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COLUMBIA, Mo. — The most important part of Jacob Crews’ official visit to Missouri took place a couple of blocks away from Mizzou Arena.

The Tigers’ basketball facilities were nice. Crews, in the transfer portal at the time and looking to move to a bigger college program after starring at a junior college and Tennessee-Martin, was expecting that.

As one of the best players available when the transfer portal opened back in March, Crews was hearing from the likes of Gonzaga, Kansas and UCLA. Finding a cutting-edge weight room, locker room and practice court wouldn’t be an issue.

The facility that MU coach Dennis Gates took Crews to on his visit had nothing to do with basketball at all. They toured University Hospital, just across Stadium Boulevard from the arena.

At the time, Crews and his wife, Karmen, had a baby on the way. Where she could get care and, in August, give birth to a son — named J.J. — was important.

“During that recruiting process, with he and his wife, I made it that,� Gates said. “I made it about him and his wife — and more so his wife than him. I guess I’m the only coach that talked about a newborn baby coming soon. My credit’s to our campus hospital. During his official visit, that is one of things that we visited.�

The Crews family signed with Mizzou promptly thereafter.

How he wound up with the Tigers is, in part, a glimpse inside the recruiting philosophy that has made Gates successful with courting both high school prospects and veteran players looking for a change of scenery via the portal. Not all are like Crews, 24, who wanted to test himself by moving up to the highest level of college basketball.

But understanding those differences between players is one of the keys for Gates.

“I’ve been there,� Gates said. “When you have a wife that’s nesting and (you’re) a husband with a child on the way, you look at things from a different perspective. While others may have been thinking about stats, playing time, we were thinking about life, transition and making sure Crews becomes the best father, continues to be the best husband that he can be for his family. The rest will fall in place.�

It helps that Crews has been happy with what he’s found on the court in Columbia, too. He’s appeared in each of the Tigers’ first six games this season, coming off the bench as a versatile wing.

Gates has clearly given Crews the green light to fire away from 3-point range, and the 6-foot-8 wing has happily obliged, attempting 23 already this season. The games have reinforced what Crews realized shortly after joining the team ahead of offseason workouts: that this was a place he could develop his game.

“You could just tell right off the rip,� Crews said. “You ain’t got to hear a whole big story.�

His college career started at North Florida, a program he picked because it was close to home. Crews wasn’t especially happy with how that was going, though, and transferred.

“That didn’t work out, so I went to the (junior college) level,� he said. “I knew what I needed to do there.�

What he needed to do wound up being a conference title with Daytona State College, school record for wins and a season and second-team All-American honors. That was enough to springboard Crews back into the Division I ranks, where he picked UT-Martin — a step up but not all the way up.

He was first-team all-Ohio Valley Conference as the Skyhawks, too, won a conference championship — a trend of immediate turnarounds that has followed Crews around since middle school, he said. Shooting 41.4% from 3 while averaging 19.1 points per game led to his high regard in the portal and interest from Mizzou.

'He's a blessing'

As you’d expect, J.J.’s August birth has changed things for the Crews family.

“It’s amazing. He’s a blessing,� Jacob said. “Big motivation for me and my wife. Everybody loves him. All the coaches want to see him after every practice. He’s a little celeb.�

Something changed in Jacob’s game after his son’s arrival, too. About a week after, he went up for a rebounding against a bigger MU post player and came down with a board that coaches didn’t expect him to.

“Crews with the dad strength,� someone joked from the sidelines.

“Yeah, I actually feel like that’s a real thing,� Jacob said. “It was a little different strength to me.�

Karmen and J.J. come to games, too: Jacob walked into Mizzou Arena ahead of Sunday’s win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff with J.J. — donning a brown outfit with a matching hat and crisp, white baby-sized sneakers — in one arm.

And after Jacob scored 11 points in 21 minutes of action against Mississippi Valley State, there were two guests in his postgame news conference: Karmen and J.J.

“Karmen Crews has done a great job coaching her husband,� Gates said, pointing her out at the back of the room. “She helps me out coaching this young man because ultimately, you got to look at the level of sacrifice that he’s taking to be at this level but also prove, not only to himself but to others, that he belongs. He’s showing patience.�

A different type of recruiting process — one of Gates’ specialties — brought Crews to Mizzou. Maybe there was an ulterior motive to how the Tigers’ head coach handled it, too.

“That’s my other recruit,� Gates joked, pointing to the baby in Karmen’s arms. “Little J.J.’s going to play for me one day.