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FOOTBALL RECRUITINGMissouri had been in the midst of a bit of a tough stretch on the recruiting trail, but a big swing of positivity came through on Thursday night when Lee's Summit (Mo.) four-star wide receiver Joshua Manning announced his commitment to the Tigers. That's the news of the day. ICYMI, here are our links from the coverage:
VIDEO: Manning details his commitment with Clint Cosgrove
VIDEO: Manning talks Mizzou post-announcement
COMMIT ANALYSIS: What Manning's pledge means for Mizzou
So, with Manning in the fold, what's next? All eyes will now turn toward a group of other in-state/area targets in Logan Reichert, Marvin Burks, Jordan Allen, and Miles McVay. Here's a reset of the situation with each:
- With Reichert, all indications are it's Oregon or Missouri (although he did also mention Oklahoma during last night's interview). The Rivals250 prospect also told us that he has a tentative commitment date set for September 8th, which is his birthday — although he left the door open that a commitment could come beforehand.
- With Burks, it seems like his recruiting process will extend into the fall. He took June officials to Missouri, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss. He also has Oklahoma and LSU among his Top 5 and those two programs could get official visits during the season.
- With Allen, he's got a Top 4 of Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas State, and Missouri. He took June officials to all of those programs, except for K-State. The three-star told our Iowa site that he plans to make a decision sometime in August. It's been tough to get a read on exactly where Missouri stands with this one, although obviously getting him on campus for a summer official couldn't have hurt.
- In preparation for his August 11th announcement, Rivals250 OL Miles McVay will now take official visits to Texas and Alabama next week. That will conclude his five allotted officials as he took trips to Texas A&M, Oregon, and Michigan State in June. Missouri is also among his finalists. Despite his familiarity and connection with Missouri, the visit everyone will be watching will be the one to Alabama, who are the perceived favorites. Regardless, it seems Missouri is on the outside looking in.
Lastly, Missouri extended a new 2023 offer to Oak Mountain (Ala.) defensive end Emmanuel Waller on Wednesday. The Rivals250 prospect was previously committed to BYU before reopening his recruiting process back on June 20th. He recently camped at both Alabama and Auburn and is planning to return to Tuscaloosa later this month. Mississippi State is a team that has offered and been recruiting the four-star heavily for quite a while now. Waller has already been to Starkville twice, but is planning a return trip later this month as well. Currently, Waller doesn't appear to be in a hurry since he opened things back up and is looking to commit around November or December, so Missouri has some time to try and make an impression.
BASKETBALL RECRUITING
It's currently championship season on the AAU circuits, which means no prospects have been visiting campuses lately, but a lot of them are being interviewed by the media in attendance. Two prospects have expressed interest in taking official visits to Missouri in the past two days: Jordan Butler and Cameron Christie.
We've long known Butler and Missouri had mutual interest due to C.Y. Young coaching his older brother at Florida State last season. Butler told Phenom Hoops that he's planning to take an official visit to Missouri later this summer. Other schools he mentioned as wanting to visit include South Carolina, Florida State, Auburn and Alabama. It sounds like his recruitment will extend into the fall, barring a surprise. We know Mizzou wants to take at least one more forward from the high school ranks in the 2023 class, and Butler and Arrinten Page continue to seem like the top options. Whether the Tigers would take both, we're not sure, but that would be a good problem to have for Dennis Gates.
We don't know quite as much about Christie's recruitment because we've never been able to get ahold of him, but he recently told reporters that he wants to take official visits to Missouri, California, Virginia and Villanova. Obviously, Virginia and Villanova could be tough competition, but Mizzou does have the advantage of being the closest to home (by far) for the Chicago-area native. Again, we believe the Tiger staff wants to add a shooting guard in the 2023 class, but we're not totally sure where Christie would rank in the pecking order compared to guys like Parker Friedrichsen and Kris Parker, both of whom have told us they want to visit Missouri, as well. Gehrig Normand continues to look like the top target there. He talked at one point about trimming his list and/or making a commitment after the AAU season ended, but he's since picked up a lot of new offers, so we'll see what happens there.
