Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Eli Hoff in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
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Eli Ǵڴ:Happy Thursday, all, and welcome to our weekly Mizzou chat. As always, there's plenty to talk about in Tiger land... basketball, football, the state of college sports and more. I'll take your questions as the afternoon goes along!
senior scramble: Lot of exciting moments in Mizzou sports this past 6 months but I must say I was so happy for the women's basketball team beating Mississippi State. They are so outmanned in most SEC. games, but they play hard. I hope Slaughter, Kroenke and Judd stay at Mizzou as they will be approached by many teams as they are legit SEC, players. I am sure there will be a new coach because coach P would have already been given a contract if she was coming back. Thanks for the chat
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Ǵڴ:The Mizzou women's team beating Mississippi State on a lefty hook shot from Grace Slaughter as time expired was definitely a special moment for that team — look no further than how they celebrated after. Those players are in a tough spot. The team is not good, harsh as that sounds. The league they play in is harsher: that might be the only SEC game they win this year. Their coach's contract expires in a few months with no expectation of an extension — so yes, the operating assumption is that Pingeton will be gone. Because it's a "lame duck" year, I don't think they're getting the fans/viewers/attention they normally would or could. So for them to have that moment is special, for sure.
When I say the team is not that good, it isn't without redeemable qualities or talented players. Whoever the next coach is should make retaining those players you mention priorities, especially Slaughter — she's only a sophomore. Given that many of the program's best players are in-state products, there's a good chance the new coach can persuade them to stick around. There are the bones of a decent team in place, if those bones can be retained.
ܲ:Eli, with the rise of interest in Women's College Basketball in the last couple of years, is it now considered at revenue sport? Or at least the potential of being a revenue sport? And is Mizzou going to start looking at it's women's basketball program as such?
Ǵڴ:I'd have to look at more schools' financial numbers to say this for sure, but I don't think it's a revenue sport most places — certainly not Mizzou. I imagine Iowa (their numbers for last basketball season aren't out yet) brought in a whole lot of revenue with Caitlin Clark. Women's basketball at LSU lost money last season. The margins on men's basketball can be slim, even — that sport has lost money at Missouri the last couple of years due to Cuonzo Martin's buyout.
But just because women's hoops won't make a department-carrying profit like football or break even like men's hoops does doesn't mean there isn't opportunity to bring in revenue on that front. Every dollar in means a lot to athletics departments now tasked with sending even more dollars out. The addition of "units" for the women's NCAA basketball tournament — money distributed from TV rights for participating in that — means there's more possible revenue in the women's hoops realm, on top of ticket sales. But you have to be competitive enough to get there to get a piece of that pie.
I'll write about this more as the expected coaching change occurs, but this is about to be a window in which Mizzou will act in a way that'll indicate its level of investment in women's basketball. The words will be the words. But what will the budget for bringing in a coach be? How about the budget given to the roster from a payroll standpoint? How about the marketing? All of that will be very apparent. The school declined to spend about half a million on a coaching buyout a year ago, which some would have viewed as an investment in turning the program around. Now, they'll make a coaching change for free at the expense of this season and its recruiting implications. It'll be telling what comes next.
Larry M: Derek Nicholson comes to Columbia after a two-year stint at the University of Miami under head coach Mario Cristobal. He served one season (2023) as the Hurricanes linebackers coach before being elevated to his most recent position as the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 2024. Coming to MU seems like a step down for the new coach to take the MU linebacker coach position. Was he on the way out at Miami?
Hoff: He'll have the same title with Mizzou of linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator and have a heavy role in recruiting — Nicholson already has despite being very freshly in town. He's taking on the vast majority, if not all of, D.J. Smith's responsibilities. So in that sense, it's a lateral move at worst — MU and Miami were both teams left out of the CFP last year by one too many tough losses to reckon with. But most in the industry would call it a promotion, moving from an ACC team to an SEC program. I'm not sure what his standing was at Miami, but at face value I don't find anything suspect about what the move suggests about him.
ٲ:Who Will Start @ Center Sat?
Hoff: I'd expect the usual starting five of Anthony Robinson II, Tony Perkins, Tamar Bates, Trent Pierce and Mark Mitchell. If it ain't broke, don't fix it – plus, I think that group is about as good as Mizzou can match up with Mississippi State.
ٰ:Eli: Mizzou hoops is about to enter a brutal stretch to finish the regular season. A great outcome would be 7-4, which would mean a couple more top 25 wins. A realistic outcome would be 6-5 or 5-6, which would likely mean beating the teams they're supposed to be a losing to the ranked teams. So, a slip up against a lesser team could mean a 4-7 record in the last 11 coming into the SEC tourney. It's a tough, tough league. So, what's your sense of how many wins it'll take for Mizzou to get a bid? What do you think they'd have to do to get a top 4 seed?
Hoff: It's definitely tough. Here's what the rest of the regular season looks like, with each team's KenPom ranking: at Miss St (24), at Tennessee (6), vs Texas A&M (16), vs Oklahoma (41), at Georgia (37), vs Alabama (7), at Arkansas (58), vs South Carolina (78), at Vanderbilt (45), at Oklahoma (41), vs Kentucky (18).
The bare minimum number in there for wins is probably three — home against OU and SC, plus at Arkansas/Oklahoma, probably. It's tough to see more than eight wins while being realistic. I agree with you that most likely, it's five or six.
If we stick with the thinking that eight wins is enough for an SEC team to get into the NCAA Tournament — and I haven't seen anything to reject that premise yet — three wins should be enough. Four wins in that stretch means .500 in league play, which would probably get them in, too. So frankly a "lower-end" performance between now and the end of the year is still going to be enough.
