What we all want to see from Missouri Basketball in 2025

Missouri guard Marques Warrick (1) and Missouri guard Tamar Bates (2) celebrate Bates’s dunk in the first half of a game against Pacific on Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, at Mizzou Arena. (CAL TOBIAS/ROCK M NATION.)

As we flip to a new calendar year, what hopes and dreams are we imprinting on the Missouri Men’s Basketball Tigers?

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again but here we are. It’s January 1st. Which means it’s time for my annual look at what’s passed and what we hope the future my entail for our favorite college basketball team.

This piece is always an interesting exploration. Mostly because retrospective style pieces are geared towards a seasonal outlook versus a calendar year. But college basketball spends November through February playing to a small but passionate audience before capturing national attention during the month of March. The transfer portal has given some light towards early parts of the offseason, but for the better part of 11 months not many are paying attention.

And yet you can’t enjoy too much of March if you don’t take care of business from April all the way through to March. Missouri has already changed their profile dramatically from the end of last year. So how do they go about giving us all something to cheer for this March and then beyond? Let’s talk about it!

With 2024 in the rearview, let’s take a quick look at how Missouri performed against our hopes for the calendar year:

Recover from a bumpy start to the season — is losing every game to begin the calendar year considered a recovery? Hm. I don’t think so. If you’re an optimist you can point to the fact that Gates never lost the locker room and even though Mizzou was bad they were always competitive. But losing Caleb Grill and John Tonje to injury was just too much for that roster to overcome (did anyone notice that Tonje is averaging 19.2 ppg for Wisconsin so far this year?).
Keep the transfer portal (relatively) quiet — I actually think this was a big win. Mizzou made some noise in the portal, but it was the good kind of noise and they kept everyone they wanted to keep. Again another testament to Gates’ leadership at the end of last season. Tamar Bates came back, Trent Pierce and Anthony Robinson II both came back. Caleb Grill stuck around, so did Aidan Shaw. The only loss to the portal which you could question was Jordan Butler, and he was replaced with a better defender and a more rugged rebounder in Josh Gray. Then they went out and got a Mark Mitchell, a Tony Perkins, a Marques Warrick, and a Jacob Crews all who have been contributors to go along with an intriguing freshman class.
Build your 2025 class around Aaron Rowe — ehhhh, kinda. Rowe remained a fixture in the class while Gates and his staff added Nicholas Randall, a St. Louis native currently on the roster at Arizona Compass Prep. The staff took some big swings but ultimately couldn’t close on Davion Hannah or Jalen Haralson.
Start fast, beat kansas and Illinois — I don’t know if they started fast but they beat kU and nearly beat Illinois (I still think they should have). The season opening loss to Memphis stung a bit, and while the non-con scheduling left something to be desired the Tigers did take care of business and win every game they were supposed to.

So, as we turn the page on the 2024 calendar year let’s remember Missouri lost 20 straight games from January 6th through November 7th before beating Howard to begin a 10-game win streak. Illinois ended that streak, but the Tigers beat Alabama State to go 11-2 in the non-conference slate. 12-1 would have been ideal, but the win over kU at home is going to be remembered for a while by a lot of people.

For the Tigers, the SEC season looms large over a program with some level of uncertainty. On one hand, the SEC as a league is better than it’s ever been. The league features 4 teams in the top 10 in Kenpom.com, another three teams in the top 30, and 13 teams in the top 50. Currently only Missouri (52), LSU (57), and South Carolina (66) are outside of the top 50. Yes Missouri is vastly improved over a year ago, they’re currently 93 spots better in KenPom than where they finished a year ago. But they’re still 14th in the league based on the efficiency metrics.

Maybe you agree with me that the Tigers haven’t yet played their best basketball. They’ve shown flashes of being a menacing defensive team, they’ve shown the capability of knocking down threes AND attacking the rim and getting to the free throw line. At their best they can beat anyone (as evidenced by taking down the jayhawks).

The league should be chaos, and in the pertinent words of Petyr Baelish (Littlefinger in Game of Thrones), Chaos is a ladder. Is this Missouri team capable of making the climb?

Build an NCAA Tournament Resume

I’d certainly feel better with a win over Memphis or Illinois on the resume, but Missouri won’t hurt for opportunities in the forthcoming SEC slate. I mentioned above where the entire league is in the top 70 of KenPom. In the NET South Carolina is currently 88th, everyone is ranked 53rd or better. Remember, opponents at home in the top 30 are Quad 1, and Quad 2 is top 75. Road games are anyone inside the top 75 is a Q1 game, so every road game should end up being a Q1 game, and every home game at least a Q2.

Home games are: LSU, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky.

If the KenPom ratings hold that means only three games are Q1 in Kentucky, A&M and Alabama. Things can always change, but having 9 Q1 road games and 3 Q1 home games is 12 total. The end result here is Missouri is going to have to win on the road. Even if they win every game at home, that’s still only 4-11 in Q1.

