Missouri fans can now anticipate the gold Nike Mizzou basketball jerseys with No. 3 on the back to be on clearance at the campus bookstore.
Sophomore forward Johnathan Williams III, arguably the current face of Mizzou basketball, is expected to transfer from Mizzou. He has already notified head coach Kim Anderson and asked to be released from his scholarship.
This past season, Williams lead the 9-23 Tigers with 11.9 points per game, 7.1 rebounds per game and 0.6 blocks per game.
But like the rest of the team, Williams wasn’t without his struggles. He had 22 more turnovers than any other Tiger, leading the team with 82 on the season at an average of 2.6 per game. Williams had the ninth-most turnovers in the Southeastern Conference.
Out of the 14 teams in the SEC, Williams would lead the team in turnovers on eight of them.
Williams, a four-star prospect out of Southwind High School in Memphis, Tennessee, and the prize of Mizzou’s 2013 recruiting class, chose Mizzou over offers from Tennessee, Georgetown and Michigan State, among others.
He chose Mizzou with Frank Haith and Tim Fuller in charge of the team. Both are gone from the program, following Fuller’s exit last week. Williams chose the Mizzou team that went 23-11 in the 2012-13 season, just one year off of being a 2-seed in the 2012 NCAA tournament. Since Williams’ arrival in Columbia, the Tigers have gone 32-35.
Mizzou’s other four-star recruit in that class was Wes Clark, who hinted at Williams’ imminent exit via Twitter Monday night and Tuesday morning.
At 8:23 p.m. Monday night, Clark tweeted: “And the bad news begins.”
The next morning, at 10:22 a.m., he followed up with a tweet that read: “This might turn out to be a sad day.”
The announcement came less than two hours later, when CBS College Basketball Insider Gary Parrish released a statement from Williams’ father, Johnathan Williams II.
“We want to thank Coach (Kim) Anderson and everybody at Missouri,” the elder Williams told CBSSports.com. “But he has asked for his release and will transfer. It’s official.”
According to his father, Williams has received many calls from coaches looking to acquire the 6-foot-9-inch, 225-pound forward, but does not know where he will take his talents next.
Williams will likely have to sit out next season in order to transfer and could use the year off to let his right knee heal. He partially tore his meniscus in September and played the entire season in a brace.
Williams would become the sixth former Tiger to transfer in the past three offseasons. He follows Cameron Biedscheid, who transferred in October before playing a single game for Mizzou, and Shane Rector, who left after his freshman season last May, as the transfers in the Kim Anderson era at Mizzou.
Williams father told the Columbia Missourian Tuesday evening that his son will make an announcement following a meeting with coaches after his classes Wednesday.
In other words: nothing is official, yet.
