How Missouri put together its 2023-24 non-conference schedule

There are two aspects to running a team that Dennis Gates values above all else. The first is recruiting. Since taking over as head coach at Missouri in March 2022, Gates has earned commitments from six players ranked in the Rivals.com Top 150 rankings, with potentially more to come in the Class of 2024, and several impact transfers.

The second is non-conference scheduling. Last season’s Tigers went 12-1 against non-conference opponents. This year, Mizzou is searching for a similar outcome.

“It's how you get everything started,” assistant coach Ryan Sharbaugh said. “Both are that valuable. And those sit, you know, No. 1A and 1B in (Gates’) philosophy on program building … Coach Gates just needs a lot of credit, I think, for putting the investment into it.”

The task of assembling this year’s slate was given to Sharbaugh and Senior Associate Director of Athletics Greg Hulen, the same duo who put together last season’s schedule. They had the same two objectives as last year: to meet all the needs of the program and to schedule opponents Mizzou has a decent chance of beating. But both objectives had differences from last season.

The Tigers aren’t a brand-new team anymore. Last year, Missouri had 12 newcomers to go along with three returners on its roster, as well as an all-new staff. To help the players build chemistry and get comfortable in their new surroundings, MU loaded up on easier opponents through the first few weeks of the season. Eight of the team’s first nine games were played at home, all of them coming against schools outside the top 100 in the NCAA’s NET rankings. The tougher games against Kansas and Illinois didn’t come until December. KenPom rated the Tigers 308th out of 363 teams in non-conference strength of schedule.

This season, Mizzou has seven returners, 11 newcomers and a staff that’s more established with a full season under its belt. The need for easier opponents early on diminished. The coaches became even more assured of it with the foreign tour to Jamaica the team took in July and the extra 10 practices that came along with it.

“We get the foreign tour and then we get a closer look at our team, we get a little more realistic look at our team,” Sharbaugh said. “And what we've ultimately got to is that we're excited about this year. Coach Gates is excited about it … That foreign tour allowed us to see it. So what we wanted to do, you know, we wanted to build this non-conference schedule to maximize our potential and really put us in the best position come March. And that's ultimately what the goal is. Last year's goal was a little different. And so, Coach Gates said, ‘Yeah, we gotta move on it a little bit.’”

Scheduling is not like playing Dynasty Mode on NCAA Basketball 10; you do not go to the “Customize Schedule” menu and load up on high major after high major until the video game says you have a five-star slate. It’s a surefire way to miss the NCAA tournament in real life.

High majors still need to play in “guarantee” or “buy” games in which they pay mid- and low-major schools a large sum of money to face them at home. Sharbaugh noted that there is a perception that playing against a team in Quad 4 of the NET rankings (meaning teams ranked 161-353 when you go against them at home) has a negative impact on your NCAA tournament résumé. But it’s actually Quad 3s and some of the higher-rated Quad 4s that cause trouble. The SEC as a conference was 77-23 against Quad 3 opponents last year. The league was 9-6 against teams ranked 160-210 in the NET. But against schools ranked 211 and below, the SEC was 56-0. Sharbaugh said the price to play against lower-end Quad 4 teams was “steep” this year and that many schools from upper mid-major conferences couldn’t afford it.

A loss to a Quad 3 will always hurt more than a win against a Quad 4. One of the biggest strengths of the Tigers’ résumé last season was that they had zero “bad” losses, going 14-0 against Quad 3 and 4 teams. And earning a No. 7 seed in the Big Dance despite only being ranked 47th in the NET tells Sharbaugh that they did something right.

Missouri faced five Quad 1 and 2 opponents (teams ranked 1-75 at home, 1-100 at neutral sites and 1-135 on the road) last season. The team will play six schools projected to be in Quad 1 and 2 this year. And unlike last season, MU will see some of its tougher opponents early on, hosting Memphis on Nov. 10 and heading to Minnesota on Nov. 16.

Deciding who to play against can be a double-edged sword. You’re looking for opponents who aren’t good enough to beat you, but are good enough to look like solid wins in retrospect and boost your strength of schedule rating. Sharbaugh scouts every school they consider adding to the schedule, pointing out that Gates requires a detailed report on anything they bring to him. He said that style of play is one of the main factors he looks at and also takes roster movement into account. He’ll watch film, but that’s become more difficult to evaluate in the transfer portal era.

