After leading the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament in his debut season, everything fell apart for Dennis Gates in Year 2 when a transfer-heavy team failed to come together. They failed to win a conference game for the first time since their 1907-08 season and promptly lost their opener in the SEC Tournament.
Missouri will look a whole lot different this year with 11 players having graduated or transferred. They've been replaced by five highly regarded transfers in Josh Gray (South Carolina), Mark Mitchell (Duke), Tony Perkins (Iowa), Jacob Crews (UT-Martin) and Marques Warrick (Northern Kentucky), and one of the nation's best prep classes.
If the Tigers can turn things around in an era of teams dominated by upperclassman, it might just be those five freshmen that make the difference. Each was a consensus top-150 recruit and Annor Boateng, a guard from Little Rock, Arkansas, was among the top 10 recruits at his position.
Mitchell (junior, 6-8, 10.3 ppg at Duke) was one of the nation's top recruits coming out of Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas. He spent two years with the Blue Devils but is back in the Midwest, not far from his hometown of Kansas City, Kansas.
Warrick (senior, 6-3, 19.9 ppg at Northern Kentucky) averaged 18.0 ppg over four seasons for the Norse. Now, he has an opportunity to prove that his scoring prowess can translate to a power conference program.
Perkins (senior, 6-4, 14.0 ppg at Iowa) provides the Tigers with plenty of experiences. He started all 64 games over the past two seasons for the Hawkeyes, and he has appeared in 126 games over his four-year college career.
Leading scorers Sean East II, Nick Honor and Noah Carter all graduated along with Connor Vanover, the 7-foot-5 transfer from Oral Roberts who was limited to 24 games due to injuries last season.
Missouri will find out where its new-look team stands right away with a season-opening trip to Memphis on Nov. 4. The Tigers also play California in the SEC-ACC Challenge the same week they get a visit from bitter rival Kansas. The annual Braggin' Rights game against Illinois is scheduled for Dec. 22 in St. Louis.
The eight wins by Missouri last season matched the 2016-17 team for the fewest since the 1966-67 season, when the Tigers went 3-22. ... Even though Missouri went winless in SEC play, it took South Carolina to overtime and nearly upset fifth-ranked Tennessee. ... The Tigers open the season having lost 19 consecutive games. Their last win was a 92-59 rout of Central Arkansas on Dec. 30, 2023. .
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