Report: West Virginia transfer Jimmy Bell to visit Mississippi State and Missouri

West Virginia transfer and veteran big man Jimmy Bell is in the Transfer Portal and ready to mingle with some potential new teams. According to college hoops insider Jon Rothstein, Bell has a pair of SEC schools courting him who he plans to visit in the coming days or weeks. Here were those schools, as Rothstein reported in a tweet on Monday morning:

“West Virginia transfer Jimmy Bell tells me that he plans to visit Mississippi State and Missouri.”

Two schools with brand new coaches in 2022-23 who each made the NCAA tournament in year one. However, in terms of style of play, we’re talking about the two SEC clubs and coaches that probably run the most foreign systems compared to the other. But let’s look at Bell’s game and how it may fit with Hail State or Mizzou.

Bell’s fit with Mississippi State

Jimmy Bell is right up Chris Jans’ alley, and he comes from West Virginia and Bob Huggins, who is more or less the old standard of the roughneck, hounding style of defensive-minded basketball that Jans is trying to replicate in Starkville.

Bell’s definitely a bruiser and a true center, which State desperately needs with Tolu Smith’s possible departure. Now, he’s not the offensive anchor Smith was, but Bell is fully capable of playing 20+ minutes as your team’s janitor in the paint: he just cleans up rebounds, takes up space and can bully smaller or less-physical forwards.

He fits right in with the culture Jans established last season and ought to be a rotation piece right away, and maybe even a starter down low.

Bell’s fit with Missouri

This is the fun one, because last season’s Tigers had few players with Bell’s size and sheer physicality and were obviously missing those very traits all season. Of course, head coach Dennis Gates hit a grand slam in year one with Mizzou, earning a No. 7 seed while running one of the more exciting and explosive offenses in the entire country.

The only missing ingredient was a true big man. Sure, part of why Gates’ system worked so well is because he deployed a floor-spacer like Kobe Brown at the five for large stretches to give the Tigers a five-shooter lineup. But at some point, you need at least one capable big body to throw in there against the other brutes of the conference.

Missouri was a big man away from being a legit threat. The offensive metrics were great, but they ranked nearly dead last in the country (362nd!) in defensive rebounding and they weren’t much better on the offensive glass. Then, they were also terrible at defending two-point shots and couldn’t get to the free throw line. That’s three skills — rebounding, getting to the line and interior defense — that Bell can offer.

Recap

With Mississippi State, the fit is clean and makes so much sense. With Missouri, it’s a complete divergence from what they had in the front-court a year ago, but Bell provides exactly what was missing from that 2022-23 lineup. For the Tigers, Bell could really pop if he’s put in the starting lineup or played heavy minutes, because he’ll put up gaudy rebounding numbers as the lone anchor down low for Gates’ team. That’s a fun possibility.