The team aims to schedule an “anchor” home game every year — a matchup against a big-name opponent that’ll bring the fanbase out in droves. Last season it was Kansas, this season it’s Memphis. Sharbaugh had hoped that they would play at home in the new ACC/SEC Challenge but that ESPN has full control over those games. Convincing teams with brand recognition to play at Mizzou Arena is one of the most arduous assignments in crafting a schedule, and a reason why Hulen takes a lot of pride in getting Memphis to come to campus.

Hulen said the game was originally supposed to take place on Nov. 13, a Monday. But with Missouri’s volleyball team hosting Texas A&M on Friday and the football team hosting Tennessee on Saturday, it made sense to include the men’s basketball team’s biggest home game of the year during the weekend, too.

“We felt those kinds of scheduling opportunities were important because we want to bring alumni back to campus, we want to bring fans to campus. But part of our job is to make sure that we have a lot for them to do while they're here,” Hulen said. “And so, we felt like that would create an incredible home court atmosphere for men's basketball against a team that was in the NCAA tournament last year, and then hopefully be able to carry that over to Memorial Stadium for the football game the next day.”

Hulen constantly researches which dates will draw the biggest crowds for the Tigers, sometimes looking at attendance data for games as far back as 10 years ago. For instance, the team tends to bring in lots of fans the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because Columbia, Mo. residents in general are off from work and school. Last year’s matchup against Coastal Carolina had 7,459 fans in attendance. So this year, the team scheduled another game for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, hosting South Carolina State on Nov. 22.

Another example, and one that took some effort to book, was the Tigers’ game against Seton Hall, set to take place at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 17. Sharbaugh and Hulen said dating back to last year that there are four markets they wanted to tap into more for neutral-site games: Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. Missouri was already scheduled to play against Kansas in the T-Mobile Center in 2025 and 2026. The team agreed to take part in the Hall of Fame Classic in K.C. in 2024, a two-game multi-team event. Sharbaugh and Hulen wanted to make it a priority to play in Kansas City this season so that they could establish a foothold there for the next four years.

Sharbaugh said that Gates and Seton Hall head coach Shaheen Holloway have a close relationship, which helped in finding an opponent for a one-off game — the Tigers will not have to make a return trip to New Jersey as part of the agreement. Hulen also pointed out that the Kansas City Chiefs play the New England Patriots on a Monday that week, allowing Mizzou to slide into the Sunday slot to gain the city’s attention.

And while it’s technically a neutral-site game, Sharbaugh said that any time the team plays in the “Show-Me” state, they consider it a home game. The Tigers will play 10 of their 13 non-conference games in Missouri this year.

“I think it all comes down to, at the end of the day, we're Missouri's basketball team. You know, we want to have a program that connects in Kansas City, that connects in St. Louis and connects in Columbia,” Hulen said. “So I think the opportunity and the right set of circumstances to continue to play the Braggin' Rights game in St. Louis, to be able to play some games in Kansas City while continuing to have a really good home schedule in Columbia, I think it helps the program from building the fan base standpoint, showing those communities that we're excited and interested in them.

“And then when the next great basketball player comes out of Kansas City or St. Louis, they've got a frame of reference and they remember Mizzou coming over and playing Seton Hall or Mizzou playing Illinois down in St. Louis.”

Moving ahead, next season will be a special one for Mizzou Arena with Kansas, Minnesota and the ACC/SEC Challenge all coming to campus — the Tigers will have three of the four major conferences outside the SEC represented on their home floor. Missouri will play in the Braggin’ Rights game in St. Louis, the two games in the Hall of Fame Classic in K.C. and a road game at Memphis. Sharbaugh and Hulen will continue to look for opportunities to play in Dallas and Chicago.

But the focus for now is on this season and putting this year’s team in the best spots to succeed possible. Sharbaugh and Hulen are looking forward to seeing what Mizzou can accomplish against the schedule they put together.

“I'll tell you what, man, we've got a great group of guys, high-character guys. They're veterans, they're experienced and then the young guys are very talented,” Sharbaugh said. “And so, you always ask like, 'What is your team capable of? Can we do this with them? Are they capable of this mentally?' And their carrying capacity is much higher than a lot of teams I've been a part of. So that really excites us. And so, they're also very hungry to build off of what we had last year.”

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