****Official 2017-2018 Missouri Tigers Basketball Thread****

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Back up in your ass with the resurrection. Follow the Cuonzo Martin era here.

Recruiting Commitments:

2017:
Michael Porter Jr., SF, *****, Gatorade National Player of the Year
CJ Roberts, PG, ****
Blake Harris, PG, ***/****
Jeremiah Tilmon, F/C, ****
Kassius Robertson, Grad Transfer
Jontay Porter (possible re-classification from Class of '18), ****

Departures: No one that matters
Returning Players: No one that matters

Overall class ranking: #6 nationally.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by patteeu

It looks like it says someone named Andrew Slater believes that.

That's what I meant

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

Is this saying they believe Knox is going to Mizzou?

Yes, he's with 247.

http://247sports.com/User/Andrew%20Slater




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[KChiefs1]

Heard that this guy is transferring & is visiting Mizzou. Have no idea if it's a mutual interest.

http://www.gogriffs.com/ViewArticle....B_OEM_ID=20500






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[KChiefs1]

http://www.columbiatribune.com/sport...u-visit-monday

Jontay Porter set for official MU visit Monday
By Daniel Jones

It didn’t take long for the spotlight to swing onto Jontay Porter after his older brother, Michael Porter Jr., committed to Missouri on March 24.

The possibility that Jontay, who is about to finish his junior year of high school, might graduate early to enter the Class of 2017 has become a leading question for Missouri basketball’s short-term outlook.

Jontay, who is 6-foot-10 and 235 pounds, is going on an official visit to MU on Monday. He’s entering the visit with Coach Cuonzo Martin and the Tigers staff with his options open.

“I’m going to get to know the coaches better,” he told the Tribune in a phone interview Sunday evening. “There’s nothing I need to see on campus. I’ve already been around it, so I know it’s a great campus.”

Jontay said his decision ultimately comes down to two factors. If he graduates early, he’ll get to play with his older brother. He said that’s the only reason he’d reclassify.

The motivation to stay one more year in high school is to embrace the role of a team’s No. 1 guy, a role that Michael has always filled on Jontay’s teams in the past. Jontay said his emphasis this summer is to “fine-tune” his game and improve offensively.

If Jontay’s first four games in the Elite Youth Basketball League with MOKAN Elite are any indication, it’s a role that suits him. MOKAN went 4-0 in the EYBL’s first session in Hampton, Va. Porter averaged 19.2 points (10th in the league) and 13.0 rebounds (second). He shot 60.9 percent from the field, 50 percent from 3-point range (11 of 22) and scored 30 points in MOKAN’s opening game against the Georgia Stars on Saturday.

“It’s really the first time I’ve been forced to” be the alpha dog, Porter said. “It’s always been in me, but now I’m not playing behind the No. 1 player in the country.”

According to Porter, the fact that Missouri is recruiting Kevin Knox and Jeremiah Tilmon for 2017 hasn’t played much of a role in his decision-making process.

“A lot of people are assuming that I’m going to tie my recruitment to other recruits, but that’s not at all true,” Porter said. “If me, Kevin and Jeremiah all want to go, I’m sure Cuonzo will find a way to make that work.”

Porter said not a lot of schools have reached out about recruiting him for the Class of 2018 because many figure that he’ll attend Missouri, where his dad, Michael Porter Sr., is an assistant coach. One school that Porter has maintained an interest in is Wisconsin, where his friend Tyler Herro is committed for 2018.

Regardless of what he decides, Porter doesn’t expect to drag out the process. He said he plans on making a final decision before the end of the summer.

Email Daniel Jones at dmjones@columbiatribune.com or call 815-1788


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[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Heard that this guy is transferring & is visiting Mizzou. Have no idea if it's a mutual interest.

http://www.gogriffs.com/ViewArticle....B_OEM_ID=20500






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Would be a perfect player for Mizzou.

