Missouri Basketball: Cuonzo Martin assembled the Tigers’ best recruiting class
Missouri basketball coach Cuonzo Martin has assembled the Tigers’ best recruiting class in less than two months that he’s been on the job.
Once Martin hired Michael Porter, Sr., then Michael Porter, Jr. flipped his commitment from Washington to Mizzou. After that, the rest of the pieces began falling in place.
Martin’s small gesture of offering a coaching assistant’s job to the elder Porter, created an avalanche of success in Missouri’s 2017 recruiting class, which recently received a commitment from Jontay Porter.
The now seventh-ranked recruiting class has the potential to break into the top five, and rub elbows with the likes of UCLA and Alabama.
Missouri Tigers Basketball
The question remains, how does this year’s recruiting class rate against previous Missouri recruiting classes? Going forward, will Martin be able to keep up this level of recruiting success?
Baseball
Wednesday night, Missouri fell to the LSU Tigers in the second round of the SEC Tournament.
While LSU will move into the winner’s round, Mizzou is scheduled to play a familiar opponent in South Carolina.
In order to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive, Mizzou is now in a dire situation to win.
Wednesday night’s game experienced multiple rain delays, which may have kept Missouri from finding a rhythm. On the other hand, they were pitted against the No. 2 team in the conference.
Head coach Steve Bieser stated that his Tigers were simply outplayed by a tough opponent.
"Obviously for us it was just a tough one tonight. We got outplayed. I thought last night (the delay) was tougher because we were on a roll and had to stop. Tonight I thought it came at a good time for us. It kind of slowed them down and gave us a little bit of time to regroup. As a true competitor, you can’t make excuses because that’s part of the game. We just didn’t respond very well tonight. That’s about as simple as I can put it. We didn’t come back out and respond."
Missouri faces the Gamecocks at 1:30 this afternoon, and it can be seen on SEC Network, or heard on KTGR.
Athletics to improve enrollment
the University of Missouri is in the midst of an enrollment slump. While the now infamous protests of 2015 did no favors for the university’s reputation, enrollment is experiencing a downturn throughout higher education.
Athletic Director Jim Sterk believes that if the athletics programs are able to sustain a high level of success, it will improve the university’s enrollment numbers.
"We have a role to play, and I think success with basketball and football are the most visible. We’re sitting 15th in the country in the Learfield Cup. Those are good things that people are seeing, not only just in the state, but across the country. … Overall, we can help it come back, and I think we’ve started to help it come back."
We would certainly love to see enrollment increase for Missouri, and if it occurs as a result of the success from the university’s athletics programs, then that would also be a major boost for students’ and fans’ morale.
Football
Missouri’s recruiting efforts on the football field continue to falter, as more of the “Tiger 10” committed to play football elsewhere.
The word among fans is that this is a make or break season for head coach Barry Odom, and with the higher-end recruits escaping the borders of Missouri, his future is looking bleak.
Hopefully a successful football season is on the horizon, and wins will soothe the naysayers. All Missouri needs is six wins to become bowl eligible, and the Tigers have a favorable schedule.
Former Tigers defensive end Charles Harris signed his rookie deal with the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday.
Expected to play a significant role in the Dolphins’ pass-rush, Harris is tabbed to be the eventual successor of Pro Bowler Cameron Wake, who is 35 years old.