How Changes to College Eligibility Impact Mizzou

On the basketball side of things, Javon Porter, at the time of recording, was about 30 minutes ago, just committed to Loyola Marymount, the team where he played the season before he came to Mizzou. Porter was definitely better at that G6 level than he was with the Tigers. And you could see at Mizzou, he had some pretty competent games against those G6 teams, so it's not exactly a surprise to see him go back there. I guess, Zach, overall thoughts on that. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. Obviously, the season didn't turn out how he necessarily wanted to with that injury, everything like that, you can't predict things like that. But it's nice to see him go back to a place that he was really successful. And I like your point of, he did have these better games against these non-conference opponents. We saw him do pretty well in some of those contests. And I believe at Loyola Marymount, he averaged, what, like, he was definitely in the double digits for points per game. I wanna say maybe like 13 or 14 points per game. Very high usage rate. So it'll be cool, he's had some more experience under his belt at a higher level. Now he's gonna come back with that experience, hopefully have an even better season. So I'm definitely rooting for him there. Yes, so Porter, as we all know, is a part of that 2022 high school class that Mark Mitchell and Sean Phillips and a bunch of other players around the nation are in. Sterling Webb as well on the football side. But Porter is a part of that 2022 class. And so he, I believe, entered the transfer portal back in the spring. So that's why he's allowed to go to another team here. The latest on the eligibility crisis front, whatever you wanna call it, is that Judge Charlotte Sweeney, who's the same judge that on, I believe it was July 31st, made the whole ruling like, hey, everyone's good to go. That led to the whole flood of like, whoa, who's coming back, who's not? The NCAA tried to appeal. And Sweeney denied their motion, or their, I'm gonna quote this, their emergency motion for administrative stay and motion to stay preliminary junction pending appeal. From my understanding, this means that the plaintiffs, the class of 2022, the Mitchells, all them, hold their eligibility temporarily. The NCAA is going to appeal again. They're gonna keep trying to appeal until some sort of resolution-ish happens. I do believe that this doesn't open the transfer portal, though. And the only way guys can transfer is if they entered the portal in the spring, like Javon Porter, or if they were a part of a separate group filing for a preliminary injunction, like the Sean Phillips Group in Ohio that happened before Sweeney stepped in and ruled on July 31st, or maybe it was August 1st, one of those two days. So I believe the setup now is for guys like Mark Mitchell who did not enter the portal in the spring, as it currently stands, they can't go other places. But if there's a willingness, I believe is one of the quotes I saw, if the team wants to make it happen, and the player does as well, they can work to make it happen. I still don't know what that means in regards to, do you get a guy off the roster, or what, because the roster limits are still intact, from my understanding. So that's interesting. Clearly Mitchell wants a return to college, but it still doesn't really seem like there's exactly a way at the moment. And obviously the situation, as every situation in college sports are, or is, is extremely, extremely fluid. There are updates every day on the legalities and the court filings and the injunctions. So as of now, that's where we sit. Zach, any thoughts? Yeah, it's pretty interesting because with not being able to transfer, it's definitely, it's an interesting ruling, but it's an interesting time. There's not a lot you can do about it. There's so many variables. But it'll be something to watch out for to see if Missouri would cut one of their players. It kind of feels, and see if other teams would do the same, it feels against what you want to do, because you, I mean, we're in August now, like these guys think they have a permanent roster spot, but also you have to weigh, okay, there's a star like Mark Mitchell, he could come back. So is it worth cutting someone and maybe messing up that balance a little bit? That's what coaching staffs are gonna have to weigh, and that's a hard thing to weigh, and that's a hard thing for us to predict what could even happen. And we're not here to do that necessarily. We're just here to kind of weigh the factors like they're gonna have to as well. It's gonna be a difficult time for some teams, and I'm sure some teams will make decisions to cut some players, and we'll see how that works. That could completely mess up chemistry, but also it could be worth getting a guy that averaged 19 points per game the season before. Yeah, I mean, it's very tricky, very complicated, very layered. It feels like every month more and more elements of pro sports bleed into college sports. I mean, this feels like, it feels like NBA late camp when some of the guys are getting cut, and all of a sudden DeMar DeRozan becomes available. That's what it feels like. It's very weird, except instead of one DeMar DeRozan, there's 100. So I don't really know. I still don't think we're very, or particularly close to, at least on Missouri's front, things happening. Maybe I'm wrong, but it still feels like there are a lot of dominoes to fall before anything happens. So that's kind of my thoughts on the situation. It'll work itself out, or not, over the next month or so, but I mean, the season's gonna start in November. I know it's three months away, but at a certain point, you gotta get ready for the season, so.