[Sure-Oz]

@GabeDeArmond: Hearing from multiple sources #Mizzou won’t be the choice for Kevin Knox. Tigers made strong late effort, but that leaves NC, Duke, UK, FSU

[KChiefs1]

http://insidestl.com/dave-matter-tal...n-knox/1996774

Dave Matter Talks Jontay Porter’s Possible Reclassification, Mizzou’s Chances of Getting Tilmon, Knox


Jeremiah Tilmon
St. Louis Post-Dispatch University of Missouri beat writer Dave Matter joined Frank Cusumano on The Press Box to talk about the latest recruiting developments surrounding the Tigers men’s basketball team.

Read some excerpts and listen to the full conversation below:

What can you tell us about the reclassification and recruitment of Jontay Porter, the five-star prospect and little brother of Michael Porter, Jr.?

“Jontay is taking his official visit to Missouri today. I think it’s more of a chance to talk to the coaches and really decide if he wants to reclassify or not. He would be passing up a lot of things if he decides to skip his senior year. He wouldn’t be able to play in the McDonald’s All-American game or any other all-star games his brother did. He’d be sacrificing all that attention to play with his brother and to play at Mizzou this fall. He’s got a big decision to make.”

“This is his chance to play with his brother (one more time and at the national level). If that’s more important to him than the attention…then I think he’ll lean towards wanting to play at Mizzou this year.”

Do you think Jontay deciding to reclassify would alter Jeremiah Tilmon’s decision since are both post players?

“They’re similarly-sized guys…Jontay is less of a pure post player than Tilmon. Missouri could go from having no size at all or not much size to having a wealth of it (if they end up getting both). I think these two decisions are independent of eachother.”

“I don’t know for sure if Tilmon is a 30-minute a guy as a freshman. He’s obviously talented, but unless you’re an NBA one-and-done prospect…you’re going to have a learning curve.”

On the chances Mizzou gets Kevin Knox:

“It’s so hard to handicap these things. I just think Missouri is going to be in the running until the end. Missouri has got a chance, a decent chance, until we finally hear a decision (Kevin Knox).”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download


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[KChiefs1]

Cuonzo interview:

https://youtu.be/bb_Cct4yxCw






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[KChiefs1]

http://www.columbiatribune.com/sport...th-to-columbia

Cuonzo Martin was once reluctant to coach, but cancer set him on a path to Columbia

By Daniel Jones



Cuonzo Martin still remembers the hospital room in Indianapolis 19 years ago.

Martin is sitting at the desk in his new office at Mizzou Arena, an organized work space mostly devoid of distractions. He is the highest-paid basketball coach in Missouri history, the one orchestrating a basketball revolution with the Tigers that helped bring the nation’s top high school player to campus and reignited an apathetic fan base.

Gene Keady, Martin’s college coach at Purdue, thinks a movie should be made based on Martin’s life. His story is one of endurance in overcoming obstacles, but even in that context, the hospital room is a seminal moment. It was a night that changed his life profoundly — a night that made him question if he would see his kids grow old, a night that would test his faith, a night that set him on a career path that led him to Tennessee and to California and, eventually, to Columbia.

Martin describes the hospital room in a quiet tone. His deep voice nears a whisper.

He was half-asleep on the bed in the dead of night, waiting on a diagnosis for an unidentified lung problem at 26 years old. A doctor stood just to his left. Martin’s 24-year old wife, Roberta, and 4-month old son, Joshua, lingered behind the doctor.

It had been a long journey to that hospital room. The trio had just left Rome and connected in New York. It was well after midnight by the time they had reached the hospital in Indianapolis, where Martin underwent X-rays, blood work and a number of other tests to determine why his lungs weren’t working right.

The issue had derailed Martin’s basketball career in Italy, draining him of his athleticism and stamina. Doctors abroad told him they thought it was bronchitis and that he needed to get back to the U.S. immediately.

Martin was exhausted. Then the doctor spoke. They found a baseball-sized tumor in Martin’s chest.

“I don’t know if you’re going to die,” the doctor told Martin, “but this is life-threatening.”

Martin shifted his head and glanced at Roberta.

“I don’t really know what I was feeling,” he said. “Just like, wow.”

Persistence had defined Martin’s career to that point, but this — cancer, more specifically Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — was not like making it out of East St. Louis, Ill., not like playing through persistent knee problems, not like winning the Big Ten with Purdue or getting drafted into the NBA or making it over to Europe for a professional career.

