Catching Up On Mizzou Basketball Recruiting: May 2015 Edition

Mizzou is wrapping up their 2015 class... we think. There's still a possibility of a transfer and Mizzou is recruiting the 2015 class as if they're prepared to take two more in case there is one defection.

Some quick hitters on past names as we get started:

• If you missed it, Thomas Bryant didn't commit to Missouri. He signed on to play at Indiana.
• I can't recall if I mentioned it here or not but Levi Cook tore his ACL and is planning on playing this upcoming season at Elev8 Prep in Florida.
• Kyle Meyer, the 6'10 JUCO from Florida pledged to play at Houston.
• Top JUCO target Mychal Mulder signed with Kentucky.
• Tyson Jolly is headed to Cal, along with Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown. That's a heck of a recruiting class for Cuonzo Martin at Cal.
• 5th year senior Mike Thorne Jr picked Illinois, he never seriously considered Mizzou.
• Lukas Meisner is headed to COLUMBIA (University)!
• DeQuon Miller signed his LOI with Missouri State.
• Last, in a very interesting bit of news, LaGerald Vick reopened his recruitment, and is considering reclassifying to 2015. This is interesting because Mizzou was starting to get involved with Vick before he reclassified to 2016 and pledged to SMU. Now all of that is up in the air. I won't put him on the list until we gather more info though.

If there are any names I missed, just leave a comment below and I'll answer as best I know.

At this point it doesn't appear that Mizzou is still in good position with Kobie Eubanks, whether that is Mizzou's doing or Eubanks it's unclear but Mizzou moved on a bit a month or so ago and focused their attention on another guy. That guy is K.J. Walton. Mizzou is close with Walton, he's coming in for a visit this weekend and some think he may commit on the trip. We haven't talked about Walton yet because he's come up late. So let's give him the whole RMN treatment:

K.J. Walton, 6-3, 175 lb, 4-star SG, Brownsburg, IN

The Lowdown: Walton is a bit of a curious case. As a 4-star wing you would think that he would be in pretty high demand. However, some qualification concerns were the most likely cause for him not being heavily recruited to this point. Mizzou has been in the picture for a while but only started heavily recruiting Walton in the last few months, and Walton has spoken out about his close relationship with Coach Fulford. All of this has led a lot of people to believe that he'll commit when he's on his trip. Walton has been compared to former Tiger J.T. Tiller (and not just because they both have an initialed first name) in that he's a tough wing who defends hard and isn't a great shooter. Although he's been said to have a better shot than Tiller. Walton's Crystal Ball picks are 50/50 right now, but the last three picks have gone to Mizzou. That's good news for the Tigers.

So IF Walton commits that would leave Mizzou with zero scholarships available heading into the 2015-16 season. I'm not entirely convinced that will be the case overall, but it would leave the roster looking like this:

That's a pretty solid recruiting class with two top 150 players and two in-state 3-star guys to go with a couple JUCO players who are going to be counted on to help immediately. If there are any other defections, Mizzou is also recruiting Kyle Alexander, from Orangeville Prep in Ontario, Canada. We talked about Kyle in the February Edition, and Mizzou has still yet to have him on campus. Alexander hasn't taken that many visits, having already been to Tennessee and New Mexico, and the coaching staff are working on getting him to Mizzou sometime soon.

We haven't talked about the 2016 class much, other than a couple discussions on Jayson Tatum, so let's move on to that class a bit. Technically Mizzou has 1 scholarship opening up with the graduation of Ryan Rosburg. Now, I tend to think that there is likely to be more roster turmoil and more than just the one scholarship will be available. Ideally, Mizzou would like to have at least two scholarships available because they want to target two very highly rated players that I've mentioned before: Tyler Cook and Xavier Sneed.

2016!

Anyway, let's start with a big look at the list for 2016.

