R.I.P. Mizzou Basketball 2023-24

Virtually every basketball season ends with a loss. No matter the level, the playoffs determine that one team wins and one goes home until the last game. It’s not often they end with 19 consecutive losses, but that’s exactly how Missouri ended their 2023-24 campaign.

I’ve never seen a season like this one before. We sat through three seasons of Kim Anderson, and even he found a way to win a few games a season. Cuonzo Martin threw together a weird roster on his way to getting fired a couple years ago and that team was awful and they still won 5 games. Missouri put themselves in position to win 12 times in their final 19 losses, and they came up empty each time. That’s really statistically improbable. Not impossible, but Mizzou just proved you could do it.

This isn’t a post to convince you this was a good team. They aren’t, or now weren’t.

But they deserved better.

They didn’t deserve to lose all those games. Sean East II, Noah Carter, Nick Honor. Those three especially. All played a big role on a team that won so many games in improbable fashion. They didn’t have to return for another season and chose to do so, hoping to continue to help Dennis Gates rebuild Missouri Basketball. Their reward was finishing last in the SEC, and last in KenPom.com ‘s luck factor, and bottoming out in what looked like a return to year zero.

Poor luck extended off the court as well. Gates’ first portal commitment in the spring, John Tonje, injured his foot and had offseason surgery. He never returned to form and looked uncomfortable on the floor whenever he entered the game. Then the second most heralded portal commitment, Caleb Grill, broke his wrist when the team was 7-2. Grill would not see the floor again. Top rated freshmen Trent Pierce fell sick and missed 10 games. East missed two games. Connor Vanover missed 8 games. Only four players saw action in every one of 32 games: Carter, Honor, Aidan Shaw, and Tamar Bates.

And you could tell as the roster rotations were a mess for most of the season. 12 different Tigers started a game, but only four cleared 40% of the minutes played. Portal additions, for the most part, didn’t live up to the billing. Leaving the returning players to pick up the slack, and that was far too big of an ask. They were all good role players on a good team, and ended up being good players on a bad team.

A doomed recipe, night after night

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The lack of depth within the rotation led to Missouri finding themselves competitive on most nights. But rarely deep enough, or offensively skilled enough to break through. They shot under 32% from three this year, good for 11th in the SEC. That’s just one year removed from leading the league in shooting. It was a recipe we saw unfold night after night. Mizzou would be within a possession or two late in the 2nd half, sometimes even leading. But inevitably they fell. It even happened against Georgia, in perhaps the most cruel fashion yet. Mizzou led 59-52 with 3:30 to play in the game. They would fail to score a point the rest of the way. They lost 64-59.

For everything that went right last year, it turned around and went wrong this one. I said this last year in this same piece: “But outside of the ending, I’m not sure you could really script a better start to the Dennis Gates era.”

If last season was a fantasy, this season was a horror. The script was flipped completely to the point where we’ve felt starved for good news over the better part of three months. Even Aaron Rowe’s commitment feels like a lifetime ago, it was December 12th.

So what comes next?

A LOT of change.

Adidas/3SSB

Annor Boateng leads a top five ranked freshmen class to Columbia. Him, and four other four star recruits land this summer. But outside of that there are no guarantees.

We know who will be gone for sure thanks to East, Honor, Carter, and Vanover all having expiring eligibility. They’re gone. But while Grill and Tonje are in their 5th year both could apply for medical redshirts. Curt Lewis and Jesus Carralero Martin both graduated and could transfer. Aidan Shaw could transfer, so could all three freshmen, so could Bates.

The last five (Shaw, Anthony Robinson, Jordan Butler, Pierce and Bates) are all expected back.

But in the transfer portal era anything is possible.

Any of them could leave, none of them could leave, but what’s likely is some will and some won’t.

The best info we have right now seems to be that the freshmen should all be back and Tamar will as well. It might just be up to Aidan on what he wants to do. But the exit interviews will happen soon and then if there are any surprises I would guess we’ll hear about them soon enough.

None of that really changes what this program needs, however

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The transfer portal has made more rosters and sank more rosters than any other thing in College Basketball the last few seasons. Maneuver the portal well and you can turn around your fortunes in a blink. Miss and you can sink your season fast.

Dennis Gates knows what he has now. 8 young players in the freshmen and sophomore classes for next season, plus one reliable veteran scoring presence in Tamar Bates. It’s not easy going into the spring portal period knowing you need 3-4 starting level players if you want to compete for an NCAA Tournament berth next season. But that’s the situation.

More than anything, this team needs players who can score the ball. They need to replace ball handling, and they need to find some shooting. Oh and if they can find a consistent big man that would be great as well!

There’s still real reason to feel hopeful for the future of Mizzou Basketball. A season like this one would have killed a hundred locker rooms, but Missouri stuck together. That leadership, the connectedness that East, Honor, and Carter showed this season should be admired because it can help set the tone for future seasons. Young and impressionable players can see them focusing on the task at hand and learn to do the same. So when the fortunes do turn, and they will, you don’t take it for granted.

The players (mostly) did their part. It’s time for the staff and the NIL office, to do the rest. If Mizzou can play their hand right, there is no reason why this post can’t be a bit happier (and posted a bit later) next year.

I wrapped last seasons post with this quote: Mizzou Basketball feels like it’s back. But as Ian Fleming said, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” You have to do it again.

They did not do it again. This season was a failure. After year one, we’ll call it happenstance.