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What's On
Nick Demien's high school highlight film.
According to Rivals, Demien was the most highly-rated member of Mizzou's most highly-rated recruiting class. Demien was one of seven four-star signees; the levels of success for the four-stars were mixed between "future difference-makers" (Kony Ealy, Marcus Lucas, James Franklin, Jimmie Hunt) and "never lived up to hype" (Demien, Tyler Gabbert, Tristen Holt), but the success among the high-three-stars was incredible: Henry Josey, E.J. Gaines, Mitch Morse, Marcus Murphy, Bud Sasser, Matt Hoch, Lucas Vincent. Goodness.
About nine months before that class signed, Mizzou had four players selected in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. Yesterday, PowerMizzou's Pete Scantlebury took a look at the relationship between Mizzou's draft success and recruiting success and found mixed results.
In the end, there are too many factors at play to determine which has the biggest impact in recruiting success. Missouri signed the nation's 25th-rated class in 2008, for instance, following a 2007 in which the Tigers were briefly ranked No. 1 and were one game away from playing in the national championship. But that also followed a draft class in which two players were picked, neither before the fourth round. [...]
Missouri's recruiting classes averaged a finish of 36th nationally, but the best recruiting years -- 31st overall in 2012 and 27th in 2015 -- also followed draft classes of at least three players, with some high picks (two first-rounders in 2011, two second-rounders in 2014). Missouri is again coming off a banner year with the NFL draft, and a very successful season to boot.
What's also on
Gary Pinkel got inducted into the MAC Hall of Fame last night.
Congrats to former @KentStFootball player & @ToledoFB coach @GaryPinkel on being inducted into the MAC Hall of Fame! pic.twitter.com/b4wlMsCVmg
— #MACtion (@MACSports) May 28, 2015
Toledo's Gary Pinkel inducted into MAC HOF. He's all-time leader in wins at both Toledo and now Missouri. pic.twitter.com/DBX7sWiwfj
— Hustle Belt (@HustleBelt) May 28, 2015
The (mostly positive) APR
The women's swimming and diving team, which earned an NCAA public recognition award last week for scoring in the top 10 percent of all programs in its sport, tied with Georgia for the lead in the SEC and earned a perfect 1,000 on its single-year and multiyear scores.
Missouri's men's indoor and outdoor track teams (988) also led the SEC and the wrestling team led the Mid-American Conference (986).
Softball (994) was second in the SEC and was one of 14 Missouri programs to earn a perfect 1,000 for the 2013-14 school year, along with men's cross country, golf, indoor and outdoor track and field, women's cross country, golf, gymnastics, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field and volleyball.
Post-Dispatch: Mizzou basketball APR tumbles
It’s the lowest multi-year APR score for the basketball program since the 2004-05 score of 938. The multi-year score is a rolling four-year average score that measures athlete retention and eligibility. Teams are subject to penalties if their four-year APR falls below 930. Missouri’s 851 score for 2013-14, the last of three seasons under the Frank Haith regime, will put the program in jeopardy of falling below the 930 mark next year. The team would have to produce a single-year score of 931 for 2014-15 to hit a four-year average of 930 next year.
Why the APR plunge for the 2013-14 Mizzou team? Seven scholarship players from that roster left the program before their eligibility expired. If they left in poor academic standing, that would further damage the team’s APR. Those players were Jabari Brown, Jordan Clarkson, Shane Rector, Torren Jones, Zach Price, Stefan Jankovic and Cameron Biedscheid.