Scholarship Math: Dennis Gates is putting together a top 5 recruiting class

If you somehow missed the big news, the long courtship of 247sports.com composite 5-star wing Annor Boateng came to a completion on Friday when the Arkansas native pledged a commitment to Dennis Gates and Missouri.

As Matt Harris detailed, the commitment was no small feat. If anything I don’t think he went far enough in giving credit to Mizzou for outpacing Arkansas on this one. I’m sure the word from the Hog fanbase will be what Harris said, they prioritized other wings. In reality, I think what happened is that they figured they could turn on the burners at any minute and dust the Tigers. But when Boateng left Fayetteville after his official visit and the needle remained unmoved, the reality set in. Which was that the relationship Kyle Smithpeters and Dennis Gates built with Boateng and his family was a strong one. And any school was going to face an uphill battle in landing Annor’s commitment if it were going to be over Missouri.

Right now, Boateng is 26th in the new 247sports composite, and the lowest-ranked 5-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class. He’s ranked 17th by On3, 23rd by Rivals, 30th by ESPN, and 41st by 247sports. What’s interesting about all these is he’s rated a 4 star by each service but the ranking averages are enough to bump him to a 5 star in the 247 composite.

Boateng’s addition to the 2024 recruiting class moved into the top spot for the 247sports class rankings, ahead of North Carolina, Duke, Rutgers, and Miami. Both Duke and UNC have two 5-star players committed, and 15 of the 26 composite 5-star players are still uncommitted. Their best case scenario for Mizzou finishing this class out is with a commitment from Jayden Quaintance, a 5-star currently ranked 7th in the composite.

The handy class calculator would put the class rating with Quaintance at 68.60. That would’ve ranked 3rd last year, 4th in 2022, and 7th in 2021. So the worst case is still a top 10 class. Which is about where they’d still land without Quaintance. So while the class ranking is a fun metric at the moment, let’s see where they end up. In the meantime, we will also spend our time looking at how these players will fit into the roster. Which you all know is more about what we do here.

SCHOLARSHIP MATHS

The online roster has been posted (and updated) which provides clarity on where some of the guys fall in their class. Conner Vanover, John Tonje, Sean East II, Noah Cater, Caleb Grill, and Nick Honor are all listed as graduate seniors, which was to be expected. Both Mabor Majak and Jesus Carralero Martin are listed as seniors. Kaleb Brown, Tamar Bates and Curt Lewis are listed as juniors. Aidan Shaw is the sophomore and Jordan Butler, Trent Pierce, and Anthony Robinson II are all freshmen, also as expected.

Perhaps the only clarification is Carralero, who is going by Carralero Martin per his listed roster name. We’ll honor that. The online bio page for Carralero Martin lists him with two years of eligibility remaining. Going forward we’re going to list any players on the graphic as the year they’re listed (as much as possible). As the COVID seasons run out things will return to normal. But in the meantime I’ve made a few tweaks to the graphics.

That’s right! Adding a graduate senior color and going from there is my new big move. The idea here is a graduate senior has no eligibility left, a senior still might have eligibility left. And hopefully, as we lose the extra COVID years we can just go back to the old ways and colors. I’m taking advice here on whether we should just approach the scholarship count as the roster count moving forward and include the walk-ons. It used to be helpful to count scholarships as each program is allotted 13, but with NIL being able to cover the cost of a scholarship, Missouri isn’t the only school approaching roster construction this way.

Arkansas accepted the commitment of Washington transfer Keyon Menifield this past spring and he’s now not on scholarship and redshirting the season. Menifield is getting his school paid for through NIL. It was just announced he was technically a walk-on whereas Mizzou hasn’t announced anyone as a walk-on or a scholarship player. So here’s the whole roster...

There are 18 players on the roster. 6 players have expiring eligibility which means Mizzou is likely looking to fill 6 spots, and now there are four commitments. As of now, there are 16 slots taken up. Looking at the roster you can estimate we’re at about 12 or 13 non-walk-on spots. This doesn't leave a ton of room if you’re looking at 15 spots of scholarship + extra.

15 is the limit for how many players can play in a basketball game. You can dress more but only 15 can get in. For some context Missouri at 18 isn’t the high in the league, Auburn has 19, and I know in 2020 they carried 20. Most carry around 15-17 when you consider walk ons. There are two remaining decisions we are keeping a close eye on for the remaining spots in the 2024 class and that’s Trent Burns and Jayden Quaintance.

Burns announces on Friday, there seems to be an expectation he’ll join the Missouri class when that happens. Quaintance may be a longer haul, but I think Dennis Gates is on board to add both, since Burns is a bit more of a development big like Jordan Butler, and Quaintance is ready to roll when he hits the floor.

If they add both that’s a big tall roster with a big tall class of players, and notably not a lot of guards. I’d think you’d have to consider T.O. Barrett a point guard, Annor Boateng a combo guard, Marcus Allen a true wing, and Quaintance likely more of a combo forward. But there are also not a lot of guards outside of the 2024 class, either. Anthony Robinson is a point guard, and then Barrett. It’ll be an interesting adjustment from going from two rosters chock full of ball handlers to one with a noticeable lack of them.

Either way, this class is turning into a pretty huge deal. Gates seems to be putting the rest of the SEC on notice that he’s not here to play around.