June official visits for major targets. Raytown OL Logan Reichert recently tweeted that he would take his official to Mizzou the weekend of June 24th. That's going to be the big summer weekend where Missouri is likely to try to get a lot of its priority targets--especially area prospects--on campus. We'll be checking in with some of those guys over the next few weeks to see who has scheduled a visit for that weekend and some will likely start to trickle out on social media as well. But look for that to be the big invite weekend for the Tigers.
BASKETBALL
Like we said above, the frenzy of the last month has hit a momentary pause. Dennis Gates added eight new players. For those who need a refresher, here are the additions:
Mohamed Diarra
DeAndre Gholston
Aidan Shaw
Tre Gomillion
Noah Carter
D'Moi Hodge
Sean East
Nick Honor
And here's a quick thumbnail on each of the three assistant coaches
C.Y. Young
Dickey Nutt
Kyle Smithpeters
So what's left? It's possible Missouri is done, but unlikely. Gates could still add up to two more players in our estimation. The priorities are a big man (not necessarily a true center, but someone that can play in the middle of the defense) and a shooter. There are two guys that are probably at the top of the list.
Jason Roche--The transfer from the Citadel visited Missouri a couple of weeks ago. He recently visited Richmond and is also considering Rice and San Diego State. Roche has gone dark on us since the Mizzou visit. Our best intel is that Mizzou and Rice seem to be the front-runners. In most cases, we'd heavily favor Mizzou in this scenario, but academics is going to be a factor in this and we believe Rice is a real contender.
Jamarion Sharp--This one is a little strange because he isn't in the transfer portal. Right now, he's at Western Kentucky. And it's certainly possible he stays there and this is all a whole lot of talk about nothing. If that's the case, we'll move on to other possibilities to fill this spot. But we've had people who were good sources of information on the Kyle Smithpeters hire for us (we started talking about him within a few days of Gates getting the job) who have been consistent in saying that Mizzou is hoping Sharp goes in the portal and if he does they'll heavily pursue him. If he enters the portal, we feel very, very good about Mizzou's chances. If he doesn't, we'll move on to other targets.
Adding one or both of those guys would obviously require someone to leave. There are only five players who can leave (assuming Gates isn't going to start processing guys he got a commitment from in the last four weeks).
Kobe Brown: We don't think it's likely at all. There's no indication he's going anywhere. He's the best returning player on the roster.
Kaleb Brown: If he wasn't Kobe's brother, we'd probably view this as the most likely departure. But he is. And if you keep him to keep Kobe, nobody's going to complain.
Amari Davis, Boogie Coleman, Ronnie DeGray: We'll just put all these guys in the same boat. All three transferred in before last season. Davis and Coleman have two years left and DeGray three if they use the COVID year. The most likely scenario in our opinion is that the departures come from this group.
The coaches will be on the road this weekend. The UnderArmour circuit is playing in Kansas City (Mitchell Forde will be there for us), Nike is in Indianapolis (we had planned to be there, but Nike decided to be stingy with credentials) and Adidas is in Spartanburg, South Carolina. We can't tell you for sure where Mizzou will be yet. But it would make sense if they made an appearance in all three locations. We'll do the best we can to pass on information to you. And our attention will begin turning to the 2023 and 2024 classes this weekend. We'll still follow the couple of transfer spots, but we're going to start reaching out to some of the high school kids who have gotten offers since Gates took over and see if we can start getting together a prospect list for the next couple of classes.
