Mizzou AD Veatch expects women's hoops improvement. 'But you can't overly define what that is.' (2024)

COLUMBIA, Mo. — When new Missouri athletics director Laird Veatch sat down for introductory meetings with the school’s various head coaches, he made something crowd-pleasingly clear: He wouldn’t be putting them through any SWOT analysis.

The straight-out-of-business-school acronym, pronounced like “swat,” stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats — and it’s a common, if reductive, way to organize a business or athletic program’s competitive standing.

Veatch doesn’t seem like a fan of that approach, even when getting acclimated with a new athletics department. The coaches he’s getting to know appreciate the lack of SWOT-ing.

“That was my first sign,” gymnastics coach Shannon Welker said recently at a fundraiser. “I’m like, ‘I really think I’m going to enjoy working with Laird.’”

Veatch emerged from those conversations feeling confident.

“I’ve, genuinely, been very impressed with our head coaches, with a lot of staff — just the talent, the energy, enthusiasm,” he said. “We’re a fairly young group overall, I would say, just generally speaking. Really good, quality people.”

Mizzou is returning all of its head coaches for the 2024-25 sports year, a bit of unique continuity underneath a change at the athletics department helm.

As things currently stand, that won’t be the case at this time next year: Women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton’s contract expires April 30, 2025, shortly after the end of the college hoops season.

That deadline sets up what will likely be Veatch’s first coaching personnel decision at MU: Does he extend Pingeton? Allow her contract to run out and search for a successor? It’s already unique for a coach to enter the last year of their deal, which leaves them without any contractual obligation or incentive to prepare for the future on the recruiting trail.

For now, much as he isn’t subjecting his coaches to SWOT analyses, Veatch isn’t establishing concrete external expectations for Pingeton and the women’s basketball team.

“(I’ve) had some really good conversations with Robin,” Veatch said. “I think a lot of her as a person, as a coach. She’s obviously had some real success points throughout her career. She, and all of us recognize, the expectations are always to win and get better, right? She’s done some really good things, from what I can tell, from a recruiting standpoint and positioning her and the program to get back on a better track.”

Though the Missouri women have lost two experienced contributors in forward Hayley Frank and Mama Dembele, the Tigers have a young core of players who will be entering their second and third seasons. Pingeton has also found some size in the transfer portal to add to a team that went 2-12 in Southeastern Conference play for a last-place finish in the league.

As Veatch explains it, his stance on evaluating Mizzou women’s basketball is not an exception but the rule for how he’ll analyze other programs at critical junctures that could involve coaching changes.

“Any time I go into a year when we’re coming off a point where it wasn’t what we wanted to be the year before, it’s: Let’s focus on getting better and taking a really big step,” Veatch said. “But you can’t overly define what that is until you see it.

“You observe it, you’re around it, you’re part of it because so much of assessing the performance of a coach or a program is about all the things going on behind the scenes, not just the wins and losses. Ultimately, wins and losses 100% absolutely matter at a real high level. But it’s got to be a part of all that, so you got to spend time with people and see what they’re doing and how they’re operating. That’s something that’ll come in time.”

Ten or more out of 12? That's how many games Missouri's football team will have to win this season to exceed the betting total that has been established for how many games the Tigers will prevail in this year.

Missouri is coming off its best football season in decades, has many key players returning including quarterback Brady Cook andreceiver Luther Burden III to fuelsurging hopes among the Ol’ Mizzou crowd.

That expectation of another banner year has translated to the oddsmakers, as those who set the numbers for the three legal walk-in sportsbooks in the area have set the over/under for the number of contests the Tigers will win as high as 9½. Any postseason play — league title game, bowl game, playoff contests — would not count in that betting total.

That follows MU being at 6½ heading in to last season, after the Tigers hadn’t won more than six games in any of coach Eli Drinkwitz’s three previous seasons running the team. But they surged to a 10-2 regular-season record and capped that with a victory over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.

Two of the brick-and-mortar shops in the area have had MU’s total at 9½, with the betting heavily shaded to “under.” At FanDuel (horse track in Collinsville), a bettor had to risk $180 to try to win $100 on the Tigers winning nine or fewer games. Conversely, over 9½ would return $146 for every $100 risked.

At DraftKings (Casino Queen in East St. Louis), the line also was at 9½ with the vigorish on the under not as steep (-145) as at FanDuel. But the return on over 9½ was less than in Collinsville (+125).

