Fansided

Jontay Porter joins Missouri: 5 things you need to know

By Chris Stone

BERKELEY, CA - DECEMBER 09: Head coach Cuonzo Martin of the California Golden Bears gives instructions to his team during their game against the Incarnate Word Cardinals at Haas Pavilion on December 9, 2015 in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
BERKELEY, CA - DECEMBER 09: Head coach Cuonzo Martin of the California Golden Bears gives instructions to his team during their game against the Incarnate Word Cardinals at Haas Pavilion on December 9, 2015 in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /
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LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 08: Head coach Lorenzo Romar of the Washington Huskies looks on during a first-round game of the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament against the USC Trojans at T-Mobile Arena on March 8, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. USC won 78-73. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 08: Head coach Lorenzo Romar of the Washington Huskies looks on during a first-round game of the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament against the USC Trojans at T-Mobile Arena on March 8, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. USC won 78-73. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /

4. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good

Missouri’s rise from former head coach jumping out of a casket to top 10 recruiting class is one of the most fascinating stories of the college basketball offseason and it still doesn’t quite make sense, so let’s try to lay out how in the heck we got here.

For starters, this all involves three schools making head coaching changes. The most obvious one came before the SEC tournament when Missouri fired the aforementioned head coach, Kim Anderson, after back-to-back seasons of bottom dwelling in the conference in his first two years. The other obvious one involved current head coach Cuonzo Martin deciding to leave California for the Tigers after a three year stint with the Golden Bears, the third three year run of his head coaching career.

The third coaching move came in the Pacific Northwest where Washington decided to fire Lorenzo Romar, Michael Porter Jr.’s godfather, after another disappointing season. It was that decision which led the Porter family back to Missouri where Michael Jr. and Jontay’s aunt coaches the women’s basketball team. His two sisters are on the roster.

Their father was also an assistant on that women’s staff before he became an assistant on Romar’s staff at Washington and moved the boys to Nathan Hale High School in Seattle. Porter Jr. even committed to the Huskies last summer, but the Porters have always had a foundation in Columbia, MO.

While the ties to Columbia gave Martin a foundation, he went to work building the house by hiring Porter as an assistant coach. Porter Jr.’s commitment soon followed and Jontay’s re-classification always felt like an inevitability. None of this probably happens if Washington doesn’t fire Romar, though, and for Missouri, that situation was outside of its control. Just another case of better to be lucky than good.