COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri men’s basketball assistant Rob Summers has departed the program after one season to become the head coach at Cleveland State.

Summers’ new role was announced Wednesday. He was an assistant under current Mizzou coach Dennis Gates at Cleveland State from 2019-22.

Gates added Summers to his coaching staff a year ago, making the 7-foot former center his offensive coordinator and tasking him with developing the Tigers’ centers.

While Summers’ exit opens a spot in the MU staff, it’s a sign of the coaching potential that Gates has sought out in assembling his roster of assistants.

“Every assistant on my staff is a head coach, and they deserve an opportunity to run their own program,” Gates said in February. “What we have been able to do is not just because of me. It’s not. I would be selfish to think that way. ... I truly believe, when you look at this team picture five years from now, you’ll see head coaches running their own program somewhere.”

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Summers will now get that shot, and the Tigers will likely be looking for a new offensive- or frontcourt-minded assistant to take his place.

Missouri center Josh Gray has entered the transfer portal, a team official confirmed to the Post-Dispatch.

He does not, however, appear to have any collegiate eligibility remaining after appearing in games across five seasons: 2020-21 with Louisiana State, 2021-24 at South Carolina and this past season at Mizzou. Gray received a fifth year of eligibility because the 2020-21 season was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, using that to play for MU.

His decision to enter the portal may well be a long-shot hope he is somehow granted additional eligibility through a court ruling or NCAA rule change — though there’s no obvious reasoning for how or why that would happen.

Gray is among a group of athletes, including former Missouri stars Drew Lock and Sophie Cunningham, who have sued the NCAA for damages related to name, image and likeness compensation opportunities they missed out on due to past rules.