The first thing to know about Jacob Crews’ Missouri run is that it never settled into one clean storyline. He could look like exactly the kind of bench piece every team wants, then disappear for stretches that left fans wondering which version they were getting.
That split opinion makes sense. Crews’ first season in Columbia opened rough, and it shaped a lot of the early reaction to him.
Outside of the Jacksonville State game, when he drilled 6 of 9 from three, he hit just 23% from deep over his first 19 games. That’s a brutal stretch for any shooter, especially one whose value depends so much on spacing the floor.
Then came the back half of the year, and that’s where he started to change the conversation. Over Missouri’s final 14 games, Crews settled in and shot 38.9% from three while also giving the Tigers solid defense and rebounding. He wasn’t playing starter minutes, but he was giving the team real production.
That’s why his decision to return for another season, helped by the Diego Pavia JUCO ruling, was greeted pretty positively. The idea was simple: Missouri had a proven reserve who could knock down threes at a near-40% clip, hold his own defensively, and help on the glass.
The defense, though, was always the part that came with questions. Dennis Gates was able to mask some of that with scheme, and Crews’ 6-foot-7 frame plus decent athleticism gave him enough tools to be useful.
For the most part, he managed that role. But there were also nights when opponents made him the target and forced him into uncomfortable space.
Still, the bigger issue wasn’t really what he could or couldn’t do on defense. It was whether he could keep affecting the game offensively when Missouri’s approach changed around him.
On the season, Crews shot 43.4% from deep, which ranked top 40 among shooters with more than 100 attempts. But that number came with a major split: he started fast, then cooled off.
In SEC play and the NCAA Tournament game, he shot just 32.7% from three, and over the final nine games that dropped all the way to 20%.
Part of that came down to opportunity. Crews took only 20 attempts in those final nine games, after going 13-for-21 in his first five.
That’s 61.9%. But it wasn’t just about volume.
His play level dipped too, and Missouri’s own identity shifted as the season went on. The Tigers moved away from being a team that could flex between styles and leaned more into one preferred way of playing.
Defense became a bigger priority late, and Crews was squeezed into a narrower role. In that setup, he had a tougher time making the same kind of impact.
So in the end, Crews was something of a victim of circumstance. He was a high-level shooter placed on a roster that didn’t always cover for his weak spots.
Even so, he had his moments. He was the MVP of the Prairie View and Cleveland State games.
He helped Missouri hang around against Notre Dame. He also knocked down 9 of 10 free throws against Florida to help seal the win.
And beyond the box score, there was the story of how he got there. Crews was an under-recruited high school player with a difficult upbringing, and he fought his way to Missouri.
That matters. He gave the Tigers value, delivered some big moments, and will probably be remembered warmly - as a bridge piece for a program trying to move forward.
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