Akira Levy, say it ain’t so!

The obvious part of losing one of your better players, Levy’s ACL injury aside, isn’t great. Dave Matter reached out to Levy and here’s what she had to say:

“Mizzou is great but I would just like to play faster,” Levy said in a Twitter direct message. Levy, who averaged 4.8 points and 2.1 assists per game, said she has a few options for new schools but declined to disclose where she’s considering.

Missouri isn’t exactly known for their quick pace of play, and Levy made them more fun because she was a lightning bolt on the floor. Not always in control, but always playing with energy and always in attack mode. Levy was likely slated to play major minutes next season and now leaves a bit of a hole in the roster for an athletic point guard.

Levy marks the fourth transfer over the past season. Kelsey Winfrey transferred to Drury, Grace Berg transferred to Drake, and Emmanuelle Tahane chose Rhode Island. The last three were having trouble cracking the lineup with consistent enough minutes, but Levy played solid minutes... so she appears to the only one to choose to transfer due to style of play.

How Robin Pingeton forms the rest of the roster will be an interesting exercise to watch. Here’s the scholarship count so far (keep in mind women’s teams can have 15 scholarship players versus the mens 13):

• Amber Smith — Senior Forward
• Hannah Schuchts — Senior Forward
• Jordon Chavis — Senior Guard
• Jordon Roundtree — Senior Guard
• Shug Dickson — Junior Guard*
• Nadia Green — Junior Guard
• Elle Brown — Junior Guard
• LaDazhia Williams — Junior Forward*
• Haley Troup — Sophomore Guard
• Brittany Garner — R-Freshman Forward
• Aijha Blackwell — Freshman Guard
• Hayley Frank — Freshman Guard
• Micah Linthacom — Freshman Forward

That’s 13 scholarships, so Missouri has two remaining. I’ve starred Dickson and Williams because we aren’t sure if they’ll sit or not. Who knows with transfers these days, but obviously getting Dickson eligible to play would help out the Tigers a LOT at the point guard position.

Either way Pingeton has a lot of production to replace next year, but there are some intriguing names on the list and a talented freshman class on top of it all. Either way good luck to Akira as she moves on.

Over the weekend at Rock M

More Links:

• I’m sure more nuanced football minds than me can tell you Missouri should be pretty good this year, but there is only one national football mind we care about in these parts and he did a tweet:

Clearly that means Missouri is going to WIN 10 games right? Win probability and statistics be DAMNED I say!

• It doesn’t ALL have to be #Lou2TheZou, we like Kansas City a lot as well:

• Top 2020 Mizzou Basketball target Caleb Love was offered by that school to the west. I tend to think they’re jumping on a little late when he’s already really interested in other blue bloods like UNC, Louisville, and Indiana already have the upper hand on Love, Virginia has a visit scheduled and Missouri is in as deep as they can get.
• So the Blues winning on their home ice would’ve been nice and all but maybe they lost on purpose because Boston sucks so much they wanted to steamroll them in Boston. That’s it right?