What's Up In The Missouri Valley: What's Up In The Missouri Valley 4/25/2022

Ranking the best available men’s college basketball transfers, high school recruits: Kendric Davis commits to Memphis--The Athletic

3. AJ Green | 6-4 guard | senior | Northern Iowa

Green is one of the most skilled guards in the country and built to score. He can get his jumper off in a phone booth. He needs little time or space and can shoot it off the bounce or catch with accuracy. He knows how to use a ball screen and change speeds, allowing him to get to his spots to score. He also can make all the passes and reads out of ball screens. He’s got an assortment of finishes with either hand and is tricky with fakes, allowing him to get to the line frequently, where he’s a career 90 percent foul shooter. The expectation is that he’ll join his father Kyle Green at Iowa State. The elder Green joined T.J. Otzelberger’s staff a year ago. He’d slide right into the Izaiah Brockington role as the primary scorer. He also has the passing and ball handling skills to play point guard, so he could help eat up some of the minutes of the gaping hole left by Tyrese Hunter’s departure. Green still has two years of eligibility remaining because of a hip injury that forced him to sit after three games during the 2020-21 season. Northern Iowa went 28-8 in the Missouri Valley in 2020 and 2022 and just 7-11 without him in 2021. Assuming he doesn’t stay in the NBA Draft — he’s also testing the waters — he’ll be a huge addition wherever he lands, but it’d be surprising if he leaves the state.
14. K.J. Williams | 6-10 big | graduate | Murray State

The Ohio Valley Player of the Year this past season, Williams joined wing Tevin Brown and guard Justice Hill to form the nucleus of a 31-3 Murray State team that went to the Round of 32. Given the accolades, though, Williams was the centerpiece. He is an inside-out big who can punish smaller players on the block just as easily as he can pick-and-pop from distance. He hit just 30.4 percent from 3 this year, but over his career he’s made 35 percent of his 219 attempts. Because of that inside-out skill, he’s a fit almost anywhere at the collegiate level. He’s definitely more offense-first than defense, but he averaged 18 points and eight rebounds and is good enough on offense and versatile enough to play at the high-major level as a difference-maker. His coach at Murray State, Matt McMahon, is now the LSU head coach, so that could be a real fit.
22. Antonio Reeves | 6-5 wing | senior | Illinois State

If you’re looking for scoring, scoring, and more scoring, Reeves might be the perfect player for you. He averaged 20.1 points per game in the Missouri Valley this year on his way to winning second-team all-conference honors as well as the league’s Most Improved Player award. Above all, he’s a pull-up maestro, capable of getting his shot from wherever on the floor at just about any time. He finished second in the conference behind Isiaih Mosley from Missouri State in scoring, hitting pull-up jumpers at a 51.4 effective field goal percentage, a very high number given his volume of shots. Among the 227 players nationally to take at least 100 pull-up jumpers, Reeves finished 19th in his efficiency in terms of making them, per Synergy. And yet, there’s a reason he only made second-team all-league despite those numbers. The rest of his game is a real work in progress. He has a long way to go as a passer and playmaker for others, and his defense leaves something to be desired. There is some question how scalable his game is to high-major situations where he’s just a piece of the puzzle. Still, my bet is a good high-major takes a shot on him and sees if those parts of his game can improve. The scoring is lethal enough to take such an informed bet.

The top 30 transfer portal commits and their fits: How Nijel Pack helps Miami--The Athletic

6. Will Richard | 6-5 wing | sophomore | Transferred from Belmont to Florida

The Scout: Richard was named to the OVC All-Newcomer team this year after averaging 12 points, six rebounds, two assists and over a steal per game. He’s a genuine long-term NBA Draft prospect who somehow slipped through the cracks and fell to Belmont, at 6-5 with something in the range of a plus-six wingspan that is really evident on the court. You can feel his length out there. He moves like an NBA player moves, with terrific footwork and polish as well as strong slashing and finishing ability. He plays well off the ball and is used to running high-level actions from playing in Belmont’s offense. He can shoot off the catch, direct off of dribble-handoffs, or whatever you need. He also has high-level defensive ability. Basically, as soon as the shot comes around — and it will, given his touch; he just needs to work on some slight tweaks such as finishing higher as opposed to farther out in front of his face — he’s going to be a high-level scorer.