Win a few road games and you can drop a game or two at home and still feel pretty good. The league is deep enough 9-9 should do it, 8-10 is getting dicey. Mizzou’s non-conference schedule didn’t help them build a big case, so they’re left to do work in the league. The formula is pretty simple. Hold serve at home, snag a few road games and you’re in the tournament.

Then, anything can happen if you’re in.

Have another expectedly quiet portal season

It’s been mentioned above how solid the Tigers were in the portal last year. It’s why they were able to rebound as quickly as they did from the awful season they had last year. Keeping and developing talent is key.

mizzou basketball roster scholarship count 12312024

I can sense the end of the COVID seasons upon us, just in time for the NCAA to basically tell any JUCO player that their years at a non-NCAA school don’t count! But at least we’re beginning to see a small sense of normalcy and fewer 24- and 25-year-old multiple master’s degree/PhD students hitting the floors for high major basketball teams.

Guys with their eligibility coming to a certain end this season are Josh Gray, Caleb Grill, Tony Perkins, and Marques Warrick. Tamar Bates is on his 4th year and hasn’t sat out any seasons yet, so the presumption is he’s done. Jacob Crews? Well, that’s certain up for debate.

Crews was born in July 2000 and finished high school in 2020. He played the 2020-21 season at North Florida which was the COVID impacted season, so it doesn’t count. Then the 2021-22 season he only played 9 games before entering the portal. He played the 2022-23 season at Daytona State, a JUCO which the NCAA is treating as if it’s a redshirt year now with the Pavia ruling, and then last season at UT-Martin. So Crews should be able to get at least one more season and possibly two if you apply for a hardship for the ‘22 season. With that possibility out there it’s not entirely known what Missouri might have coming back.

If Crews, Mitchell, and Shaw all return as seniors, Trent Pierce and Anthony Robinson II as juniors, and hopefully all five freshmen come back as sophomores… that’s the kind of continuity most programs would kill for. 10 returning players, plus two signees means you’d only have (at most) 5 newcomers. And that’s only if you went for as many as three players out of the portal.

Continuity is the reason why Gates is investing energy and resources into prep recruiting. Since roster turnover is expected this day in age and because I’m addicted to this stilly count, here is what each of the previous staffs have dealt with over the years:

2024 (Gates): 10 newcomers
2023 (Gates): 8 newcomers
2022 (Gates): 9 newcomers
2021 (Martin): 9 newcomers
2020 (Martin): 5 newcomers
2019 (Martin): 3 newcomers
2018 (Martin): 6 newcomers
2017 (Martin): 6 newcomers
2016 (Anderson): 7 newcomers
2015 (Anderson): 6 newcomers
2014 (Anderson): 6 newcomers
2013 (Haith): 8 newcomers
2012 (Haith): 8 newcomers

One of the gambles with the 5-man freshman class this year was to keep those younger guys engaged and building the program. As rosters are allowed to expand now towards 15 scholarship players, keeping developmental players engaged is tougher than ever. Gates and his staff did that with Robinson and Pierce. The 2025 recruiting class are both long term players. Keeping all five freshmen would really lay a solid foundation of talent for this program.

Build another foundational 2026 recruiting class, and beyond?

Obviously landing higher level recruits has helped build up the core of the roster, and in the 2025 class Gates has two more good players coming in. The two-man class was small, and it will probably be a while before Gates puts together another 5-man class, but a 3-4 man signing class is possible each year. You’re not going to spend too much time on guys who will just fill out a roster, but Gates and co. believe in their development.

Missouri would have gone to three this past fall if they’d have been able to land someone like Hannah or Haralson. But there’s no reason to take a third just to take one.

Names to keep an eye on are J.J. Andrews, Aidan Chronister, Sheek Pearson, Tristan Reed, and Ethan Taylor.

Win back Braggin’ Rights, burn down Phog, play a better non-con

The satisfaction of beating kU is perhaps only topped by the satisfaction of beating kU in Phog Allen Fieldhouse. Missouri hasn’t won at Phog Allen since Norm Stewart’s last year as head coach. That was 1999! It was also the first of two consecutive wins against kansas, the last time Missouri beat kansas twice in a row.

So winning next season in Phog would be an excellent two-for by winning the first game this century and the first two-game win streak in nearly 25 years.

Also, beat Illinois. Because beating Illinois is fun.

More than that, though, I think Missouri needs to conjure up a non-conference schedule that’s far more interesting than the one we’ve watched this year. 10 non-conference quad 4 games all at home is just a bit too much.

As the program grows, the schedule needs to improve. As an analyst I understand you need a balance of games where you can work out the kinks and expand your lineups and all that. But if you’ve got 10 returners and a couple of transfers the amount of spin up time you need to figure out rotations should be greatly reduced.

In that case, schedule better. I’m not saying every game needs to be a Q1 game but maybe some more challenging games at home. But when it comes to what we want? This is the last piece. Grow into the kind of program that can schedule better games.

I’m a believer in Dennis Gates. He’s shown he can develop. He’s shown he can win big games. He’s shown he can recruit. Now with all those things working, and hopefully a really good start to 2025, he can start to schedule a little better.

It feels like they’re making progress. Just keeping making progress.