The Impact Scottie Adkinson Can Have on Mizzou Basketball

We'll talk about Scotty Atkinson, who's a four-star point guard commit in Mizzou's 2027 class out of the St. Louis area. And he has really been shooting up boards the last few, and rankings the last year, honestly, just kind of a steady rise throughout the whole thing. He was at the NBA Future Starts Now event and was at the Mamba Invitational. I believe he won game MVP. I know he started the game with an 11-0 run all by himself. I think he finished game high, I think, 17 points, I believe. And obviously, he won't be with the team next year, although we did see a ton of reclasses around the rest of the SEC. Atkinson has not done so, and I don't imagine he will because there's no open roster spot. He will, assuming signs and sticks with Mizzou throughout the process, be with the team in the 2027-28 roster. And it feels like it's really shaping up as like, wow, this could be another really good roster already looking a year ahead in advance. But I mean, if you've got Scotty Atkinson as the foundational piece, that looks pretty good. Yeah, I mean, things are starting to change for Mizzou basketball. I think it obviously started with when you're getting Jason Crowe, you're getting Tony Bryant, like this recruiting class this year. But not only do you have this great guard in Crowe coming in, now the year after, you're gonna have another one in Atkinson. And obviously, Crowe's expected to be a lottery pick, possibly a top 10 pick, maybe even higher depending on how he does throughout the season. And Atkinson, like you said, is climbing up boards as well. So being able to have back-to-back NBA-level talent at the guard position, once you start doing that, that's when you start establishing yourself as a team that consistently gets guys like this and consistently just has better teams throughout the future. So this is, I think this is just huge for the future of Mizzou basketball when you're looking down the line, even 20 years from now. Maybe this is the start of something where Mizzou is starting to recruit lots of great players. Because we saw it when they got Michael Porter Jr., obviously that didn't necessarily go the way they wanted it, but that kind of felt like the start of getting a lot of these higher-level players, but it didn't necessarily progress year after year after year from that point. But now, we could start seeing a thing where these recruiting classes are getting great year after year after year, and that's when you establish yourself as a really great basketball program. When you think about the Blue Bloods, when you think about Duke, Kentucky, guys like that, teams like that, those are the teams that consistently do this year after year, and Missouri has started that now. So it's really exciting to think about. Yeah, and I would say the last year has been different because on the recruiting front, not only are they getting high-level prospects, they were able to land Mitchell, who is a relatively local guy, being on KCK's side, and then being close friends with another guy on KCK who's already on Mizzou's roster in Tamar Bates. But then also, and then Scotty, obviously St. Louis kid, local guy, but also branching out and getting these ridiculously high-level recruits with no Missouri ties. Ben Crow from California, and then Tony Bryant from Florida. So that's the other thing is what makes it really feel like it's like the start. But Scotty blossoming into a potential star is like, all right, it's gonna continue, it's gonna roll over another year. So big news, obviously that's over a year away for Scotty's arrival to Mizzou, should he stay committed to the program, but it looks pretty promising for when it does happen.