COLUMBIA, Mo. - When Missouri basketball's Cullen VanLeer elected to medically retire from the sport earlier in the week and the program announced he would stay with the team and at Missouri but not on a scholarship that counted toward the team's competitive limit, it begged the question: would Cuonzo Martin and the Tigers fill that vacant scholarship with another member of the 2018 class?
Friday night, that question was answered, and Missouri made official Saturday morning that 6-5 wing Christian Guess from outside Cleveland, Ohio, had signed with the 2018 class and is immediately eligible.
"We're very excited to have Christian join our Mizzou Basketball family," Martin said in a statement. "He has tremendous athletic ability and a scorer's mentality. Christian's competitive drive and desire to get better will fit right in with our program. We're looking forward to getting him to Mizzou."
Guess was recruited early by a group that included West Virginia and DePaul, but a reported issue with a class credit after he transferred schools caused those teams to back off when they found out the issue would require a waiver petition to the NCAA to resolve. Missouri's unique situation made it a match.
Guess averaged 26.2 points per game his senior season at Shaker Heights High School. He is expected to arrive in Columbia Monday and enroll. The Tigers open their season with an exhibition game against Central Arkansas Nov. 6 before traveling to Ames, Iowa to play Iowa State Nov. 9.