Last June, right around the time most freshmen are settling in, Missouri’s Annor Boateng fell slightly behind the developmental curve.
The headliner of the Tigers’ top-five recruiting class tweaked his knee during a solo workout. While the severity was modest, a program that had just watched a season nuked by injury luck made a sensible decision: it limited Boateng’s workload in strength sessions and practice.
While the Little Rock Central product stayed engaged each day, mental reps don’t maintain stamina or engrain the nuances of reads in high and low split cuts. Physically, Boateng retained full health, but the already tricky task of smuggling minutes from Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill became far more difficult.