This, he had no control over.

“Just whatever God’s plan is at that point,” Martin said. “That part was tough. I’d seen and been exposed to a lot of things. ... But in that particular case, you can’t control the outcome. You just have to, whatever Doc says, follow his lead. Hopefully it works.”

***

Martin doesn’t know why the neighborhood of East St. Louis he grew up in is called “The Hole,” but his best guess is the topography. He makes a bowl shape with his hands to describe the lay of the land, a basin with a cluster of project houses in the center.

“You gotta go down,” he said. “Maybe that’s it, how it looks like a hole.”

Martin’s mother, Sandra, provided his first lesson in resiliency. “You gotta make your world,” she taught him. There were no excuses. The family didn’t have much, Martin said, but Sandra provided enough food and clothes for him and his siblings to get by.

Basketball got Martin to Purdue, even on a knee that required two surgeries in high school. He never deluded himself with dreams of a long playing career, knowing his knee wouldn’t hold up long after college if it got that far at all.

“People said he’d never play here because he had both knees bone on bone,” said Keady, who coached Martin for four years at Purdue, “but they didn’t know Zo very well.”

He helped the Boilermakers to Big Ten titles in 1994 and 1995 and was named All-Big Ten as a senior in 1995. He never forgot home: Martin sent the Pell Grant checks he got in college back to his mom in Illinois.

Martin was drafted at No. 57 by the Atlanta Hawks in 1995 but only played seven games in the NBA. He didn’t have a long-term plan, and back then his thoughts never drifted toward coaching. He had only one thought when he left school.

“My whole goal, outside of what I was doing, was to take care of my mom,” Martin said. “That was my goal. Whatever that meant.”

***

Melvin Booker still recalls the 1993-94 season when he became familiar with Martin for the first time.

“Zo was playing at Purdue the same time I was playing at Missouri. They were one of the top teams in the country my senior year,” Booker said. “I still joke with him today, they stole our No. 1 seed in the” Southeast “that year because they gave it to Purdue and sent us out west.”

Missouri eventually reached the Elite Eight before losing to Arizona in Los Angeles, and Purdue lost to Duke in the same round in Knoxville, Tenn. After Martin graduated, the pair became teammates with the Grand Rapids Mackers — later renamed the Grand Rapids Hoops — of the Continental Basketball Association.

“It was a great time,” Booker said. “I think we had a really great team, really great chemistry on that squad. Zo and I, we were probably the closest ones on the team.”

For Martin, the CBA provided an environment unlike any other level. It was cutthroat, even among teammates, as players were constantly shipped out to new teams and everyone fought for an opportunity to climb the ladder. But the team in Grand Rapids was different.

“My high school team was great, college was great, but in the CBA, it was a certain type of bond that I’ll never forget,” Martin said. ... “Normally in those leagues, everybody’s kind of selfish. I need to get mine, because everybody’s trying to make it to the NBA. But we had a great mix of guys that all we wanted to do was win.”

The bond Booker and Martin developed as teammates was so close that Booker was the first person to call Martin after his cancer diagnosis.

***

Four months into his playing career in Italy, Martin’s health deteriorated. He had a hard time catching his breath on the court. He lost 30 pounds — dropping from 215 to 185 — after moving abroad.

He was perplexed by the weight loss, though he thought little of it. His former teammate Ian Stanback lost 50 pounds after moving to Portugal to play professionally.

“I would always have” Stanback “kinda in my mind,” Martin said. “Like, ‘He lost a lot of weight. Maybe it’s something in the food or water, I don’t know.’ I would eat the food, and I would have it in my mouth, and I would just put it in a napkin. I really wasn’t eating it. I was tricking myself.”

Team doctors convinced him to go back to the United States after he passed out during a practice. Roberta and Joshua had just moved to Italy a month prior.

That’s when they found cancer.

Martin said he gave his life to Christ as a senior in college, and he remains devout. An open Bible is one of the few things that adorns his desk at Mizzou Arena.

But the cancer diagnosis gave him questions without easy answers. Why would he have just been blessed with a son if cancer was going to take his life?

