The Missouri Tigers allowed a middling mid-major team to run them off their home court Monday night.
The Kansas City Roos were hired to provide a tuneup game, but they dominated the Tigers from start to finish instead. Their 80-66 upset will leave a permanent mark.
Mizzou’s roster reveal in the past week — the unveiling of four transfers and their five-player freshman class — became a ratings flop. This dismal impression clouded the program’s big picture as coach Cuonzo Martin starts his fifth season.
The Missouri athletics department must boost basketball ticket revenue to get its finances in line and this start is not going to help.
Every major national media outlet pegged the Tigers as also-rans with their preseason projections. Missouri’s uneven opening victory over Central Michigan did little to lift expectations.
Then this blowout happened. The Tigers failed to defend at one end and they struggled to run their half-court offense at the other.
A daunting non-conference schedule awaits them and Southeastern Conference play will feature treacherous competitive depth. Truman has every reason to fret about where things are headed with Martin.
Yes, he gained standing at Missouri during his first four years. He pulled the program from the Kim Anderson morass and banked two NCAA Tournament berths.
Missouri athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois knows Martin well. She appreciates his integrity and acknowledges the respect he commands from peers.
She also knows his contract virtually guarantees him a sixth season, so expect her to remain patient. But Missouri’s perplexing fade in 2020-21 and its hasty Big Dance exit kept Martin from building more equity.
So now he has work to do.
Painful early-season losses give coaches material to work with. Martin gained about 15 credit hours’ worth of teaching opportunity during Monday's fiasco.
“It will certainly help us,” he said. “Because the painful lesson, you have to understand it, go through it, watch the film on it. I think our guys will see.”
Well, they better. The college basketball industry underwent a dramatic reset that created new rules of engagement. The Tigers must prove they can flourish in this environment.
Wholesale transfers became the new normal, allowing teams to quickly rebuild their rosters … or lose lots of essential talent, if they are trending the wrong way.
Also, name, image and likeness sales allow honest programs to pay players above the table and compete on even terms with LSUs and Auburns of the world.
Martin will be judged on how he fares under these new conditions.
Martin’s first foray into this transfer market yielded guards Boogie Coleman, Amari Davis and DaJuan Gordon and forward Ronnie DeGray III. Each will play a key role this season and each could help beyond this campaign.
But will any of them make a Dru Smith-like impact?
Martin has secured one four-star signing for 2022-23 under NIL rules, forward Aidan Shaw. Will that start a trend or will Shaw stand as an outlier signing?
Before the NIL rules hit, Martin signed a ’21 freshman class that offered some long-term promise but not much near-term support. Such classes have lost value in today's frantic environment.
Guard Anton Brookshire looks like a building block. His performance against Kansas City was mixed: Two nice drives to the basket, three missed 3-pointers, two turnovers, one assist. But he kept coming.
Athletic big man Yaya Keita remains a mystery as he returns from a knee injury that cost him his senior high school season. Keita made just a cameo appearance against the Roos with Martin opting to use a small lineup.
High-flying forward Trevon Brazile arrived with much long-term upside, but he has been shelved by illness. Wing player Sean Durugordon hasn’t cracked the rotation despite practicing with the team for a semester last season and Kaleb (brother of Kobe) Brown looks like the odd man out of the crowded backcourt.
In the old days, a coach had three years to turn such recruits into regulars. Today’s players often lack the patience to invest that much time — and coaches face intense year-to-year pressure to produce.
This explains why the Tigers wanted to host potential midseason transfer Tre King for an official visit this week. King, a 6-foot-9, 225-pound center/forward, averaged 14.9 points and 6.2 rebounds in his third season at Eastern Kentucky.
He made a brief stop at Georgetown this year before reentering the transfer portal. He visited Wichita State last weekend, he will visit Iowa State this weekend and he will decide where to land at the semester break.
King is exactly the sort of asset Martin had to land for this season’s team. But he failed, which left Missouri with a roster overstocked with combo guards and wings and short on SEC-caliber inside presence.
So Martin must work with what he has to salvage this season, write a happier storyline, and set the foundation for a Big Dance bid in 2023 — when he could face the win-or-else challenge that will define his regime.
