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COLUMBIA, Mo. — How far away is transfer portal crunch time?

College basketball teams — all of which are now in their offseasons after Monday’s national title game — have entered their third week of portal activity. Players have until April 22 to enter the portal, but most who plan to enter have done so.

For a Missouri men’s basketball team that is looking to reload after an NCAA Tournament appearance, the margin for error in the portal is slimmer at this point in the window than it was at the start. It’s not that the Tigers are now doomed to a poor transfer cycle — there is plenty of time left. But roster math means that any misses on Mizzou’s remaining adds could very well have an outsized impact on next season’s performance.

Here's the landscape, as of Tuesday afternoon:

• MU is set to retain eight players from this past season: point guard Anthony Robinson II, point guard T.O. Barrett, guard Annor Boateng, forward Mark Mitchell, forward Jacob Crews, forward Trent Pierce, center Peyton Marshall and center Trent Burns.
• The Tigers have two incoming freshmen signed: point guard Aaron Rowe and forward Nicholas Randall.

In total, that accounts for 10 of the 15 roster spots coach Dennis Gates will have at his disposal in 2025-26, leaving five open.

As a reminder, Missouri lost five players to expired eligibility: point guard Tony Perkins, guard Caleb Grill, guard Tamar Bates, guard Marques Warrick and center Josh Gray. Two players have departed the program via the transfer portal: forward Aidan Shaw, who signed with Boston College, and forward Marcus Allen.

As has been outlined in these pages and elsewhere previously, those departures left Mizzou with a fairly clear-cut list of needs. The Tigers needed to replace the shooting of Grill, who was up there with the best 3-point shooters in the nation for much of the season, and Bates, who finished just shy of a 50-40-90 season. Going like-for-like in a portal replacement would mean targeting two shooters. MU also needed a traditional big man, like Gray, who could play ahead of Marshall and Burns in the post. A ball handler and perimeter defender who could operate as a third point guard option seemed like a helpful piece too.

To this point, Mizzou has picked up three transfer portal commitments: UCLA guard Sebastian Mack, Oklahoma big Luke Northweather and Loyola Marymount forward Jevon Porter.

At face value, the only need covered by that trio is the point guard one — which also looked to be the least pressing priority. With three of the five open spots now filled, MU has two remaining — and just as many needs, if not more, depending on whether it takes one or two shooters to replace Grill and Bates.

So how is this going to work?

Adding Mack gives Missouri a guard who can get to the free-throw line and be a plus on the defensive end of the floor. Despite coming off the bench for UCLA this past season, Mack finished 21st in the Big Ten with four free-throw attempts per game. According to an advanced analytic called Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating, which accounts for how much better a player is defensively than an average player, given game context, he was the 33rd-best defender in the Big Ten — regardless of position. Filter just by guards, and Mack posted the seventh-best DBPR of any guard in the Big Ten.

Mack’s stat profile looks similar to that of Perkins, who was also a defensive-minded transfer from a Big Ten school — Iowa, in his case.

Perkins averaged 8.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists for Mizzou this past season while shooting 47.9% from the field, 30.9% from 3 and 75.7% at the stripe.

Mack averaged 9.6 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game for the Bruins, shooting 42.6% from the field, 31.4% from 3 and 74.3% at the free-throw line.

There’s a similarity there, at least in general role. And a defense-driven, foul-drawing guard works well in MU’s system — that’s Robinson’s play style.

But Mack, barring a fairly dramatic uptick in 3-point shooting, won’t fill the Grill and Bates voids. And as a 6-3 guard, he’s not going to be the go-to big man.

It’s unlikely that Northweather or Porter will be the latter either. Northweather, while 6-feet-11, averaged only 1.5 rebounds and 0.2 blocks while playing more than 11 minutes per game for the Sooners.

Porter, also 6-feet-11, was a solid rebounder with 7.2 boards per game and shot north of 30% from 3. He struggled inside the arc, though, and posted those numbers against West Coast Conference competition — not the much more physical Southeastern Conference.

Both are hometown products of sorts, with Northweather hailing from Jefferson City and Porter from Columbia. They’ll likely get some looks but wind up near the back end of the rotation.

Does that push Marshall and Burns up in the rotation? How do Rowe and Randall, the freshmen — neither of whom are considered especially ready to contribute from the start — slot in? There are only so many spots on the far end of the bench.

And where does the shooting come from?

Perhaps Mizzou pieces together center options through playing Mitchell at the five and relying on Marshall, Burns, Porter or Northweather to fill in the gaps.

Maybe some of the shooting comes from within. Crews or Pierce could take on more volume. Boateng could become a contributor. Robinson could add to his pull-up.

It’s all possible because plenty is possible during a modern college basketball offseason. But with only two more spots to work with — barring another outgoing transfer, which falls under the umbrella of possibilities — there isn’t much in the way of answers nor margin for error to go around.