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Dennis Gates strikes early in the portal, again!
Michael Porter (Sr.) and his wife Lisa (nee Becker) met, fell in love, and had a gaggle of kids, eight to be exact. The University of Missouri’s basketball program (both men and womens) has never been the same.
It started with former Mizzou Women’s coach Robin Pingeton getting Michael Sr. to join the program as a coach, then she recruited Brianna and Cierra both to play for her. Bri and Cierra are the oldest. Then came Michael Junior, now with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, Porter originally committed to play for family friend Lorenzo Romar at Washington. But Romar was sacked and Michael Jr committed to Cuonzo Martin and Missouri (who also hired Michael Sr as a coach). Shortly after, ‘little’ brother Jontay committed to Martin and Missouri as well.
It was 2017 and half of the Porter clan had taken up jerseys at Mizzou Arena, and half of the heads of the family had worked both benches.
There are still 4 kids to go, but Coban — the next brother in line — never developed the size of his brothers and after a successful high school career went to Denver University to play where things took a pretty dark turn. Coban’s legal tragedy was unfolding right around a year ago.
At the same time, the next brother in line was Jevon — a top 100 recruit who chose to attend Pepperdine — who followed Romar, then the head coach for the Waves. Pepperdine, like Washington before them, fired Romar last year. Jevon entered the transfer portal and ran into his own legal troubles. This is all coming down at the same time Jontay Porter was saddled with his own scandal and legal troubles after getting kicked out of the NBA for gambling.
The Porters also have Izaak, who graduated high school in 2023, he played this past season at North Arkansas, a JUCO in Harrison. Last is Jayda, the youngest. She’s still in high school but is a well regarded prospect.
Four who have already made it to Mizzou’s campus, and now one more as Dennis Gates added Jevon to the roster just a few days ago. Jevon’s talent has always been enticing and might have fit well with Missouri and Dennis Gates last year, but everyone likely realized the scrutiny and spotlight at the time was white hot. Getting out of town wasn’t the worst idea.
But he’s back after a year of seeing a bit of stalled development, hoping for a reboot. How does Porter’s addition affect the roster?
It’s been a while since we’ve done a scholarship math post, so let’s do one!
This is current. Missouri is working with the now boosted 15 scholarship limit so there are three remaining spots. But it’s certainly easy to see a list of players and not be able to think about what is needed to fill the other spots.
Anthony Robinson started 31 of 33 games, it’s reasonable to think he’ll start again next season. He played 55.6% of the minutes, I would expect that to go up next year with the bulk of his minutes played at the spot he was in this past season: point guard.
Mark Mitchell started 33 of 33 games, so yeah he’ll be starting next year. 66.9% of the minutes was a team high, seems reasonable to expect Mizzou plans on having Mitchell plugged in for at least that much next year. Most of those minutes were spent at the four, but plenty were at the five as well. Mizzou is likely going to try to keep Mark at the four a little more.
Jacob Crews will get another year thanks to Diego Pavia, he saw action in every game except for one and played 31.2% of the minutes. Then there’s Trent Pierce, the only other player higher than 20% minutes played at 41.25%. Pierce started 19 games, and despite being a more natural wing, played the bulk of his minutes as a small ball five or coupled with Mitchell at the four spot.
That’s not a bad four-some to start with, it’s an average of 35.2 points or over 40% of the team’s points from this past season, and two and a half starters.
But Missouri has 12 of their 15 spots taken up, and the only other known production on the roster next year is Porter.
Yes there is a group of freshmen who everyone seems to be pretty hopeful on their future, but not many minutes of extended playing time for any of them. Just 8% of the teams minutes last year were played by freshmen. The class was highly touted, but there were just a lot of guys ahead of them so it was hard to break through. Though the question remains of what an be expected from them?
Porter wasn’t the most productive in his efforts at LMU this past season, but he did play a lot of minutes. I would imagine Missouri is envisioning scaling back his minutes and usage a bit and use him in a similar way to Trent Pierce this past season. That move might allow Pierce to play a bit more on the wing, which is his more natural position.
Gates and Missouri may not fill all 15 spots, but I would think they’re at least in line for a couple more additions in the portal. Here’s a rough estimate of the depth as it stands today:
As you can probably guess, Missouri is looking for some guard help. Any of the point guards can flex into a CG spot, and you can flex Annor up to a CG is you’re pressed. It’s just ball handling gets shaky if you do that. There’s also room to add an experienced post player because the experience is light. Porter can play the five, so can Mitchell, but they’re both more natural in the four spot.
Consider this much, Missouri has swapped in one player after losing one to the portal. Jevon as a straight swap for Aidan Shaw makes some sense as he’s a little more polished offensively. Now to just figure out the guard rotation, and maybe bulk up around the rim?
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