Missouri Basketball: Impact of landing ORU transfer Connor Vanover

Head Coach Dennis Gates and Missouri Basketball finally found their big man. The Tigers landed 7’5 Center Connor Vanover, a grad transfer from Oral Roberts. Before spending this past season in Tulsa playing for the Golden Eagles, Vanover spent a few years at Arkansas, playing for two seasons after redshirting his sophomore season. He spent his freshman year at California.

Vanover, the First Team All-Summit League selection, had the best season of his career while playing for ORU and Head Coach Paul Mills. Last season he averaged a career-high in almost every statistical category, averaging 12.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.2 blocks while making just under 52 percent of his shots. Vanover also saw his minutes skyrocket to almost 26 minutes a game while playing a huge role for one of the best mid-major programs, starting all 34 games.

How Vanover fits in at Missouri is relatively easy to see. He checks a few different boxes for the Tigers, as they were in desperate need of size in the front court, after playing small-ball lineups for most of this past season without a steady big in the rotation. Along with his height, Vanover is also a very good rebounder and shot blocker. Missouri lacked both of these skills last season.

Defensively Vanover doesn’t have the quickest feet and at times can get bullied in the post by stronger post players. But he makes up for it with his length. This past season he pulled in just under six defensive rebounds per game and blocked just over three shots per game. He would have led the Tigers in both of those categories last season, as he averaged more blocks on his own than Missouri had as a team (2.7 bpg). It’s hard to imagine that Vanover’s presence won’t have a positive impact on a Missouri defense that, most of the time, was lacking a rim protector.

While his biggest upsides are on the glass and as a post defender, he has proven to be a reliable scoring threat. Vanover isn’t afraid to take shots from almost everywhere on the floor. He tends to prefer to face up and shoot rather than back down his defender, which isn’t a huge surprise with his thin frame. He also has zero hesitation in letting it fly from three, last season he put up 4.2 threes per game while making over 32 percent of them. Vanover can roll to the basket off a pick or pop out to the wing, keeping his defender honest and helping spread the floor.

I know that Vanover wasn’t Missouri’s first choice when it came to signing a center from the transfer portal and there are still questions about how he fits the offense that the Tigers want to run, but that doesn’t mean this pairing won’t work. Coach Gates has proven that he can get the most out of players moving up in competition, coming from a mid-major and even JuCo. But Vanover is a little different in that respect since he has experience playing in the SEC and Pac-12.

It will be interesting to see if Vanover can replicate his season at ORU for Missouri, but I think that if he can have a similar season without a huge drop in his rebounds and blocks his time for the Tigers would be a huge success.