The Fit: A great addition as Todd Golden’s first recruit. Richard will be a perfect test case to find out what this Florida staff is capable of early in its time in Gainesville. Richard has all of the tools to be a potential pro wing down the road. He’s the kind of player as a two-way wing that is really hard to find in the portal, and the kind of guy you can build just about any type of team around. He might not average 16 per game next season, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as a Day 1 starter averaging 13 points, four rebounds, a couple of assists and a couple of steals while providing a great impact as a winning player. Then as a third-year player, don’t be surprised to see him emerge into a first-team All-SEC player whom the NBA looks at as an interesting 3-and-D wing.
10. Terry Roberts | 6-3 guard | senior | Transferred from Bradley to Georgia

The Scout: Roberts was the Missouri Valley’s Newcomer of the Year last season, a first-team all-conference player for Bradley who is lightning in a bottle offensively. He’s electric with the ball, capable of creating something out of nothing on offense in a flash. His handle is terrific, and he’s an explosive athlete who can get where he needs to go out of isolations. He averaged nearly 15 points, five rebounds and four assists this year, and hit 34 percent from 3 on a steady diet of tough pull-up shots. He makes some really impressive live-dribble passing reads, but the critical part of his game that he’s going to have to clean up will be turning it over. His assist-to-turnover ratio was very close to the 1-to-1 mark, and he makes some choices both in terms of shot selection and distribution that will worry high-major coaches. But above all, this is a high-major athlete at the guard spot with enough size to not be a liability on defense and enough handle to genuinely break down opposing teams.

The Fit: Well, Georgia needs just about everything as it transitions from the Tom Crean era to the Mike White era. As a first-year building block, Roberts is a terrific lead guard option who will absolutely perform well in the SEC. That league tends to be among the most athletic leagues in the country every year, and Roberts’ quick first step and explosive change of pace ability will fit right in as a terrific option. We’ll see who White and company surround him with to get a better feel for how Georgia could compete this year.
14. Noah Carter | 6-6 forward | junior | Transferred from Northern Iowa to Missouri

The Scout: Carter is a high-IQ, big-bodied, 6-7, undersized forward who makes it work with pure feel for the game. He averaged 15 points and four rebounds in a slow Northern Iowa system, doing a little bit of everything. But above all, Carter just never really stops moving. He’s constantly searching for little creases and openings in the defense, hunting for ways to leverage his opponent to use his strength at 230 pounds to seal his man away from the rim. He was second-team All-Missouri Valley this year and moves people around at his position pretty easily. The worry with Carter at the high-major level is his footspeed and ability to defend against the most athletic guards. On top of that, Carter did only hit 29 percent from 3 this season, but his touch is excellent around the rim and from the foul line and he gives reason to believe that he has room for growth there.

The Fit: Carter’s best position is a small-ball four, and that’s the one spot where Missouri is actually in decent shape with Kobe Brown. But the Tigers really, really, really need skill and scoring, and so Carter is a great fit there. He immediately becomes Mizzou’s most skilled player. The one worry in the SEC is whether he can hang defensively, especially if he’s guarding perimeter players. “It’ll be interesting to see how he fares defensively,” an SEC coach said. “It looked like (on film) he wasn’t the most explosive athlete laterally or vertically. So what his identity on the floor is defensively should be interesting to see. But he’s definitely a really skilled offensive player.”
20. Tyreke Key | 6-3 guard | senior | Transferred from Indiana State to Tennessee

The Scout: Key missed this entire season at Indiana State following shoulder surgery, but he is a multi-time first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference player who is about as terrific a scorer as you’ll find at that level. He’s very polished and poised, a ground-bound player for the most part who gets by with terrific footwork and strength to bump guys off their spot. Indiana State back under Greg Lansing would even use him as a pseudo-post-up/mid-post option where he could use those drop steps and spin moves to score. Plus, prior to the shoulder injury he could really step away and knock down shots. That percentage took a bit of a dive in his senior season in 2021, but the hope is that he can get back to the level he was at previously, where there were few more efficient high-volume scorers at the high mid-major level. There are some questions here with him returning from injury, which is why he falls below guys like Reeves and Carter from the Missouri Valley. But at his best, he’s very much in their group and maybe even better.

The Fit: Key goes to a spot where the coach likes a good post-up, and that’s where he thrives. Rick Barnes is usually feeding a bigger player like Grant Williams, but he’d be smart to invert the floor with Key. The question marks here are whether Key can find his jump shot again — he shot 41 percent from 3 during his sophomore and junior seasons — and whether he’s athletic enough to hang in the SEC. His skillset should diversify Tennessee’s offense. The Vols had speed and shooting on the perimeter last season but didn’t really have an isolation scorer like him who could work in the mid-range.