The freshman showed up big in spot duty.
When Mizzou signed its top ranked recruiting class in November of 2023, the lowest ranked player was a tough nosed point guard from Oklahoma. T.O. Barrett was the first commitment of the class, however, signaling how much the coaching staff wanted what Barrett had to offer.
However when he hit campus last summer, expectations for Barrett to make an early impression were tepid. When we did our annual Top Eight in the rotation poll, Barrett didn’t register a single vote. Those votes turned out to be very right as Barrett was 13th out of 15 players for percentages of minutes played. Through no fault of his own, Barrett was faced with a steep climb towards minutes the moment he stepped onto campus.
Missouri was coming off a historically inept season and Dennis Gates and his staff wasted no time re-buidling the roster. Tamar Bates was back, Caleb Grill was back, Anthony Robinson was back, plus Gates added all-Big 10 guard Tony Perkins, and the career active leader in NCAA scoring Marques Warrick. Needless to say, the path towards playing time for a guard last season was a tough one.
But when Barrett did see the floor, he was fearless. He saw action in 19 games, and just three times more than 10 minutes.
Those three games were Drake in the NCAA Tournament, the away game at Texas, and the away game at Auburn.
Yet I doubt many of those game will be what Barrett will be remembered for, aside from maybe his spirited minutes against Drake.
It was Barrett’s 7 minutes of action in Mizzou’s biggest win of the season, a road victory over eventual National Champion Florida, where Barrett subbed in minutes due to a Perkins ejection and Robinson facing some foul trouble. Those were the minutes most remembered from the fan base. But it wasn’t scoring, since he didn’t score. Barrett stepped in and delivered an important assist off a side pick and roll where he found Mark Mitchell for a dunk. He also nabbed a big rebound and defended All American Walter Clayton. All without fear.
That was the performance where we saw the best of Barrett. Sound and physical defensively, opportunistic offensively, and the ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor.
The fearlessness is obvious. What Barrett needs is to round out his offensive game.
He shot just two threes last year (both misses), but by most accounts the shooting has a ways to go. Even coming into the program last year this was a noted soft spot in his game.
What isn’t soft is the intensity, the effort on defense, the will to compete and the want to win.
Those are all traits which are hard to teach and coach into a player. And Barrett has them.
He still needs to work on his patience in the half court, and his knowledge of when to go make a play and when to pull it back. But everything else you could want for a player to make a breakout next season is there. Last year it was Ant Robinson, could this year it be Barrett?
Regardless if he’s ready for that big a step or not, the reality is Barrett should be a fixture in the rotation going forward and the staff are very happy he’s stuck around for it.