Missouri Basketball: 3 biggest questions heading into 2023-24 season

The summer of 2023 has flown by, along with the college basketball offseason. Across the college basketball landscape, the past few months have been filled with team departures, transfers, commitments, de-commitments, re-commitments, and coaching changes. As we inch closer to the start of the 2023 season most teams have filled out their rosters and started building a schedule for the upcoming season.

Missouri Basketball, much like the rest of college basketball, has spent the offseason trying to assemble the best possible team for the upcoming season, grabbing a handful of players from the transfer portal. For the Tigers, the roster has been set and the team is slowly releasing the schedule for Head Coach Dennis Gates’ second season. While we wait for the release of the non-conference schedule there are still a few questions about what to expect from the team moving forward.

1) Will the defense improve from last year?

My answer is probably. I don’t think many Mizzou fans were pleased with the defense of last year’s team. Mostly due to the lack of size on the interior, Missouri’s defense was predicated on speeding up the opponent and forcing turnovers. In simpler terms, chaos. Both good and bad chaos. This style of play proved to be a double-edged sword for Missouri. The Tigers were one of the best teams in the country last season when it came to getting steals, averaging over ten steals per game. If they were not able to get a steal, they were scrambling to rotate on defense trying to not leave a man open. This approach led to one of the worst defenses in the country giving up over 74 points per game.

Coach Gates and the Tigers clearly learned that their roster make-up from last year was not ideal when it came to defense, they were undersized at most positions allowing their opponents to overpower them. Missouri was deliberate when targeting players in the transfer portal, focusing on bringing in some size.

They landed Caleb Grill a 6’3 guard from Iowa State, John Tonje a 6’5 guard from Colorado State, Tamar Bates a 6’5 guard from Indiana, Jesus Carralero a 6’8 forward from Campbell, and Connor Vanover a 7’5 center from Oral Roberts. All five of these players should help improve a Missouri defense that struggled to rebound, allowing nearly 13 offensive rebounds per game. Vanover alone should make a huge impact on the defensive end, not only with rebounds and blocked shots but with altering shots at the rim. Last season he averaged 7.2 rebounds per game and 3.2 blocks per game.

It’s hard to imagine that Missouri doesn’t improve as a team defensively. They addressed some clear needs on that end of the court, size and strength. I’m interested to see if there will be changes made to the defense to better accommodate a true big.