Mizzou 2016 Recruiting Hot Board
Player	State	Rating	Rivals	247Sports	Ht	Wt	Offer	Status
POINT GUARDS
Kobi Simmons	GA		12	16	6'5	175	X	cool
C.J. Walker	IN		148	137	6'0	180	X	warm
Bryce Aiken	NJ		130	123	6'0	160		cool
COMBO GUARDS
Jamal Murray	INT		15	9	6'4	180	X	cool
Curtis Jones	VA		54	34	6'3	170	X	hot
Eric Hester	FL		59	86	6'3	175	X	warm
Zeke Moore	MO	-	-	-	6'6	175		cool
WINGS
Jayson Tatum	MO		3	4	6'8	205	X	Out of top 4
Joshua Langford	AL		17	15	6'6	200	X	cool
Miles Bridges	MI		27	40	6'6	225	X	cool
Kyle Guy	IN		58	62	6'2	165	X	Committed to Virginia
Xavier Sneed	MO		80	-	6'5	180	X	hot
COMBO FORWARDS
Braxton Blackwell	TN		33	20	6'7	205	X	cool
Troy Baxter	FL		127	84	6'9	180	X	Committed to S. Florida
POST PLAYERS
Tyler Cook	MO		79	71	6'8	240	X	hot
Nolan Narain	IN		65	68	6'9	230	X	Committed to San Diego St
Nick Ward	OH		69	68	6'9	230	X	Committed to Michigan St
James Banks	GA		100	48	6'10	230	X	warm
Joey Brunk	IN		138	150	6'10	230	X	cool
Barrett Benson	IL		89	96	6'9	245		cool
Reed Nikko	MN	-	-	-	6'9	210	X	warm
Jeriah Horne	MO	-	-	-	6'6	220		cool

This is the new recruiting hot board, which you can always access here:

Mizzou Basketball Recruiting Hot Board

On that page I've got the 2016, 2017 and 2018 classes up and available. For this post I'll be focusing on the 2016 class and going a little deeper into the roster makeup and how things might potentially shake out in the future. The page that we created to track the offers and commitments is something that you'll always be able to check to see who Mizzou is tracking for the next few classes.

For now, a quick rundown of who these 2016 guys are. Everyone from our original look at 2016 is still on the list to varying degrees (and minus Thon Maker who reclassified to 2015). Most of the top players that Mizzou offered last summer have cooled on the Tigers after the poor year on the court. Fortunately for Mizzou, however is that they don't need 5 or more guys in the 2016 class. They currently have one senior graduating in Ryan Rosburg, and I would expect to lose one or two more players over the next year through regular attrition, which would leave open 3 scholarships at the most. The Tigers are obviously covering their bases with so many outstanding offers still there, but the top targets are a post and a wing player.

The top post on Mizzou's list is Tyler Cook. Cook is somebody that we've talked about since the inaugural 2016 post went up last summer. The soon-to-be announced hire of Corey Tate as the next assistant is going to hopefully solidify Mizzou's chances of landing Cook, as Tate (who has coached the St. Louis Eagles for years) and Tyler's family are close. Mizzou has worked hard to make sure Tyler knows he's a top priority, and it looks like it's worked, as most of the prognosticators at 247Sports seem think Cook is headed to Mizzou.

Next on the Tigers list is Xavier Sneed. He is at the top of their priority list, and a guy who is fast rising the charts. Sneed doesn't have a 247profile as a basketball player, but Rivals has him ranked as a 4-star and 80th best player in the country. Sneed isn't quite the sure thing that Cook is, but landing Cook could help with Sneed. Both play for the Eagles and you could see the Tate hire coming in to play here as well. SLU, Illinois, Xavier and Cincinnati are challengers there as well.

Mizzou also has a strong interest in Curtis Jones, the combo guard from Huntington Prep. Jones has family in the St. Louis area and apparently his grandmother is a Mizzou alum. Couple that with the HP connection with Coach Fulford, and the fact that Jones has already unofficially visited Mizzou, and it's easy to see why the Tigers might be a darkhorse for his services. I do believe it might be tough to pry him out of the east coach though. And the Crystal Ball agrees.

After those three, everything else is pretty timid. I can see Mizzou taking an extra big if the need arises, and even a point guard if someone bolts unexpectedly. I think James Banks is probably next in line right now after Cook, and I think Mizzou really likes Eric Hester a lot. Reed Nikko is an interesting new offer as well, Mizzou is his biggest offer to date, but he does have a lot of Big 10 schools sniffing around. We'll see how this all changes over the summer, there are some potential connections with international players along with a transfer or two that could pop up, and we'll be on top of it as always.