ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Every Missouri Tigers basketball fan knows last season was really bad, going winless in SEC (0-18) play a year after winning their first NCAA Tournament game in over a decade.
Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates is hellbent on making sure last season won't happen again, landing three players early on the college basketball offseason, including Iowa's Tony Perkins, who averaged 14 points a game last season for the Hawkeyes from the Transfer Portal
On Friday, Mizzou caught an extremely big fish in the transfer portal, landing their fourth transfer in former 5-star recruit and Duke forward Mark Mitchell, who announced his commitment to Mizzou on his Instagram Friday.
Mitchell was a every day player for Duke HC Jon Sheyer, starting 67 out of the 68 games he played for the Blue Devils, who reached the Elite-8 last season before losing to fellow ACC rival North Carolina State. Mitchell struggled in what was his final game for the Blue Devils, scoring only six points.
Prior to committing to Duke, Mitchell was the No. 28 prospect in ESPN's recruiting database and was a participant in the 2022 McDonald's All American Game.
Mitchell is a very big get for Mizzou as the 6-foot-8 forward fills the hole of being the inside presence that Mizzou sorely lacked last season after the departure of star Kobe Brown.
Known as one of the premier defensive players in college basketball, Mitchell posted a defensive win shares 1.7 last season, a defensive rating of 100.6 and a block percentage of 2.7% to go along with decent offensive stats in 11.6 points-per-game, .540 field goal percentage and true shooting percentage of .583 in his sophomore campaign for the Blue Devils.
Duke is a tremendous amount of roster turnover, with seven players putting their name in the Transfer Portal and two more, including star Kyle Filipowski, declaring for the NBA Draft.
Duke should be fine especially since they have a loaded class of Freshman that is set to come to Durham, North Carolina, including consensus no. 1 player in the country Copper Flagg and no. 3 player in the country Khaman Maluach