Gholston keeps Mizzou going in the mid-range
SACRAMENTO, CA — Dennis Gates had to recruit DeAndre Gholston twice to get him.
He’s now Gates’ third-leading scorer on a Missouri team that’s won 25 games and will play in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Friday. But before he became a starter for Gates or a teammate to Cleveland State transfers D’Moi Hodge, Tre Gomillion, Mabor Majak and Ben Sternberg, he was their rival.
The Vikings hadn’t had a winning season since 2014-15 when Gates became their head coach just before the 2019-20 season. He wanted to engineer a quick turnaround for the program and knew he’d need to load up on junior college players to do it. Gholston, a sophomore guard at Tallahassee Community College at the time, said Gates started recruiting him before he’d even coached a game at CSU. He tweeted on Nov. 7, 2019, that he’d received an offer from the Vikings.
“I was his real first recruit,” Gholston said.
Gates went to see Gholston play in person in Niceville, Fla., on March 4, 2020, in the NJCAA District Quarterfinals. The head coach was also recruiting Gholston’s teammate, Yahel Hill, and his opponent, D’Moi Hodge, the leading scorer for State College of Florida. TCC defeated SCF that night, 67-59. Hill and Hodge both ended up committing to Cleveland State. Gholston didn’t, though, joining the Milwaukee Panthers instead.
“It was close to home, Coach (Pat) Baldwin did a good job in recruiting as well,” the Gary, Ind. native said. “You know, they needed someone like myself.”
He immediately became Milwaukee’s leading scorer in 2020-21, posting 16.8 points per game. The Panthers went 10-12 overall and 7-10 in the Horizon League in a season condensed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The next year, Gholston remained as the team’s go-to option on offense, but saw his efficiency drop, only averaging 14.3 points. Milwaukee had hoped the addition of future NBA first-round pick Patrick Baldwin Jr. would bolster the team’s roster but Baldwin sustained an ankle injury early on in conference play, limiting him to 11 games played during the year. The Panthers went just 10-22 overall and 8-14 in the Horizon League.
Gholston went up against Cleveland State five times during his two seasons with Milwaukee. In his second meeting with the Vikings on Jan. 23, 2021, Gholston sank a layup at the buzzer to lead the Panthers to a 78-61 win in overtime.
But that was Gholston’s only time beating CSU. He watched from afar as Gates led his team to back-to-back Horizon League regular season championships and an NCAA tournament appearance in 2021.
“I would have never thought that I'd be on the same team as Dree,” Sternberg said. “When I was on the bench when I was with Cleveland State, I was always talking mess to him and he was always talking back.”
“While we competed, he saw everything come to fruition that I sat and told him could be possible,” Gates said.
Milwaukee announced it was parting ways with Pat Baldwin on March 2, 2022. Gholston chose to enter into the transfer portal with one season of eligibility left. Over a dozen schools reached out to him, including Arkansas, Boston College, Butler, Creighton, Georgia Tech, Rhode Island and Wichita State.
Gates was hired as the head coach at Missouri on March 22. Gholston committed to the Tigers four days later. He didn’t need long to know who he wanted to play for.
“Coach Gates won me over years ago, so I can't honestly say his pitch this year was any different,” Gholston said. “It was just the fact that, you know, I should have been with him the first time around and that he believed in me still to this day.”
At 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, Gholston was a perfect fit for Gates’ switch-heavy defensive scheme, quick enough to keep up with smaller guards and strong enough to check bigger forwards. But Gates’ offensive system prioritizes shots from beyond the arc and at the rim. Pulling up in between is what the staff considers a “bronze-level” shot. Gholston was a square peg trying to fit through a round hole.
Gholston said he played a lot of one-on-one basketball growing up in Gary. Going against guys older, bigger, strong and faster than him forced him to develop a mid-range game and an ability to hit shots with a hand in his face.
Gates said he didn’t want to change Gholston when he arrived in Columbia, Mo., though. The onus was on him as a coach to find the best way to incorporate Gholston’s game into what Mizzou did. He chose to just let the graduate senior be himself.
It’s helped the Tigers tremendously this season, especially in critical moments of certain games this year. Gholston is known to Missouri fans for his buzzer-beaters in wins over UCF and Tennessee. But he’s hit clutch shots in the mid-range, too, such as an and-1 jumper during the team’s home game against Arkansas on Jan. 18. Gholston hit the shot over 6-foot-9 senior forward Makhi Mitchell to tie the score at 71-71 with 1:02 left in the game. MU went on to win it, 79-76.
Per CBB Analytics, the Tigers have shot 81-200 from the mid-range. Gholston alone has gone 32-69, ranking in the top 86th percentile of qualified guards in the country. No other player on the team has made more than 20.
“The thing that I think he's developed so well in the last 10 months is his ability to create his own shot, to go get his own shot. And he's able to use his body to create a few angles and he has a beautiful touch in the mid-range area,” assistant coach Dickey Nutt said. “The thing that we're most impressed with Dree is that he showed up every day to work. When it's time for him to hit that practice floor, we can always count on him, given us 100% on a daily basis.”
Gholston has become a lot closer with Gates and his fellow Horizon League transfers. He said they’re all “way different” than he thought they would be — they joke around a lot more than he expected. Gomillion, Hodge and Sternberg all said Gholston’s become one of their closest friends.
“He lives in the apartment right next to us,” Gomillion said.
No. 7 seed Mizzou will play in the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in 13 years on Saturday, matching up with No. 15 seed Princeton at 3:10 p.m. PT/5:10 p.m. CT. The Tigers will need Gholston to knock down a few more mid-rangers to keep their season alive.
“It's exactly why I came to Missouri,” Gholston said. “It's one of the best things that's happened to me … All my teammates, they're incredible. Incredible people first, before basketball players. And they helped me be the person I am right now and I love them for it.”
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