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We know what you guys want from us. It's been a rough few days in the portal in both sports and you want us to come on here and tell you about all these secret things that have been going on behind the scenes that you haven't previously known about that's going to magically make you feel better. And we'd absolutely love to be able to do that for you this morning.
But we can't.
Before we get into the specific situations in each sport, here's the best way we can describe the portal
This stuff is wild. And it usually happens without any public comments and without much warning. Which might be a positive. People have gone pretty quiet. Even when we've tried to ask around about portal stuff, people who do know what's going on have said multiple times that nobody wants to say what's happening in the portal until it actually happens because it can change so often. In other words, a scheduled visit in the portal doesn't much seem to matter. It only matters if that visit actually ends up happening. So the point is, maybe there are some things happening. There may be some prospects in town this weekend. But at this point, we don't have much new information or movement. Here's where things stand and what we do have on both sides:
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Jamarion Sharp committed to Ole Miss on Friday. Honestly, we can't really even tell you if that's meaningless to Mizzou, an absolute gut punch or somewhere in between. We've never really gotten a good handle on just how interested Missouri was in Sharp this time around. Our read has been that they've been monitoring him, but that they aren't holding out for him. Sharp, to our knowledge, is still going through the NBA process and hasn't withdrawn his name. Yesterday's announcement seems to mean that if he does return to college it will be in Oxford but it doesn't mean he has to return to college. Again, we just aren't sure how heavily Missouri pursued Sharp this time.
We can say that Mizzou has been reported to be in touch with 35 transfers since the portal opened. With Sharp committed, 33 of them are now off the board. The two who haven't committed are Tylor Perry and Matthew Cleveland.
Perry isn't considering Missouri so he is immaterial for our purposes. Cleveland visited Auburn this week. He should be off campus by now as he arrived on Tuesday night. Missouri sources continue to feel good about the Tigers' chances with Cleveland the last we knew. The visit to Auburn isn't a surprise. But from what we're gathering, Auburn feels good about its chances as well. We feel pretty good saying he's going to be a Tiger next year. We aren't ready to say which one of the two Tigers he'll choose. To our knowledge there isn't yet a decision date. He has said he'd like to make a decision by next Friday when classes end at Florida State. After the Auburn visit, he said he wanted to decide in the next two or three weeks. Miami feels like its the third horse in this race right now, but that could simply be because it's not a place we really know anyone and they don't tend to have as many people who cover basketball closely. A decision could literally come at any time for Cleveland.
Beyond that, we're going back to work in the next few days trying to figure out exactly where Missouri will turn. The Tigers are still almost certainly going to take someone fairly big (6-8 or taller). But we have work to do to figure out where they'll look for that. If Cleveland turns elsewhere, we aren't sure if they pursue another wing honestly. Cleveland would be a huge add, but you don't necessarily have to have that position like you do a big man. Especially if things go the right way with Kobe Brown and Isiaih Mosley over the next few weeks/months.
Speaking of Brown, he's doing a fan event in town on Monday afternoon where he'll sign autographs and meet fans. We plan to be there, Kobe hasn't made any public comments about what he's looking for over the next few weeks and we hope to be able to gain some insight as to what it would take for him to go, what could convince him to stay, etc. At this point, it seems more and more important for the Tigers to manage to hold on to Brown or to have a surprise up their sleeves in the portal (which is certainly possible). We'll do our best to track all of it in the coming days. Remember, the portal is still open for nearly two more weeks so a lot can still happen.
*In non-portal news, Drew King has been catching up with a lot of 2024 targets.
Dallas Thomas
Marcus Allen
Travis Perry
Peyton Marshall
He'll have a story on Annor Boateng for tomorrow.
We expect this to be the big splash class for Dennis Gates and Co. Missouri is in pretty good shape with all the guys listed above. When Gates was hired, here's the timeline we heard:
2022: Do the best you can. Patch together the roster in a hurry and make the best of it. Get back to being competitive and make people care again.
2023: Lay a foundation, get some solid high school guys, start to set the program up.
2024: Get some pros.
Gates is a year ahead of schedule. He didn't just make the program competitive, he got it to the NCAA Tournament. The passion is back in the fanbase. Now the next step is putting together a class that really turns some heads nationally in 2024. We feel pretty good about the chances of that happening at this point.
