The Missouri Tigers will miss out on of the most coveted quarterbacks available in the transfer portal, with former USC quarterback Miller Moss committing to Louisville, per Pete Thamel.

Moss was rated by 247Sports as the fifth-best quarterback available in the transfer portal, and the No. 42 prospect. Moss visited Missouri early in the week before taking a visit to Louisville.

Missouri will remain on the search for its next starting quarterback, with Brady Cook’s eligibility expiring after three years of starting for the Tigers. Moss was the top candidate for Missouri, completing 233 of his 362 pass attempts for 2,555 yards, 18 touchdowns and nine interceptions as USC’s starter in 2023.

Now, the Tigers will have to look elsewhere for their starting quarterback in 2025. Conner Weigman (Texas A&M), Maalik Murphy (Duke), Fernando Mendoza (California) and Luke Kromenhoek (Florida State), all in the top five, are still available.

Though it was unable to acquire Moss, Missouri did make its first addition of the offseason through the transfer portal Saturday, landing a commitment from former Mississippi State wide receiver Kevin Coleman Jr.

READ: Report: Mizzou Football Makes First Splash in Transfer Portal with WR

The winter window for the transfer portal officially opened Dec. 9 and will close Dec. 28. Missouri secured the no. 13-rated portal class in the offseason of 2024.

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Returning to Mizzou Arena for the first time after upsetting the former top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks, the Missouri Tigers had a little more momentum on their side than usual.

Missouri fully carried that into Saturday against the Long Island Sharks, completing a convincing 88-61 win to mark its ninth-straight of the season.

In the first half, it was largely the Trent Pierce show. Even though the sophomore only received eight minutes of action before halftime, he already reached a new career-high of 17 points by knocking down 4-of-7 triples. By the end of the afternoon, he had 24 on 8-of-14 shooting from the field.

“I had a good shooting day, it’s been a rough past couple games for me shooting it and I think just my confidence, knowing that I could shoot the ball, coach and my teammates encouraging me to keep shooting, allowed me to go into this game forgetting about the last missed shot and just hitting my next one,” Pierce said.

Pierce’s involvement within the rotation had started to dwindle in previous matchups. He only played seven minutes against Cal and five against Kansas, and was unable to score in either game. Nevertheless, the forward kept a positive mindset and made the most of his opportunity.

“Trent wants to play, and what he showed today was his ability to not focus on the minutes he had, but doing something with what he got,” coach Dennis Gates said. “You didn’t see him blink at all … he’s going to be unbelievable for us, and he’s going to continue to help us.”

Gates has encouraged his players to “shoot the ball,” and despite some struggles there, Pierce stayed true to the area of his game he was recruited for in the first place. The confidence he immediately displayed gave the Tigers a big boost on offense, and helped them finish the game with an impressive 14-of-28 clip from behind the arc.

Marques Warrick added 16 points with four 3-pointers of his own, while Jacob Crews and Tony Perkins each provided two.

It was the opposite result for Long Island, shooting just 8-of-24 as a team from 3-point range. Its offense struggled to find any sort of leeway from the Missouri defense, which prevented it from getting quality looks.

Mark Mitchell did much of the work inside the paint, finishing the game with 15 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks on 7-of-9 shooting. The Sharks had little answer for his strength and force down low, providing some rather easy looks. Though, his free throw output left much to be desired, only knocking down 1-of-5.

The Tigers got to to the free-throw line at a strong rate, but didn’t convert as many opportunities as they might’ve liked. As a collective group, it shot a total of 12-of-19.

At first, Long Island jumped out of the gate with some confidence. It gained an 8-7 lead over Missouri with 15:31 remaining in the first half, but rather quickly, the home team took hold of the direction the rest of the game would go in.

From the 15:29 to 11:14 mark in the first half, the Tigers went on a 14-0 run started by Bates at the the charity stripe and ended by Robinson in the very same place. To fill in the gaps, Mitchell finished two layups in the paint, while both Warrick and Aidan Shaw knocked down a 3-pointer of their own.

Thanks in large part to Pierce, Missouri kept that momentum building up until halftime to gain a 45-24 lead. An 8-3 run for the Sharks at the start of the second half gave a little bit of a scare, but the Tigers were able to avoid a major second half slip and began to push the pace offensively once more.

Never shy of shooting it from deep, Missouri continued its dominance in non-conference play — even if the result was largely predictable. However, the circumstances around the game could’ve made up for upset territory, in what Gates called a “trap game.”

“Coming off an emotional high against Kansas, our team was able to show character as it relates to how they handled the new attention or the new phone calls or the messages of congratulations,” Gates said. “I thought they had an edge to them, in addition to having finals. You had two things that could really deter a team.”

The Tigers avoided succumbing to those deterrents, and will get a shorter break following the win before going up against Jacksonville State at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Columbia, Mo.

Associated Press

Missouri State Bears (5-4, 0-1 MVC) at Washington State Cougars (8-2)

Pullman, Washington; Saturday, 5 p.m. EST

BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Cougars -11.5; over/under is 143

BOTTOM LINE: Missouri State takes on Washington State after Dez White scored 30 points in Missouri State’s 80-77 loss to the Indiana State Sycamores.

The Cougars have gone 4-0 at home. Washington State averages 14.5 turnovers per game and is 2-1 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents.

The Bears are 1-1 on the road. Missouri State scores 77.0 points and has outscored opponents by 3.0 points per game.

Washington State scores 81.2 points, 7.2 more per game than the 74.0 Missouri State gives up. Missouri State averages 77.0 points per game, 3.5 more than the 73.5 Washington State allows.

TOP PERFORMERS: Isaiah Watts is shooting 39.0% from beyond the arc with 2.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Cougars, while averaging 12.1 points and 1.8 steals.

White is scoring 18.9 points per game and averaging 3.6 rebounds for the Bears.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.