Men’s Basketball Signs Top-25 Shooter Jacob Crews

The University of Missouri men’s basketball team wasted no time getting off to a strong start during the transfer signing period, inking the nation’s No. 22 shooter during the 2023-24 campaign in Jacob Crews on Wednesday.

Crews joins the Tigers after a standout season at UT Martin, where he finished his campaign ranked No. 22 nationally in 3-point shooting at 41.4 percent. The 6-foot-8 wing helped lead the Skyhawks to a 21-11 record with the program’s second-ever Ohio Valley Conference title and first in 15 years, placing 51st nationally with 19.1 points per game and 76th with 8.2 rebounds.

“Jacob has great size for his position with an elite combination of shooting, toughness and rebounding,” said Whitten Family Men’s Basketball Head Coach Dennis Gates. “He has an outstanding mindset and is somebody who is looking forward to the challenge of playing in the nation’s top conference. He attracted a lot of interest from several power-conference schools but we were able to form a great connection with him and his family and know that he will be a perfect fit and teammate within our program.”

A consensus top-50 transfer who is ranked as high as the 28th-best player in the portal, Crews joins Creighton’s Baylor Scheierman as the only two players in the nation with 600 points, 250 rebounds and 85 made triples. During the 2023-24 campaign, Crews earned first-team NABC All-District honors, first-team All-OVC accolades and OVC All-Newcomer Team recognition. He also ranks 38th nationally with 2.78 made 3-pointers per game, 136th with an overall field-goal mark of 48.5 percent, 162nd with a free-throw percentage of 81.6 and 78th with 3.47 makes from the charity stripe per game.

A native of Hilliard, Florida, Crews tallied 16 games of 20-plus points and 15 contests of nine-plus rebounds with nine double-doubles during the year. Overall, his 612 points rank seventh in UT Martin history, while his 263 rebounds are the ninth-most in the program’s record book.

Prior to his time with the Skyhawks, Crews earned second-team NJCAA All-America honors at Daytona State. He helped the Falcons to a school-record 27 wins and a conference championship, averaging 19.9 points and 6.9 rebounds. He also shot 48.6 percent from the floor, 37.9 percent from 3-point range and 89.1 percent from the free-throw line in his one season at Daytona State.

Crews is the Tigers’ first signee during the spring and joins a five-player freshman class that ranks as No. 5 in the nation.