Mizzou Basketball: Porter brothers era huge disappointment
Michael Porter Jr. and Jontay Porter have officially moved on from Mizzou basketball and their time with the program ended up as a disappointment.
When Michael Porter Jr. made the decision to commit to the Missouri Tigers in 2017, it finally felt like maybe – just MAYBE – good things could happen for the program. For years, Mizzou sports have suffered from bad luck, and a guy who lived in Columbia committing to the program after some truly awful years looked to be a sign of the tides turning.
Shortly after Porter committed to Missouri, it was announced that his brother – Jontay Porter – would be leaving high school early and joining his bro on the court. This news was heaven for Mizzou fans.
As you can tell by the title, however, things didn’t turn out all that great. In fact, the Porter brothers era with Mizzou basketball ended up being a mega disappointment.
Whatever the worst case scenario for Michael and Jontay Porter situation for Missouri/NBA was, we came pretty close.
— Carrington Harrison (@cdotharrison) June 21, 2019
Let’s start with Michael Porter Jr.
The hype went on for the entire spring and summer months and when basketball season was finally rolling around, fans were ready. The hometown kid was going to make the Tigers relevant again and the hype was real.
Then – The Missouri curse struck, as it tends to.
In Mizzou’s first game of the season against the Iowa State Cyclones, two minutes in to be exact, Porter exited and never returned to the game. It was announced shortly after the game that he was having back issues and could miss time.
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Porter ended up having to have surgery and didn’t return to the court until the SEC Tournament, where Missouri was eliminated after the first round. He played sparingly in the NCAA Tournament, where the Tigers also were eliminated after just one round.
Porter then declared for the 2018 NBA Draft and went 14th overall to the Denver Nuggets. In case you were wondering, Porter missed all of the 2018-2019 season in Denver due to injury.
Now, let’s move onto Jontay Porter.
Jontay had a respectable freshman year at Missouri, even with his brother not taking the court for all but two minutes of the regular season. Jontay played in 33 games, averaging 24.5 minutes played and 9.9 points per game.
There was a lot of excitement when Jontay decided to return for his sophomore season. Unfortunately, he was injured over the summer and wound up missing all of the 2018-2019 season and the Tigers would ultimately miss the NCAA Tournament.
Jontay opted not to return for his junior campaign and entered the 2019 NBA Draft where he went undrafted and can’t return to school.
The Missouri Tigers seemed to have it all going for them when Michael Porter Jr. decided to stay in Columbia and play college hoops for MU. Once again, however, that Mizzou curse struck and both MPJ and Jontay didn’t flourish as many had hoped they would. They didn’t make the program relevant.
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It’s still too early to predict how the rest of their NBA careers will go, but to this point, it hasn’t been good. MPJ hasn’t played a single minute and Jontay, as of this writing, hasn’t been signed to a team.
Hopefully the brothers go on to do great things in the pros, but their collegiate careers left something to be desired.