Porter will ask for release at UW, Mizzou could be landing spot
MORE BOSSI: Thoughts on coaching hires at Mizzou, Washington
Last week, Washington fired longtime head coach Lorenzo Romar. Since then, it has been speculated that 2017's No. 1 player Michael Porter Jr. – whose father Michael Sr. was on Romar's staff – would ask for a release.
During a Wednesday teleconference to discuss winning Gatorade's National Player of the Year award, the 6-foot-9 small forward from Seattle (Wash.) Nathan Hale confirmed his plans to ask for a release from his National Letter of Intent.
"Right now I'm just trying to take it slow with my family and weigh my options," Porter said during the teleconference. "I plan to get my NLI from Washington back.
"I'm not saying that I'm not going to Washington anymore. I just want to get it back and weigh my options and see the pros and cons of different schools and basically start new. I was connected to this coaching staff and now that they are gone I want to re-weigh my options."
During the teleconference, Porter Jr. also confirmed that his father – who was an assistant on the Missouri women's team before taking the Washington job – has been offered a job by new Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin.
"He has been offered an assistant coaching job but he's yet to accept it because obviously if he accepts before I know if I want to go there people are going to expect me to follow him so he wants to be careful about that," Porter Jr. said. "Right now as a family we have been talking every night and kind of weighing out everything."
All of this sets up the potential for a family reunion of sorts in Columbia, Mo. Not only did Porter's father coach for the Missouri women, the head coach is his aunt Robin Pingeton and older sisters Bri and Cierra play for the program.
On top of all of that, Porter's younger brother Jontay Porter, a 6-foot-9 power forward who ranks No. 38 in the class of 2018 and had been committed to Washington, decommitted from the Huskies last week. The potential also remains for Jontay to reclassify to 2017 and join Michael wherever he lands next fall.
Prior to committing to Washington – whose new coach Mike Hopkins has yet to speak with him – Porter also considered Virginia and Oklahoma and both could enter the mix again. However, all eyes are trained on a potential landing in the SEC because of Romar's firing and the job offer to his father.
"I was ready to go to Washington and do something special there," he said. "Seattle has been great to me and I wanted to go to Washington and play under coach Romar and that staff. But, to me everything happens for a reason and if this happens then I believe God has something else planned for me."
