This week in Mizzou recruiting: A recap of signing day, Jalen Terry, Caleb Love

Happy holidays folks. My gift to you (as if I have to give one anyway) is that this week’s column is up a day early. With the early signing period on Wednesday, there likely won’t be much more recruiting news between now and the usual time this runs, so I’m taking a big risk and getting this out a day early.

Now with my luck Missouri will get a big commitment on Thursday. Let’s get going while this stuff is still worth anything.

Early signing period thoughts

Missouri signed 22 players on Wednesday, with two current commitments waiting until February. The Tigers had a few players commit Wednesday, including Detroit native Devin Nicholson and linebacker Jamie Pettway.

For convenience, let’s talk about Nicholson. I think he can be a commitment we talk about down the road as really helping Missouri in Michigan. I remember talking to Mizzou wideouts coach A.J. Ofodile back when he was a high school coach at Rock Bridge and he was raving then about his alma mater Cass Tech, which seems to produce 10 or more Division I players a year.

When he got hired at MU and talked about getting into Michigan, I knew Cass Tech was a school the Tigers would zero in on. The program offered a number of their guys before finally landing Nicholson. This could be the start of a big pipeline.

On the in-state guys, I’m a big fan of C.J. Boone and Maurice Massey. I think both can become very solid college players. I’ve beat the Jalani Williams commitment to death on here, but Missouri’s staff raved about him and Ryan Walters said he hopes other in-state recruits look at him and his decision to pass up LSU to stay home as something he hopes other recruits take notice of.

I’m also curious to see how it works out for Niko Hea. He was a late get, which tells you that he wasn’t the team’s top target. But I’ve seen him play a few times and think he and Martz Manuel could be the sleepers of this class. Manuel is a freak athlete.

As for the local misses, time will ultimately tell on all of this, but given that Missouri signed three quarterbacks, all of which had stellar resumes, I think you can scratch Graham Mertz off as a big miss. Isaiah Williams was going to Illinois ever since his old coach Cory Patterson was hired, but some coaches have told me his best position isn’t quarterback, which is what Illinois is having him play. Too early to tell on him.

With defensive line still being a priority for MU going into February, I think guys like Park Hill’s Etinosa Reuben, who signed with Clemson, Moses Okpala in St. Louis and Marcus Hicks over in Wichita are all players MU could have used. Getting one or two of them would have helped MU. Now are all eyes turn to Chester Graves.

We’ll talk more about 2020 after the New Year. I need a break from all of this.

Jalen Terry to decide soon

Jalen Terry, a 2020 point guard from Flint, Mich. tweeted out this week that he will be committing on Dec. 27. His finalists are Missouri, Iowa, Iowa State, Mississippi State and Michigan State. I’ve known that Terry was on Mizzou’s radar for a while now, but given that Caleb Love, Cam’Ron Fletcher, Josh Christopher and Davion Bradford are the main targets for the class, there hasn’t been much reason to weigh in on him.

Terry plays at Flint Beecher, which is the same high school as Monte Morris, who Cornell Mann discovered at Iowa State and turned into an NBA Draft Pick. He has excellent relations at Beecher. To my knowledge, Terry hasn’t taken a visit to Mizzou ... but I could be wrong. He’s taken one official visit to Iowa State and has visited Michigan State unofficially a few times. I think those are the two likely destinations. I have a text out to Terry, but he hasn’t responded to me as I’m writing this. If I hear from him I’ll post something.

Should he commit to MU, it would be a huge get for the Tigers since Terry is considered the state’s top player for 2020. It would also make you wonder what MU thinks of its chances at Love and if they’re able to take both in the class. Speaking of Love….

Love headed to Braggin’ Rights

I caught up with Caleb Love and his coach, Justin Tatum, for an update on his season. Love told me he’s likely heading to the Missouri-Illinois Braggin’ Rights game on Saturday. He’s recently taken a few unofficial visits to Michigan and Indiana. He seems to be taking the recruiting process in stride and is in no hurry to make up his mind.

He said Missouri and Virginia, Texas and Louisville are a few of the schools coming at him the hardest. Cuonzo Martin and Chris Hollender have been regulars at his games. I think given the four main targets for MU in 2020, the ideal situation is that one of them jumps on board early and tries to court the others. Given that all of them are so highly touted, that’s easier said than done. But should one jump, everything gets a little easier.

This story was originally published December 20, 2018 at 3:09 PM.