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When you take a player as late as Missouri took Christian Guess, everything needs to go perfectly for it to work out. Unfortunately for Missouri and for Guess, things didn’t go perfectly as the 3-star wing elected to transfer after playing just seven minutes in one game and amassing three fouls during the first segment of the season.
For Guess, we wish him the best of luck. It sounds like he took care of everything he needed to with his academics, and gave himself an opportunity to get away from home and give his talent a shot. Unfortunately for him he was playing catchup from the start, and behind the Tigers young group of wings, wasn’t able to carve out a role on a young but surging team.
For Missouri they took a risk. It was a low risk, but they opted to give a kid a shot and see what materialized. Coming into the season there were a lot of questions about the wing position as Cuonzo Martin was trying to replace Kassius Robertson and Jordan Barnett’s shot making, and weren’t sure if either Dru Smith or Mark Smith were going to be eligible after transferring. The list going into the season was long on unproven guys. So why not throw one more player at the hole and see what plays out.
What played out was Mark Smith being granted the chance to play, Javon Pickett stepping up and Torrence Watson showing enough flashes to bury Guess in a spot where he was considered for a redshirt. Instead he opted to transfer.
Cuonzo says Christian Guess no longer part of Missouri's program. "Mutual respect" in helping him find another program.
— Colin O’Brien (@cpatobrien) December 29, 2018
Post-game today Martin didn’t frame the situation as anything Missouri or Guess did wrong. As I said above each took a chance and it didn’t work out.
Moving forward, how does this impact the Scholarship situation?
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Immediately Missouri could take a mid-season transfer or wait to use the additional scholarship on the 2019-20 class. As always there could be some graduate transfers available in the spring, and there’s a chance to take a look at additional transfers or players becoming available in the spring after coaching movement.
For now we’ll keep a close eye on the recruiting side to see how the rest of the season progresses.