Now entering his third year as part of the Missouri men’s basketball program, junior guard/forward Trent Pierce realizes there’s a team-building aspect to players driving to the St. Louis area for a youth basketball clinic at the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur.
It’s all part of players, coaches and staff members seeing each other in a different light and connecting in a different way as well as interacting with the community that follows Mizzou sports.
There’s been a definite shift in the idea of what a basketball “program” looks like in the current college sports climate of name, image, likeness (NIL) and schools taking the long overdue step of sharing a portion of revenue with athletes.