NIL-era college basketball is a heck of a rollercoaster. One day you’re good, and the next day you’re not. One day, you’re flying under the radar at some mid-major school, the next day a high-major plucks you away from obscurity and, all of a sudden, you’re an NBA prospect.

Missouri basketball has been on a heck of a rollercoaster under coach Denis Gates. In his first season, they played an attractive brand of basketball and looked like a good bet to make the Sweet 16, only to suffer an upset loss against Princeton.

The next season, the Tigers absolutely bottomed out, finishing with a bagel in the SEC win column.

Picked 13th in pre-season poll, Mizzou didn’t have exceptionally high hopes for 24-25, but at the turn of the year they are sitting at 10-2, having snatched an incredibly satisfying win against their arch rival, the Kansas Jayhawks.

Missouri already has more wins than they managed to muster up in all of 23-24 season, and one of the main reasons for that is a player who actually was a part of that 0-18 squad – sophomore guard Anthony Robinson II.

Robinson, like Mizzou, has been flying under the radar this season. It has been like that pretty much his whole career.

He was only a 3-star recruit out of high school, though he did have a handful of offers from high-major schools. According to 247Sports, Missouri pivoted to recruiting Robinson after failing to secure Isaiah Collier, who committed for USC and is now at Utah Jazz

Robinson does check a surprising amount of boxes for a potential NBA guard. Creates for himself and others? Yes. Gets to the rim? Absolutely. Draws fouls? Well, he hasn’t been simply drawing fouls,; he goes to the line at a ridiculous rate. Makes his free throws? Yeah, dude, he’s been shooting 84% from the line. Did I mention a 6% STL rate in first 12 games, which is further underscored by fantastic numbers in his career prior to 24-25?

Makes threes? Well, that’s one of the tricky parts with Robinson. We’ll get to that later.

Wrecking havoc on defense

Robinson has been playing some awesome perimeter defense this season. His physical profile is not the greatest to play defense at the next level – Robinson is listed at 6’3”, 180 lbs, which is a bit of a Rob Dillingham build. So, to play great defense with this physical profile, you have to be really pesky and have above average defensive instincts, which, luckily for Robinson, he does possess.

I think a sign of a really, really good defender is the ability to anticipate a play before it happens, which is one of the reasons why Robinson puts himself in a spot to make defensive plays.

Watch Robinson on the first play. Jax State creates an advantage in the right corner, with Robinson left to defend two players. His direct assignment (No. 5) then tries to open up the corner three for his teammate via a flex cut, hoping to drag Robinson with him. However, Robinson has the presence of mind to leave his assignment who’s going away from the basket and instead, immediately closes down on the corner shooter.

On the second play, Robinson is reading a pass to the corner on a kick out and again closes out successfully, moving towards Andrej Stojakovic as the ball is swung towards him. This, together with Robinson’s sheer speed and athleticism, makes him a very potent player on the closeouts.

However, Robinson can also be a bit reckless and jumpy on long closeouts, taking himself out of plays and giving opponents wide open threes or driving lanes.

By the way, did I mention steals?

Robinson has always been great at generating steals. In the EYBL, he posted a 3.7% STL rate, and it has been increasing ever since. His 6% STL rate this season, which, per Bart Torvik, is good for 6th in the entire D1 this season. This is absolutely not a fluke, as last year Robinson had a 5.6% STL rate.

His ball pressure, quick hands and anticipation are not just valuable in terms of breaking down and stopping opponent’s possessions. The defensive plays that Robinson makes set the energy for the rest of the team to follow.

This was apparent in the Kansas game, where Robinson made a series of outstanding defensive plays, sneaking from the side or behind to knock balls away from Kansas’s bigs hands. Not all turnovers are created equal, and Robinson does generate a lot of turnovers which result in easy transition opportunities.

Though his upper body needs a lot of work, I do feel like Robinson’s base is formidable – his feet are light and there’s some strength in his hips as well, look at how he uses them to almost guide his opponent to the baseline and force him into a turnover.

Free throw machine

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way – Robinson is not a great three point shooter, and that puts significant pressure on whatever long term NBA ambition that he may harbour. He neither takes, nor makes them at a high rate: so far this season, the Missouri guard is shooting only 3.4 three point attempts per 100 possessions, making them at a measly 29%.

It’s pretty rare for such a low volume shooting guard to eventually become an above average three point shooter the NBA. Here are some of the drafted guards (pure PG’s in Bart Torvik) that took less than 5 3PA/100 in their college careers.

Current scaled-down, defense-oriented Kris Dunn may not have been a high-end outcome for the Kris Dunn that was drafted 5th in the 2016 NBA draft, but it could be a high-end outcome for Robinson, if he ever made it to the NBA. Obviously, in the long run Robinson would need to bulk up significantly in order to come close to the level of defense that Dunn is playing right now.

Is there anything that you can hang your hat on with regards to a potential long term shooting improvement for Robinson? Well, for starters, he’s still posting a mighty 65% true shooting. The reason for that? Generating an obscene amount of free throw shots and making them at 83%.

And when I say obscene, I really mean that. This season Robinson has been posting a 98.5% free throw rate. It’s clearly unsustainable in the long term, but even when it drops down significantly during SEC play, this is still going to be a mightily impressive free throw rate. He’s good at getting his defender to bite and pump fakes, also Robinson is a relentless attacker in transition and loves to attack space and go downhill.

Also, I do like the very modest on-ball creation flashes. Per Synergy, this season Robinson is scoring 1.06 points per dribble jumper attempt (44.4%). He does have a real knack for creating space off dribble. I especially love this clip, look how he just peels away from his defender on the in-and-out dribble, creating acres of space to shoot a mid-ranger.

P&R operator

Robinson’s most impressive trait – and most tangible improvement from last season – may be his P&R ability.

Per Synergy, Robinson is generating 1.29 points for himself and his teammates per shot in situations where he’s the P&R ball handler, which is a whopping 96th percentile in D1 this season.

The film strongly backs up the stats – in some cases, Robinson’s downhill process is nothing short of remarkable. He uses an array of moves to create advantages and driving angles.

He’s not a super advanced passer that consistently floors you with incredible passes that you completely did not expect (ala Kasparas Jakučionis), but his patience and willingness to play with the rolling big, instead of just using the ball screen to get a narrow advantage and get to the basket ASAP, is a sign of a really high level on-ball P&R operator.

In this clip, Robinson puts his defender on his back after turning the corner, waits for his big to roll and occupy the rim protector, and methodically snakes into the paint to score a layup.

Robinson is really good at protecting the ball. Though is assist percentages are good, they’re not top-end good (27%), but he does have a very solid 2.6 assist-to-turnover ratio.

One thing that is slightly concerning is relatively modest usage (22.2%), which is slightly too low for a lead guard. Though Robinson has been awesome in P&R situations this season, Missouri as a team is not a heavy P&R team; they’re almost the Memphis Grizzlies of college basketball this season, as the Tigers rely heavily on their transition offense.

I think it’s likely that Robinson returns to college for another year, hopefully, getting more reps running the offense, not sacrificing his efficiency in the process. I did post a lot of stats and clips in this analysis, but, like it’s often the case, shooting improvement will be the biggest determining factor for a guard’s long term prospects. Who could’ve thought?