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BASKETBALL RECRUITING
As you all know, Mizzou hosted Bryson Warren for an unofficial visit yesterday. Warren has been on the staff's radar for quite a while. He's originally from Little Rock but will play his high school ball at Link Year prep in Branson this year, and he ran with Mokan Elite on the AAU circuit this summer. He's clearly one of, if not the, top targets for the staff in 2023 (we'd put him right up there with Jeremy Fears Jr.), but as the No. 16 player in the country, he'll obviously be tough to lure to Columbia. His other visits so far have included Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma State.
In 2022 recruiting news, we recently heard from a source that Missouri is no longer pursuing four-star point guard Chandler Jackson. Jackson, who jumped to No. 90 nationally in the most recent iteration of the Rivals150, took an official visit to Missouri in late June. The only other official visit he's taken so far is to Auburn, although he has another one planned to Virginia Tech in September. Jackson is expected to announce a top 10 schools list next week, and we think there's a good chance Missouri is on it, but from what we were told, the staff doesn't feel like it has room to take another guard in this class after Christian Jones of East St. Louis committed in July.
In fact, we only expect Missouri to take a commitment from one more high school prospect between now and the start of the season. The Tigers only have one scholarship set to be available after this season, and while coaches can always make room for a couple more additions, we think the staff doesn't want to overbook the roster so that it has the ability to target a player or two in the transfer portal. Look for that last spot to go to a wing. Aidan Shaw, who recently announced he will play his senior season at Blue Valley North rather than Link Year, is the clear-cut top target. Shaw, No. 57 in the new rankings, included Missouri in his top six schools about a month ago. If we had to handicap his recruitment right now, we'd pick Missouri as the slight favorite. We don't yet know a timetable for Shaw to make a decision but we've had a few people tell us they expect him to make an announcement in the next few weeks. We like Missouri's chances, but are nowhere near comfortable enough to make an official prediction at this point.
FOOTBALL RECRUITING
*Mizzou picked up a commitment last night from Wyoming transfer LB Chuck Hicks.
We're hoping to talk to Hicks today. From what we can gather, he lost a competition for a starting job at Wyoming and entered the transfer portal three days ago. Completely under the radar, he found a home at Mizzou. He is not expected to be eligible to play this season. The deadline for that would have been July 31. Missouri will likely apply for a waiver from the NCAA, but there's no real reason to think it would be approved.
Hicks was a 2018 signee and redshirted that year. He played in 2019, then played five games in 2020 which didn't count toward his eligibility. Because he has already redshirted, this year is going to count toward his clock, even though he won't likely play. So he could have two years left to play beginning in the 2022 season. We've talked a lot about the lack of depth at linebacker. Blaze Alldredge is gone after this year. Devin Nicholson could have two more years left after this one if he wants them. Beyond that, Chad Bailey has never been able to stay healthy and no other linebacker on the roster has ever played defensive snaps (or if they have, there haven't been many). Think of Hicks as basically a replacement for Cam Wilkins, who transferred out early in fall camp. As with any transfer, it would be underwhelming if he wasn't immediately in the rotation in 2022.
*Unofficial visits during the season should pick back up starting next week. It's been pretty quiet this month with everyone gearing up for high school and college seasons. We expect to be able to get you guys good info all season long on who is expected for the home games and that will be posted in the Chamber every Friday for the next few months.
*With one final weekend without a Mizzou game, our staff is hitting the road in force for high school games tonight. @Sean_Williams was in St. Louis last weekend. He's going to make a trip to see Sam Horn some time in the next month and we're charting out various games for him to be able to see Mizzou commitments in person over the season. Tonight, though, we're focusing mostly on uncommitted kids. Here's a list of players we will see in person tonight:
@GabeD is at CBC/East St. Louis
Luther Burden
Miles McVay
Toriano Pride (we don't have any reason to believe Missouri is a serious player here, but we'll pay attention to him because we're going to be there and might even have a chance to catch up with him)
Paris Patterson
Tyler Gant
Jeremiyah Love
Jeremiah McClellan
Our priority here is talking to Burden. That takes precedence over absolutely everything else. We'll do our best to talk to as many of the players listed above as we can, but getting interviews with seven players and one or two head coaches after a high school football game is very, very unlikely. Again, Burden is our focus, but we'll get what we can from the others and at least we will have seen them all play.
On Burden, we do not expect a commitment tonight. Don't get us wrong, if he suddenly decides he wants to tell us after the game he's committing, we'll break the news, but we do not view it as likely. We believe he is going to take his visits and make a decision after the season, potentially even at the Under Armour all-American Game in early January. We still believe Missouri is the leader, maybe even more strongly than we did when he initially opened things up. But as we've told you we expected since that day, we do not anticipate it is going to end early...at least not publicly.
@mitchell4d will be at North Kansas City hosting Raytown
Dominique Orange
Edric Hill
Also at that game is Raytown 2023 OL Logan Reichert. There has been some recent chatter that Missouri is a STRONG leader for Reichert and we've even had some people tell us a commitment could happen relatively soon. We aren't sure that's the case, but this has always been viewed as a Mizzou vs Georgia battle. Reichert's parents are both from Missouri and went to Mizzou. It's a strong Mizzou family. But UGA DC Dan Lanning used to be a coach in the KC area and also has a very good connection with the family, which is why the Bulldogs are viewed as the main competition. That said, we think Reichert ends up staying in-state and we think he could very well be Mizzou's first 2023 commitment.
This will be the first time we've ever spoken to Orange. We should be able to get a little bit better idea where things stand and where he will take visits. We believe Missouri has an excellent shot, which is a big change from earlier this summer, but we have to talk to the kid to really know that for sure. Some people believe Hill is actually the better prospect and we'll have more on him as well.
@jxlorenzi is headed up to Oak Park at Lee's Summit to check out long-time commitment Max Whisner. He's all Mizzou so this is more just a chance for us to see him and write a bit more of a feature type story on him than to gather any sort of recruiting information because there's nothing to gather.
*Cass Tech offensive lineman Jackson Pruitt recently put Mizzou in his top seven with Tennessee, Kansas, Buffalo, Coastal Carolina, Liberty and Tulsa. It's a list that makes you like the Tigers' chances. Missouri definitely likes him and is talking to him. It is our impression that the Tigers might not take a commitment from him today (which is fine because he doesn't appear ready to make one) but is a prospect to watch during the season and see how other things shake out.