“So many unknowns. Almost as if I was communicating with God from the standpoint, ‘Man, he’s only 4 months old,’” Martin said.

He chuckles.

“Not that I’m stepping on God’s toes or anything, but, man, ‘You gave him to me.’”

Two days after the diagnosis, Martin prayed that he would see Joshua turn 18.

“I think the thing that goes in your head oftentimes is, ‘I don’t think I was a bad guy,’” Martin said. “Then you say, ‘Why me? Why does that happen to me?’ After a while you move forward and say, ‘Why not me? Who am I, at the end of the day?’ And you deal with it from that perspective.”

Martin’s face changes when he talks about chemotherapy. His eyes close as his eyebrows raise, creating a face that universally signals a memory of pain. The treatment was so debilitating that Martin, resigned to the couch, often moved around less than his infant son.

His mind goes back. He can still remember the taste the treatments left in his mouth. He lost his eyebrows, his facial hair. He presses his fingers against the desk, remembering how they used to lose their feeling.

“My fingers sometimes, I could be touching this, but it feels like I’m not touching it,” he said.

Martin slowly regained his strength on the back of steroid treatments and his own stubborn resiliency. But his playing career was over. Keady encouraged him to get into coaching.

“It’s unfortunate that ended his career, but look at him now,” Booker said. “He’s one of the best coaches in America.”

When Martin was at Missouri State, Booker prodded him on eventually moving to Missouri. He jokes that he brought it up so much that “it’s been talked into existence.”

Martin still coaches with the memory of leaving his own mom behind in East St. Louis to go to college decades ago. It was the first time he’d ever left home. He said it explains the way he deals with the parents of players.

“Now as I’m older,” Martin said, “I think, as a mom, that has to be a scary feeling. ‘I’m excited that my son is moving on and making himself a better person, but 18 years old ... . He doesn’t really know what he’s getting into. Who’s gonna take care of him? Who’s going to look out for him? Do the coaches really care for him? Are they really going to do right by him?’ There’s so many unknowns as a parent.”

That approach, combined with his history, fit right in with Jim Sterk’s vision for Missouri’s next coach.

“He’s been forged — his personality and his strength of character and those kinds of things have been tested as a young kid growing up,” Sterk said. “He had a great mom that raised him through that. Then his cancer, having to fight through that ... when you go through a life-threatening health scare, I think you gain a perspective on life and appreciate things a lot more.”

The night in the hospital shifted the course of his life, setting Martin on a path that eventually led to Columbia.

In his office at Mizzou Arena, Martin is asked when he knew he was finally going to get through cancer, finally beat it once and for all.

“I still don’t,” he said. “That’s the truth.”

Cancer is as much a part of him as East St. Louis, as his bum knee, as the coaching spirit he discovered after his playing career ended.

“They say after five years, the chances of it returning are just like anybody else,” he said. “But in my world, it could be any day now. If I see something on my body that doesn’t look normal, then it’s like, ‘Oh, man.’ I guess I’ve been in remission since 1998, but every day it’s there. It could be any day.

“That’s how I see it. Not that I’m walking around worried and scared, but that’s the reality.”

Email Daniel Jones at dmjones@columbiatribune.com or call 815-1787


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[TomBarndtsTwin]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Heard that this guy is transferring & is visiting Mizzou. Have no idea if it's a mutual interest.

http://www.gogriffs.com/ViewArticle....B_OEM_ID=20500






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Apparently it's official now. He's coming to Mizzou.

Only one scholly left open assuming Jontay reclassifies . . . .

Edit: sorry, not official yet. Source has reported to ESPN it's done.

[Sure-Oz]

@SamTSnelling: Kassius Robertson commits to Missouri http://www.rockmnation.com/2017/5/2/...source=twitter

Shoots 40% from 3 could be a starter a nice weapon from the bench that Mizzou needs either way.

[KChiefs1]

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[Jerm]

Knox to Kentucky.....surprised he didn't pick Duke.

[Pepe Silvia]

Can't compete with Cal. If he wants him he will get him.

[KChiefs1]

The SEC keeps getting stronger.


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