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FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Let's start on the football side of things. Some good news and some bad news. Psyches are fragile right now (always?), so we'l'l start with the good news.
*Florida State defensive end transfer Derrick McLendon is expected to arrive in Columbia for an official visit today. He is coming off a visit to South Carolina. Missouri wants another defensive end in the portal. McLendon is a guy that would definitely be in the rotation and might push for a starting job at Mizzou. Like most transfers, he isn't returning any messages so we don't know how the visit went at SC and we don't know of any other visits he may have scheduled.
*McLendon is the only visitor expected this weekend. Missouri is still going to look for at least one offensive lineman, and maybe two, in the portal. They'll also look to add a tight end. The major name to watch on those fronts right now is Houston interior OL CamRon Johnson. There is optimism at Mizzou with the hire of OL coach Brandon Jones now official.
*The Tigers did have one enter the portal on Thursday with graduate OL Bobby Lawrence announcing he was leaving. This is not surprising. In fact, it's so unsurprising, we didn't even have Lawrence on our scholarship count. We have Missouri at 91 scholarship players right now. We know that isn't right. From what we've been told, the Tigers are at 87. Our chart lists 91 because we don't know which four of those guys are no longer on scholarship, but we're confident as of right now the number is 87. We think Missouri will add three or four more players, which means they are going to have to shed five or six scholarships between now and the first month in June. In other words, there will be more transfer announcements in the next seven or eight weeks from the current roster.
*Now the bad news: Rockhurst offensive lineman Andrew Sprague is announcing his decision today and the overwhelming expectation is that it will be Michigan. You win some, you lose some. On to the next.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Buckle up, folks. Here's where things stand as of today, at least so far as we know. Let's start with what we know Mizzou has coming back on the roster:
We know the incoming signees will be there: Trent Pierce, Anthony Robinson, Jordan Butler and Curt Lewis plus incoming transfer John Tonje. Noah Carter has announced he will be back for another year. There hasn't been an announcement from Sean East, Nick Honor or Aidan Shaw, but there's no reason to expect those guys won't be here at this point.
That's nine players. We're operating under the assumption that Mabor Majak won't be on scholarship next season for the time being. We're also doing the same with Isiaih Mosley. If they're back, great. If there's a scholarship, great. But for right now, we're betting neither one takes up a scholarship.
Which brings us to Kobe and Kaleb Brown. Every expectation (and we agree with it) is that they're tied together. If Kobe returns, Kaleb will be here. If Kobe goes pro, the likelihood that Kaleb is here goes down significantly. Kobe has made no announcement. The full expectation is that he will explore the draft process and keep the option open to return, but he hasn't made any public declaration just yet. But we'll operate under the belief that is going to happen. And then it will come down to whether he returns. We can tell you that NBA people that we've heard about believe Kobe should come out. Here's the simple truth: There's almost nothing Kobe can do on the floor to be a better NBA prospect a year from now than he is today. He shot 42% from three-point range this year. Doing it again doesn't improve his stock. But not doing it again could hurt it. In other words, if Kobe Brown is going to be an NBA player, his stock is never going to be any higher than it is right now. That doesn't mean it will be lower next year, but it most likely isn't going to be higher. There's still optimism around Mizzou that he'll return next year because he loves Columbia, the Tigers could have a really good team with him and he could really cement a legacy here (plus, it would be worthwhile financially for him). But there are strong arguments for him to leave as well. What decision he makes and when he makes it, we don't know.
If Kobe comes back (which, by extension probably means Kaleb comes back) that puts Mizzou at 11 players for next year's roster, which means the Tigers would look for two more transfers. If he leaves (and therefore Kaleb leaves) you could be looking at as many as four open spots. So let's get to the players who could fill those spots and what's happening (you can keep up with most things on our Transfer Tracker).
