Scholarship Math: The numbers don’t add up

It’s been a busy week. Coming off the first big recruiting weekend of the Dennis Gates era we’ve been busy around here.

• Monday: Tre Gomillion commits
• Tuesday: Noah Carter commits
• Wednesday: nothing...

Yeah Wednesday was weird. Maybe today brings something... well something non-Nutt related.

As Gates continues to remake this roster in his own vision, we’re trying to figure out exactly what the finished product is going to look like. Following Cuonzo Martin and his roster building, things were much more straightforward; Gates is still a bit of a mystery.

But after two commitments, Mizzou is technically down to just one scholarship remaining.

We’ve done these type of roster math posts for years, and the scholarship graphic has been an ongoing thing for as long as I’ve written basketball posts around here. The last five years Cuonzo Martin has gone through some extreme lengths to not over-sign. But even if he was getting close, it didn’t really feel like we were ever in this situation— where there are clearly more players than there are spots.

Even in his roster turnover year, there were clearly players who were leaving the roster and they left the roster before others signed on. In fact, this time of year after Kim Anderson was fired, Mizzou had two scholarships open with both Jeremiah Tilmon and Jontay Porter yet to commit and Jakoby Kemp still on the roster.

Right now it feels like there are 3-4 different players who could commit to Mizzou and just one scholarship remaining. And if you’ve also followed my writing well enough, you know I don’t really like to speculate on who might leave because it feels like an attempt to push someone off the roster.

That being said, I don’t think Gates is adding just one more scholarship player. So let’s look at this in a few different ways.

HOLDOVERS:

• SR — CF — Kobe Brown
• SR — CG — Jarron ‘Boogie’ Coleman
• SR — CG — Amari Davis
• JR — CF — Ronnie DeGray III
• SO — POST — Yaya Keita
• SO — CG — Kaleb Brown

Players who have not entered the transfer portal following the exit of their previous head coach include three players who had previously transferred, and three who originally signed with Missouri. There are three players with ball-handling experience, but no real point guards, some bigger wings, and a post.

I’m not going to include either Aidan Shaw or Christian Jones here since Aidan has re-upped and Jones has been quiet. Both players fit with what Gates likes to do.

NEWCOMERS:

• SR — CG — Tre Gomillion
• SR — WING — Deandre Gholston
• JR — CF — Noah Carter
• SO — POST — Mohamed Diarra

Plus, we can add in Aidan Shaw and potentially Jones (I’m going to hem and haw over Jones until we hear something concrete). Still, we’re shy true ball handlers. I’ve listed Tre Gomillion as a ball handler, but that might be generous. We also still think it’s a very likely possibility Sean East comes on board and soon. That would technically leave Missouri with a full roster. And just one real point guard.

And that’s after Dylan Penn, Jason Roche, and Connor Turnbull have all been in contact with the coaching staff, and they’re still in contact with other transfers and potentially more high school players.

Something is going to give here. And then Gates tweeted this today:

So another addition coming tonight (or early tomorrow). Maybe it’s East, and Gates & Company are done for the spring.

But something tells me we haven’t had our last Roster Math post. And even with that, it seems unlikely this is the last one where the numbers don’t quite add up.