Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Missouri Tigers

The SEC is loaded this year as most teams used the transfer portal to their advantage and shored up their talent as well as their depth. Teams like Kentucky, Tennessee and Auburn built elite freshman classes while LSU, Arkansas (as usual) and Florida made key additions via the portal.

SEC slates are going to be high scoring and mega exciting all year long. For DFS players this is the conference that will command your attention, so keep that at the top of your mind as we go team-by-team through the SEC to preview the coming season.

In this one, Missorui.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Missouri Tigers 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 16-10 (8-8 SEC), seventh in SEC
Postseason: Lost in NCAA Tournament first round

Key Departures | Missouri Tigers

• Dru Smith (playing professionally)
• Jeremiah Tilmon (playing professionally)
• Xavier Pinson (transferred to LSU)
• Mark Smith (transferred to Kansas State)
• Mitchell Smith (playing professionally)

Key Additions | Missouri Tigers

• DaJuan Gordon (transferred from Kansas State)
• Amari Davis (transferred from Green Bay)
• Jarron Coleman (transferred from Ball State)
• Ronnie DeGray (transferred from UMass)
• YaYa Keita (3 star recruit)

Returners | Missouri Tigers

• Kobe Brown (8 PPG/6.2 RPG)
• Javon Pickett (6.2 PPG/2.3 RPG)

Missouri Tigers Outlook for 2021-2022

Things look rather bleak for Missouri this year. They’ve lost a lot, and the transfers they’ve brought in will likely be role players at this level. We rode Kobe Brown to the profit often last year until the sites priced him appropriately. With Jeremiah Tilmon off to the pros, I think we could see Brown ascend into a 25 fPPG type of player consistently. Javon Pickett will also get his shot to play big minutes now that Xavier Pinson and Dru Smith are long gone.

Amari Davis was a 17.2 PPG scorer while at GB so the talent is there, but he will obviously see much tougher defense playing in the SEC. Jarron Coleman averaged 14 PPG/5.2 RPG/3.2 APG at Ball State, so he will be counted on to replace a lot of that production that walked out the door. DaJuan Gordon was a favorite of mine at Kansas State and I think he has a chance to crack the starting lineup for MIssouri and be a formidable player for them. He averaged 9.1 PPG and 5.5 RPG a season ago. Ronnie DeGray is an efficient player who averaged 9 and 5 during his time at UMass.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

There isn’t much to be excited about this team, but Kobe Brown should be able to build on his solid season from 2020. He had a defensive rebounding rate of 23.3% last year, which was top 100 at the D1 level. He should flourish without Tilmon around. There is some talent here, but the viability will be determined by the early season pricing of the DFS sites.