As far as a top four seed goes, that probably requires finishing in the top 5-6 of the SEC. (That's my unscientific assumption, anyway.) I'd guess that means somewhere around 12 league wins, so a 12-6 record in SEC play. My math says that would be seven wins in the stretch we're talking about — so possible, but on the tougher side of realistic outcomes.
ٰ:Eli, where would you place Mizzou in the greater college athletics landscape? They have a top 20 FB team, men's BB team, women's volleyball team, gymnastics team, and softball team. Typically, the wrestling team is among the best in the country. Track tends to produce a few standouts every year both men and women, as does swimming. They are lagging in women's soccer, tennis, and baseball. No one is going to be Stanford, which has over 30 sports and tends do very well in the non-revenues, but Mizzou seems to be pretty strong relative to the more typical major state universities. How do you see it?
Ǵڴ:I'd imagine Mizzou stacks up pretty well. This is something possible/worth doing at the end of this sports year to see how the Tigers really shape up nationally, but because of the sports you mention, I think it's well. There seems to always be at least a couple good/exciting teams in action at any given point in the year. At the highest-profile level, having both a football team and men's basketball team ranked is a big deal. Having both be undefeated at home is quite impressive too.
Dz:just joined the chat, assuming that Mizzou Bball will lose Bates, Perkins, Grill, Gray, and Crews and assume a couple of non-players will leave for playing time elsewhere, and I believe that they only have 2 freshmen coming all these vacant spots will have to be filled by transfers or maybe another freshman or two, is that correct?
Ǵڴ:One note on Crews... I think he could get another year because of the junior college ruling — he spent a couple of seasons at that level. I haven't had that officially confirmed, though, and there's always the question of whether he would want it.
But yes, there'll be some spots that need to be filled this offseason with two freshmen coming in. I'd be surprised if anyone else joined that signing class. Somewhere between four and six transfers each year is probably going to be the norm going forward.
岵Ǵǻ:The above lineup may be working well for Mizzou, but do you ever have a sneaking suspicion that playing Mitchell at the 5 so frequently is weird? You'd give up some perimeter defending and squeeze Bates/Robinson/Gill a bit, but with Mitchell at the 4 you'd be a dominant rebounding team.
Ǵڴ:Sure, there's an argument for that to enhance rebounding. When you look at just SEC play, Mizzou's defensive rebounding percentage goes up by 9.2 percentage points when Gray is on the floor vs. off of it. But the Tigers' offensive rating declines by 12.5 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor.
So that's the question that faces Gates and his staff: Do you prioritize defensive rebounding or offensive consistency? I think we're seeing the answer, which is blending them when possible. It seems that at the moment, the offensive boost is worth it when you factor in the general rebounding gains made by other players on the floor — they're able to rebound pretty well even without Gray, though he certainly makes the overall effort on the boards better. Then in the stretches when he's on the floor, MU can be a really solid rebounding team — it just might need some more offensive juice around him.
:Aaron Rowe is someone whose recruiting ranking has dropped drastically over the last couple years. What is your sense of the staff's expectations for him coming in next year? Are they still high on him? Do they view him as more of a project? Obviously if Ant is still around, they won't need him to play a big role next year. Do they still think the ceiling is high for him?
Ǵڴ:His ranking has declined. I don't follow the ins and outs of what goes into those rankings to know what specific concerns the recruiting services have with his game or development. He was obviously still a take for Missouri, so they have faith. This staff really prides itself on its developmental capabilities, especially when they can get a player in the facility for a couple of years. It won't be until he's on campus that I think they can really get a strong sense of his ceiling. And the hope is that his services won't need to be immediately called upon next season with Ant Robinson as the main point guard.
ٱԲѾdz:Hello, Mr. Hoff. Thanks for the chat and your outstanding coverage of Mizzou sports. Please tell me that Mizzou's women's basketball is moving on from Robyn Pingeton. Once again this past offseason, she talked about how they've brought in more athleticism and more height and more talent. Yet, once again they are near the bottom of the SEC. Pingeton's teams do OK in the non-conference games, but then collapse in league play. Pingeton continues to demonstrate that she is merely a mid-major coach who can only recruit mid-major caliber players. Other women's teams -- like gymnastics, softball, and volleyball -- enjoy some measure of success, while basketball keeps losing. Am I wrong?
Ǵڴ:You're not wrong on the difference between the women's basketball team and some of other women's sports at MU. Here's the coaching landscape as clearly as I can explain it:
Robin Pingeton is in the final year of her contract. Shortly after the end of the season, that contract will expire, and if that happens, she'll no longer be the coach — no firing, buyout or mutual termination, just an expiration of the contract and the job.
I say if because it could technically be extended. But no extension has been signed to this point — very rarely does a coach have a job in the last year of their contract, since that removes any contractual incentive to recruit for the future — and I've heard nothing to suggest that an extension has been discussed or is being discussed. All signs point toward her contract expiring.
That leads me to operate under the assumption that this is it. She'll finish out this season, Mizzou will be able to make a hire once the season ends, and that will be that. Nobody with the athletics department has said that on the record, but nobody has called me crazy/wrong/otherwise barking up the wrong tree for thinking/saying/writing that. So that's where it stands now.
Larry M: I have been impressed with TO Barrett's play in the limited time. He appears to play with confidence and aggressiveness. What are your thoughts on him staying at MU.
Ǵڴ:I'd put him in the group of players who have done/shown more than I expected them to this year. It's foolhardy in modern college sports to say with any confidence that a given player will, say, spend their entire career at one school, but I tend to think that freshmen who sign with Dennis Gates and Missouri understand how long-term development is at the core of his approach — and that makes me think they want to stick around and see that out. To the earlier question about Rowe, Barrett is someone who could, with continued growth, be the backup point guard next year and absolutely have a spot in the rotation. There's just a transfer portal cycle that has to go by before that can really feel concrete.
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