The gem of last years recruiting class was lightly used but still invested.
Before we start, make sure you’ve already read Matt Harris’s excellent piece on Annor Boateng from a few weeks back. The focus on the piece was largely projection, and what we might expect from Boateng moving forward. There wasn’t a whole lot of dwelling on this past season beyond the setup.
Coming into the season, as was noted in Matt’s piece, Boateng was dealing with the setback of a knee issue which kept him out of full workouts in the early and middle parts of the summer.
The injury, while not serious, coupled with the play of some more experienced players ahead of him, meant Annor was left on the sidelines for much of the season.
Boateng played in 17 of the 34 games the Tigers played this past season, which doesn’t take a math whiz to figure out that’s half. But in those 17 games he played just 109 minutes, attempted 26 shots. 109 minutes in 17 games is just 6.4 minutes per game, when he played. If you include the games where Annor didn’t play, he saw action in just 7.9% of the available minutes.
You could see this happening early as well, when Missouri travelled to Memphis to open the season and Boateng didn’t get off the bench.
However, Dennis Gates is a smart guy. He likely knew by that point he was going to have a hard time finding minutes for Boateng with Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill ahead of him on the wing. So he started Boateng the next 7 games in a row, thanks to a schedule that could only be described as soft. 6 of those 7 starts came against teams who finished 284th or lower in KenPom.com’s final rankings.
Given that runway, Boateng was a starter, but he played 25 minutes against Mississippi Valley State, 14 minutes against Pacific, 11 minutes against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, then 9 minutes, 4 minutes, 4 minutes and 3 minutes in the other games. Then he saw more than 10 minutes of action is just one more game the rest of the season, against Auburn, when Gates was frustrated enough with his experienced players he just rolled out his youngins at the end of the game.
When Boateng was on the floor, you understood why he was so highly recruited. The athleticism and fluidity jumped off the floor. He has elite end to end speed, he defends with intensity, and while he didn’t have many opportunities to finish around the rim, the limited times he did he looked good.
But the rough spots? He was turnover prone, and his shooting wasn’t necessarily on point making just one of his 10 three point attempts.
There’s still a lot of room to grow. For the growth side, and expectations I’ll defer to Matt’s piece again. But needless to say we’re all hopeful for a jump in year 2.