St. Louis blue-chipper Torrence Watson commits to Mizzou

Sometimes things happen slowly, and then sometimes they happen quickly.

In the case of Torrence Watson and his family deciding on where he was going to play basketball in college, that decision happened a lot quicker than anticipated.

At 7:15 p.m., without a hint of what was coming, Watson tweeted the above image. In his previous tweet announcing his decommitment from Ohio State, he said he wanted to consider his options closer to home. Mizzou is the second closest major university to his high school, with only Saint Louis University being closer. Many experts, and myself, expected this to come down to Mizzou and SLU. It looks like the Tigers and Cuonzo Martin quickly won out.

If you haven’t heard much about Watson, you haven’t been listening to me much, but here’s a chance to catch up. Matt Harris and I discussed what type of player Watson is and could be in our most recent podcast:

From a scholarship standpoint this technically means Mizzou is set for 2018-19. However, as we’ve mentioned before, I don’t expect the Tigers to be done. With three committed wings, they’ve effectively accounted for the losses of Jordan Barnett and Kassius Robertson and the likely loss of Michael Porter Jr.

There is still work to be done, and we fully expect Missouri to add at least one or two more players before the recruiting class is wrapped up. We don’t have a full grasp on the Carte’Are Gordon situation, but this commitment on its own is huge. Watson is a St. Louis kid with a gigantic ceiling. He could be an all-conference level player by his junior year. He’s a superb athlete with good ball skills, elite lateral quickness, and wonderful technique and release on his jump shot.

Watson’s commitment could ostensibly help to open a recruiting pipeline from St. Louis to Columbia unlike anything we’ve ever seen. With a blossoming 2019 class still squarely in Martin’s sights, the city that has been nearly impossible for Mizzou to crack is suddenly breaking wide open. It started with Jeremiah Tilmon in the 2017 class, and it has continued with Javon Pickett and now Watson in 2018. Mario McKinney and E.J. Lidell could be in line for 2019, Caleb Love in 2020, and more.

Maybe the best part: SLU and Illinois have certainly got to be concerned about this run of Tiger recruiting success. It’s not really something they’ve had to worry about that much.