Tiger athletics turns page to 2026-27 seasons with final ‘Zou to You’ tour stop
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The final action of the 2025-26 athletic calendar is in the books, meaning Mizzou is turning its attention to the new season.
Looking back on the previous sporting seasons, Athletics Director Laird Veatch described the year as a good one, but still having lots of progress to be made.
"We have a lot of really, really good momentum. I'm really proud of a lot of our programs," said Veatch." You think about just the most visible, like football, men's basketball, you know, good. But also not where we want to be."
You can watch the full press conference with Veatch in the video player below.
With many programs knocking on the doorstep of national championships, each team is looking for a little extra that can help them push through and bring home some hardware.
One of the most promising teams for next season is Gymnastics. After finishing the 2024-25 season with a program best third place finish at the national championships, head coach Shannon Welker and his team fell short of a national final in the winter, ending in 11th. While the finish is still something to be celebrated, coach Welker hopes to return to the biggest stage in 2027.
"When that feels like a disappointment a little bit, I think that actually tells you where the bar is and what the expectation is," said Welker. "So I think there's some positive to take away from that. But we also got to learn from it. And we got to do make sure that we position ourselves a little bit stronger moving into next year."
You can watch the full press conference with Welker in the video player below.
Heading into the new year, the Tigers have a top five recruiting class in the nation, including the top ranked recruit out of high school, Imani White. Mizzou also added some help on the coaching staff with Oleksii Koltakov from Georgia, and is fully prepared for another run at the national title.
Tiger Wrestling is also hoping to return to the top of the nation in the winter. Head Coach Brian Smith is excited about the prospect of returning many of last year's All-Conference and All-American selections for the new season.
"We're going to be ranked somewhere in the top ten, and we have NCAA. We're hosting again and in Saint Louis. So how can you not be excited about that this year?" said coach Smith. "We're going to be good. We know that. And the athletes know that. They're all here the entire summer training, lifting, wrestling, getting better and they just know they want to do some great things in Saint Louis and March."
You can watch the full press conference with Smith in the video player below.
Mizzou's Aeoden Sinclair will return to the Hearnes Center mats for his sophomore season after a busy offseason competing in several major professional wrestling events.
"Aeoden's the busiest guy in the world. There's no athlete in Missouri that does more than Aeoden Sinclair. He's on two world teams, he'll be traveling overseas, he's in RAF events. I mean, he just does it and I'm trying to pull the reins on him and slow him down but he just loves to wrestle."
The 2026-27 athletic year will kick off for Mizzou on August 15th with a Tiger volleyball exhibition game against Drake.