In Alton, the book in Argosy casino had MU’s victory total at 9, with the over the favorite (-124). Under was at even money. (If the Tigers would win exactly nine games, bets would be a “push” and be refunded.)

SEC! SEC! SEC!

Think the Tigers are poised to with the Southeastern Conference title now that Nick Saban finally has left Alabama after his dominating run in all of college football?

Well, the odds say a newcomer to the league has a better chance to win. MU was at 12-1 at DraftKings and Argsoy, 15-1 at FanDuel. What a change from last summer, when the odds locally of MU prevailing in the SEC were as high as 200-1.

All three books had Georgia as the favorite (odds between +150 and +190), with newbie Texas the second choice (ranging from +310 to +350). The other incoming team, Oklahoma, was 40-1 at all those shops.

Vanderbilt, meanwhile, was the longest shot — 1,000-1 at DraftKings.

Playoff push

There is a lot of talk among MU faithful of the team’s chances to make the expanded college football playoffs, up to 12 teams from four last year, and the oddsmakers have the Tigers on the cusp.

Argosy had them with 12th-lowest price to make the field, at +150 (a successful $100 bet would be worth at $150 profit). Georgia and Ohio State were massive favorites to qualify, at -670.

DraftKings also had MU 12th on its list, at +175. The Tigers just miss the cut according to odds at FanDuel, at which they were 13th (+180).

The big prize

Last June, the return on the Tigers winning the national title were as lofty as 400-1, in Alton. While they certainly aren’t among the favorites to win this season, their championship price has had a profound dip.

DraftKings had them at 35-1, FanDuel was at 38-1 and Argosy chimed in at 50-1. The favorites — Georgia (about 3-1), Ohio State (about 4-1) and Texas (about 8-1).

How about Illini?

The over/under for wins last season for Illinois was 6½, like Mizzou, but the Illini fell short in their 5-7 campaign.

This summer the area books have dropped Illinois’ total to 5½, with the under being the favorite: -120 at DraftKings, -127 at Argosy and -130 at FanDuel. Over was even money at DraftKings, +105 at the others.

The best price on the Illini to win the Big Ten crown was 300-1, at DraftKings. Argsoy had the Illini’s price to make the playoffs at 45-1 and FanDuel had them at 1,000-1 to win the national championship.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Eli Drinkwitz is turning visits into verbal commitments.

With Class of 2025 recruits out of school for the summer and taking official visits to some of their preferred future destinations, the Missouri football coach has been adding to his next crop of prospects in rapid-fire fashion.’

Three players have verbally committed to Mizzou in the last week, kicking off a wave of summer commitments that could leave the Tigers’ 2025 signing class largely set before the recruits’ senior seasons of high school football even have begun.

Running back Jamarion Morrow, a four-star athlete from the Memphis area, committed Friday night and headlines the newest commits.

Morrow narrowed his options to MU, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas A&M and Oregon and visited the Crimson Tide and Aggies before picking the Tigers.

The Rivals.com recruiting service sees Morrow as a strong prospect, rating him as the No. 2 all-purpose running back in the 2025 class and 139th best player in the bunch, regardless of position.

Morrow’s high school highlights show off a slippery running style that evades contact in quite a few situations, from traditional handoffs to screens and routes run as a receiver. He also has played on the defensive side of the ball.

Offensive lineman Henry Fenuku, a three-star recruit out of Fort Worth, Texas, committed just a few days after taking his official visit to Mizzou last weekend. He also had visited Ohio State and Texas Tech, but picked the Tigers over additional interest from Southern California and Mississippi.

He has lined up primarily at left guard in high school, pancaking defenders when asked to pull across the line and work his way into the second level of the defense. Recruiting services rank him similarly as one of the 20 best interior offensive line prospects in his class.

Safety Dyllon Williams, who is from Demopolis, Alabama, also committed to Missouri after taking an official visit. He’d also taken trips to Mississippi State and Cincinnati and had a visit with Kentucky planned before committing to the Tigers. Recruiting services grade Williams as a three-star prospect and one of the top 30 players coming out of talent-rich Alabama.

Those three additions give Mizzou 10 verbal commitments for the 2025 class, a pace on par with the rest of the Southeastern Conference.

It’s still early enough in the recruiting cycle for team rankings to be somewhat determined by quantity more than quality, but Missouri remains within the mix in the SEC.

Rivals.com lists MU 10th in the conference, trailing the likes of Ole Miss and Tennessee but solidly ahead of South Carolina and Arkansas. That’s good for 24th in the nation, sandwiched between the Big 12’s Texas Tech and Atlantic Coast Conference’s Wake Forest.

