After highlighting his high school career with the team’s most successful season in years and a cherished individual school record, St. James High School’s Tate Gruver is ready to make his mark in the college basketball ranks.

Gruver, a recent St. James High graduate and newly-crowned career points record-holder for the Tigers, last week signed to played basketball for Missouri Valley College, a NAIA program from Marshall, Mo. and a member of the Heart of America Athletic Conference.

Prior to deciding on Missouri Valley Gruver had considered Westminster, Culver-Stockton, Harris-Stowe University and Arkansas Tech.

“The basketball program (at Missouri Valley) is very good,” Gruver said. “The school is not too big or too small. It has a nice campus. And their coaches really impressed me.”

The 5-11 Gruver was basically a shooting guard throughout his St. James Tiger career, although he has also played point guard. He says that will be his role in college.

“They look at me as an all-around player, mostly playing shooting guard but also some point guard,” Gruver said.

He knows he’s going to have to up his game at the next level.

“Mainly, my body, speed and agility,” Gruver said of his improvement. “I just turned 18 and I’ll be playing against some 23- and 24-year olds.”

Gruver has been a part of the Tiger varsity unit all four of his seasons, and the past two seasons he has been considered one of the best perimeter shooters in the area.

With a large senior class, the St. James boys finished 21-8 overall and won the Class 4 District 3 Tournament championship before being eliminated in the sectionals by eventual Class 4 runner-up Clayton this past season.

It was a balanced attack, but Gruver was the offensive weapon Tiger opponents worried about first.
Gruver set the St. James career scoring mark (records kept from the late-1970s), finishing with 1,345 points. This past season he averaged 16.3 points, 2.2 assists, 2.1 steals, 3.7 rebounds while shooting 51% from the field and making 64 three-pointers at a 42% clip. He was named All-Four Rivers Conference and coaches and media all-district.

Indeed, he ended his playing career with the Tigers’ best season of his four.

“Our senior year, our goal was to win district and go to the Final Four,” he said. “We thought we had a chance at that.”

In Season of his career Gruver started thinking about the Tiger career scoring record being a possibility.

“Probably at the end of my junior year I started thinking about it,” he said. “I thought if I played good my senior year I could. And when I got my 1,000th point before Christmas, I knew I had a good chance. It’s just great to know I achieved something that hadn’t been done in quite sometime.”

The Missouri Valley Vikings are hoping to put up another strong season in Gruver’s freshman campaign. The Vikings finished 18-11 overall and 12-8 in league play during the 2025-26 season.