Mizzou Basketball: Blake Harris transferring from Missouri

Mizzou basketball is a different program this year, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still have some hardships. The most recent involves guard Blake Harris announcing that he will transfer.

After racking up their first road win in conference play in nearly four years, the Missouri Tigers were hit with a bit of a roadblock on Friday. Point guard Blake Harris announced that he’d be transferring from Mizzou.

Harris got his first start against Long Beach State in the AdvoCare Invitational over Thanksgiving, but wasn’t doing as much as some thought he could. As mentioned by Alex Schiffer of The Kansas City Star, Cuonzo Martin didn’t have a ton of patience with the freshman.

"Throughout the season, Martin had Harris on a short leash. He would pull him out of games shortly after committing a turnover or a bad foul. Even after Harris cracked the starting lineup in November, he was still playing fewer than 25 minutes a game with juniors Jordan Geist or Terrence Phillips running the point in close situations."

https://twitter.com/blizzyblake55_/status/949309146578472960

Obviously the biggest story, aside from transferring obviously, is what this could possibly mean in regards to Michael Porter Jr.’s future at the university. Porter and Harris are buddies and were supposed to play together at Washington before Lorenzo Romar was fired.

Now, here we are, and Porter’s roommate is transferring. For everyone wishing for Porter’s return to the court, this news doesn’t instill much confidence that the top recruit is going to come back at all this season, or at least not any time soon. Harris obviously wanted to play with his pal, so this is very curious timing for sure.

I'm more concerned about what Blake Harris transferring means about Porter coming back to play this year. Porter is the only reason he's at MU.
— Carrington Harrison (@cdotharrison) January 5, 2018

Not many Mizzou fans are happy about this development, mainly because Harris had a chance to be really success at Missouri. He was starting for the team and while yes, he was often pulled out of games at times, he had a lot of room to grow as a player under Cuonzo Martin.

Instead, he decided he was ready for a change and is taking off for another school. Harris is a talented basketball player, but this isn’t the best look.

I don't knock kids for transferring when coaches can change jobs at will. That said, it's hard to imagine Blake Harris finding an easier path to being The Man than he had at #Mizzou. He had to beat out Geist and Phillips. And bailed halfway through his freshman season.
— Ben Frederickson (@Ben_Fred) January 5, 2018