Missouri’s basketball team hasn’t been any good since 2013-14, and it hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since a year before that. The Tigers made five tournaments in a row from 2009 to 2013 and had top-10 finishers in two of those years, once apiece under Mike Anderson and Frank Haith. That gave way to three miserable seasons under the well-liked but wholly unsuccessful Kim Anderson. Missouri is still just two months and change removed from Anderson’s last team going 8-24 en route to his firing.
Missouri built a college basketball contender out of thin air
The Tigers rebuilt and then some, all in a few weeks.
When a team goes 27-68 over three years, as Mizzou has just done, a long rebuild usually follows. It’s supposed to take years to reach competence after that much time being that bad. But an incredible confluence of events over just nine weeks earlier this year left Mizzou in a position to climb back immediately. And then some.
Follow this timeline:
- March 5: Missouri announces it’ll fire Anderson, its coach of three years.
- March 9: The Tigers’ season ends with a loss in the SEC tournament.
- March 15: News breaks that Cal coach Cuonzo Martin will leave Berkeley for Columbia, replacing Anderson as Mizzou’s head man.
- Also March 15: Washington fires longtime head coach Lorenzo Romar. The interesting thing about this is that one of Romar’s top assistants is Michael Porter Sr., whose son is Michael Porter Jr., who’s the megastar No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2017.
- March 24: Washington releases Porter Jr. from his signed Letter of Intent, freeing him up to play elsewhere. It’s the fair move with Romar and Porter Sr. gone.
- Also March 24: Porter Sr. joins Missouri’s staff.
- Also March 24: Porter Jr. commits to Missouri, joining his dad. He’s among the handful of most-heralded recruits in college hoops history, a 6’10 small forward who can handle the ball, shoot, drive to the basket, and defend. He’s a Kevin Durant-like prospect.
Those three weeks changed the course of the program. But it gets better.
Michael Porter Jr.’s brother, 2018 power forward Jontay, is a top recruit in his own right. In May, Jontay committed to the Tigers, joining his father and brother. And now, Porter’s no longer a 2018 prospect at all. He’s reclassified to this year, and he’ll be eligible to play for the Tigers immediately.
There’s been lots more good news. Blake Harris, a four-star point guard for 2017, was committed to Washington with Porter Jr. before. He’s now joining him at Mizzou, instead. So are four-star power forward Jeremiah Tilmon and high three-star point guard C.J. Roberts. Missouri’s five-man class is ranked No. 8 in the country on the 247Sports Composite. Michael Porter Jr.’s impact is hard to measure, though.
Does Mizzou have any guarantees? Of course not. But be excited anyway.
Stockpiling elite freshmen does not always work out. Two seasons ago, LSU had Ben Simmons, who was maybe the most comparable freshman to Porter since Durant. It also had five-star rookie shooting guard Antonio Blakeney as part of the No. 9 class in the country. It didn’t matter. LSU was bad, just as it usually is.
That’s one cautionary tale, and there are others. But that shouldn’t much dampen Missouri’s enthusiasm about the coming season. “Recruit a bunch of elite players” remains the surest path to success in any college sport. Martin landed five-stars Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb in 2015 at Cal, and the Bears went from missing the tournament to being a No. 4 seed in it. (They were hampered by injury and lost in the first round.)
The Tigers have the shape of a legitimate contender in the SEC.
They shouldn’t be expected to win the league, because Kentucky still exists, and so does Florida. South Carolina emerged in this year’s tournament and could be strong for a while because of Frank Martin’s ability to coach defense. LSU made a sharp hire this offseason, poaching Will Wade from VCU. Getting Porter and company doesn’t mean Missouri will skyrocket to the top of the conference, even a traditionally weak one.
But Porter is such a talent that his team should always have a chance. Elite recruits bust sometimes, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Porter to be anything other than a top-of-the-line college basketball player. He really is that good.
From Ricky O’Donnell’s March feature on him:
Porter’s talent would have been in demand in any era, but he feels uniquely suited for the way the game has been trending recently. He’s the type of versatile, hybrid forward every team wants but so few have.
At 6’10 and 215 pounds, Porter has the size of a big man and skill set of a wing. He was draining jumpers off of dribble pull-ups throughout the two practices that proceeded the McDonald’s Game, and he did it while flashing the elite athleticism that separates him from everyone else.
Like any 18-year-old, Porter is still growing into himself and his game. Still, it’s easy to see a future star with the training wheels on. His jump shot is pure and he gets his head to rim-level for rebounds and dunks. He said he wants to be his own player, but sees parts of Tracy McGrady and Kevin Durant in his skill set. Durant sees it, too.
Missouri was every kind of terrible last year, but Porter’s a program-changing talent even if he’s only around for a year. Last year’s team only had one senior rotation player, and those who remain — so, almost everyone — will be more seasoned. And they’ll have help from a solid freshman class headlined by the headliner of all headliners.
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