Drinkwitz still is far ahead of his commitment pace from the 2024 recruiting cycle. At this time a year ago, the Tigers had just three verbal commits and didn’t cross into double digits until mid-July. Something similar was true for the 2023 wave, which saw MU with five commitments at this stage.

Some of that seems to be because of a broader acceleration in the recruiting process. With football programs setting aside a handful of roster spots for eventual transfer portal additions each year, the number of freshmen that a team will take on likely has at least some sort of cap. That could be pressing high school players to lock in their destinations earlier than normal.

Commitments remain verbal until December 4, which is when recruits can sign letters of intent to lock in their school choice.

Farther down the recruiting timeline, this weekend marked the beginning of the direct contact for the 2026 class across sports, meaning coaches can now recruit high school players who have just completed their sophom*ore years.

That means a flurry of initial conversations and offers are flowing out of programs around the country.

Mizzou men’s basketball team was among the prolific Rolodex-users, touching base with several top 15-ranked prospects in the 2026 wave.

And, in a well-known football household, Missouri football extended to an offer to safety Cooper Witten, son of former Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Early in Laird Veatch’s tenure as Missouri’s athletics director, he did the rounds of the grounds.

Veatch met with every head coach. He talked with sport-specific administrators, facility staff and business personnel. And he toured all of MU’s athletic facilities.

His takeaway: There are some fixer-uppers.

“The Memorial Stadium improvement project is unquestionably the No. 1 thing that we need to be focusing on,” Veatch told the Post-Dispatch. “But there are some key things that need to be done that aren’t wants, they’re needs — particularly related to our playing surfaces and a few of our sports: baseball, track, soccer, tennis. We have some things that just need to be done.”

A planned renovation of Memorial Stadium’s north concourse that will add premium seating and event space to the tune of $250 million is expected to wrap up in time for the 2026 football season. Though the project was approved by university administration just before Veatch’s hire, fundraising for its completion has been one of his immediate priorities.

Since seeing some of the other facilities, like baseball’s Taylor Stadium, soccer and outdoor track’s Walton Stadium, and the Mizzou Tennis Complex, which hasn’t been hosting the Tigers’ home events, Veatch has a sense of urgency about renovations to other facilities.

He also sees a role for himself in making them happen.

“The advocacy from me on those playing surfaces and the basic things needs to be, ‘We gotta find a way — we gotta find a way as soon as possible,’ ” Veatch said, “whether that’s working with donors, working with our institutional partners, finding a way within our budget process to make some of those things happen.”

The sentiment that some of Mizzou’s athletic facilities — particularly the three Veatch highlighted — need upgrades is not a new one. Broad renovations across MU’s stadiums were part of a facilities master plan announced in October that never left a closed session UM System Board of Curators meeting.

Specifics of the master plan have yet to emerge. When the Post-Dispatch submitted a public records request for the document, the university system declined to release the plan because “it was not presented in public session and the deliberative decision-making process related to the plan continues.”

It seems there were quite a few facility upgrades included in the plan.

The proposed course of action “would impact every Mizzou sports program and feature sequential construction projects to address current facility needs,” according to Mizzou Athletics’ announcement of the plan, which came before a November Board of Curators meeting. In addition to the north concourse project, the facilities master plan floated “the construction of several new competition venues and practice facilities,” per the same announcement.

All that emerged from the Curators’ lengthy executive session in November was the Memorial Stadium upgrade.

As a result, there’s a promise that the additional revenue created by that renovation will cover other athletics department expenses, like facility upgrades.

“It’s been encouraging to me how the vast majority of people I speak to here see the big picture and they recognize the importance of football and the impact that has — not just for football but for everyone else,” Veatch said. “When I say, even in my (introductory) press conference, how important that is, it’s not just because I played football or I love the game or recognize it’s our biggest revenue driver. It’s because it has such a bigger impact on everyone involved, and the best way for us to get to a point where we can really move some of these other projects forward is by getting the football stadium done.”

Set in motion before Veatch’s arrival, that’s how facility renovations will proceed at Mizzou.

“Really from a competitive, safety and security standpoint we’ve got to get some of those things shored up,” Veatch said. “And — let me say ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ — I do believe in the future there’ll be some significant developments we can do with our other sports as well. But for now, we’ve got to solidify our football resource and then be able to focus on some of the bigger things down the road.”