Missouri Basketball Recruiting: Tigers land forward Nicholas Randall

In late June, Nicholas Randall slipped west down I-70 and into Columbia for an official visit. This trek piqued our interest and put us on alert for a commitment.

Instead, the St. Louis native bided his time — through the July period, a move to AZ Compass Prep from Vashon, check-ins from Missouri assistants, and right on into autumn. MU projected confidence that Randall would wind up in black and gold. While the Tigers had no slot reserved, the big man knew he could claim a ticket.

On Monday, Randall finally called it in, becoming the second member to join the 2025 class alongside point guard Aaron Rowe.

The air of inevitably around Randall’s courtship was also rational.

In late April 2022, he was the third 2025 recruit to pick up an offer from Gates, who’d barely been on the job a month. He also visited MU unofficially, and assistant coach Kyle Smithpeters tracked him and Brad Beal Elite closely on the EYBL circuit. For long-term priorities like Randall, MU’s hit rate hovers around 50 percent. Moreover, Randall only took one other official excursion to San Francisco, a respectable program in the West Coast Conference.

Randall’s decision also assures coach Dennis Gates that he’s reinforced depth along the front line and at lead guard. Now, the focus turns entirely to whether MU caps this cycle by holding off Alabama and Cincinnati to win over combo guard Davion Hannah, a top-30 talent who has twice visited Columbia.

• From: St. Louis
• High School: AZ Compass Prep
• Position: Hybrid
• Ht/Wt: 6-8/230
• 247Composite Ranking: 0.9388 (No. 120)
• On3 Sports Ranking: 90.69 (No. 117)
• Offers to note: San Francisco and Creighton

This is a condensed version of a scouting update that ran on Aug. 20 for RockM+ subscribers.

Even as the pace-and-space revolution has unfolded, one truism has remained over the last decade: You can’t teach size.

Roughly a year ago, Randall might have been labeled a ‘tweener, checking in at 6-foot-6 when measured at the Nike Elite 100 camp. Even with a plus-6-inch wingspan, Randall looked and played like a combo forward. But if a growth spurt has him pushing 6-foot-9, it changes the tenor of the conversation around his game.

You’ll see how in a moment.

Randall averaged 10.8 points and 5.2 rebounds early in the grassroots season while shooting 60 percent from the floor. Unsurprisingly, the hot start pushed him to No. 91 in 247Sports’ composite index. Had Randall kept up that run of form, it’s not unreasonable to think his pool of suitors would have expanded.

Instead, his offensive output crashed. Down the stretch, Randall posted 3.4 points and connected on barely 30 percent of attempts from the floor. Such a dramatic flip in performance explains a pedestrian stat line. It might also leave you wondering why Gates pushed to add him to the haul.

And there’s no way to soften the picture in the play-type data below. Aside from finishing plays as a cutter and crashing the offensive glass, not much went right for Randall. An optimist could only latch onto a robust defensive rebound rate (27.3%) and the forward’s knack for drawing fouls.

Unsurprisingly, the rocky end to summer saw Randall backslide in the rankings, landing around the same place he started three months earlier. It also dampened his recruitment. After visiting MU on June 25, three months passed before he hit the road again. In between, no high-major programs swooped in.

As Randall has matured, he’s steadily replaced cuts with post-ups and face-ups, particularly around the elbows. The more his frame filled in, the higher his putback tallies climbed. However, Randall’s efficiency also ebbed each spring he showed up on the EYBL. Even when getting to the rack as a cutter, he only averaged 1.03 points per possession, ranking in the 39^th percentile among his peers.

So, it’s likely unreasonable to expect Randall to make an early dent in the scoring column.

When working on the block, Randall only played direct to the rim on 6 of 28 touches, and when he did, it usually came by burying his defender in the middle of the lane for a high-low feed. Randall preferred to counter by reverse pivoting and attempting a turnaround jumper. He sometimes struggled to retain leverage and keep a defender pinned to his hip when crab-dribbling from the wing.

There’s not a move or spot that Randall relied on to produce consistent results. While Randall might not make a living on post-ups, there are situations where MU tries to exploit mismatches with quick punch plays. Converting those chances would bolster a case for more PT in a crowded rotation.

That inconsistency would be tolerable if Randall’s jumper generated consistent returns. At Vashon, for example, he shot 33 percent from 3-point range, albeit on low volume. But this summer, Randall made just 5 of 42 jumpers, attempts worth 0.29 points.

When I saw Randall live in May, his mechanics weren’t putrid. His shot pocket starts a little low, but his base is consistent. His shot motion is compact and direct, and there’s nothing wonky about his hand position. Admittedly, the ball doesn’t always come cleanly off his middle and index fingers, while his hand occasionlly pronates to create a sidespin. Yet his misses tend to be soft. Any clean-up would be modest, while improvement might come from ample reps in game-like setups.

At worst, Randall’s shown he can subsist on second possessions after wiping the offensive backboards.

He’s also a potential safety valve in the dunk spot waiting for dump-offs from drivers. Or you can use him as a lob threat on out-of-bounds sets.

Randall’s play also hinted at a swing skill that enhances his value for a program like MU: facilitating. Coach Tony Irons, who led Vashon and BBE, installed sets that deployed Randall at the elbows and top of the key where the big man had to read off-ball screening action.

On tape, you can spot Randall surveying in delay and point sets. He’s comfortable putting the ball on the floor to run dribble-ats or trigger zoom action. Or he’ll space out to the wing or slot to make timely skip passes.

While the sample size was small this spring, Randall produced a 1.7 assist-to-turnover ratio in those situations. In Columbia, the menu of reads grows longer and more diverse, but he’s already been exposed to the basics and ably executed them.

There’s a world where MU has two centers who can function as connectors, with Marshall being a bully on the block and – ideally – Randall stepping out or attacking via bully drives from the high post.

On the defensive end, Randall’s mobility is more than functional. His footspeed is more than adequate to close out shooters, especially when he’s the lowest help defender and rotating to the weak-side corner. When those players drive, Randall’s adept at giving enough cushion and trusting his wingspan to provide him with a buffer.

Unsurprisingly, opponents sometimes hunted him in ball screens, whether it was a traditional pick-and-roll (0.86 PPP) or dribble-handoff (1.75 PPP). On average, though, that only happened once per game, and it’s balanced by solid work when isolated (0.75 PPP) on perimeter threats.

Defending, rebounding, and moving the ball: that’s what Randall offers in the near term, even as he settles in ($) at basketball factory like Compass Prep. Patience is a requirement here, but as we noted this spring, pulling a proven interior player from the portal can be expensive. Recruiting and developing player’s of Randall’s ilk can certainly offer a near-term cost-savings, but it also requires patience to see where his ceiling on offense settles.

The long-term bet is that Randall’s jumper improves while his handle tightens up. Should that play out, he might fit more naturally at the hybrid position while Peyton Marshall or Trent Burns anchor in the post — and bestow MU with genuine adaptability along its frontline.