Earning the No. 4 seed in the SEC tournament, along with the double bye to the quarterfinals that comes with it, gave Mizzou an easier path to making a run to the conference championship. But it doesn’t make preparing for the Tigers’ next opponent any less difficult.
After defeating Ole Miss on Saturday, 82-77, Missouri knew it could face any one of three teams in its quarterfinal matchup: the 13th-seeded Rebels, No. 12 South Carolina or No. 5 Tennessee. Ole Miss defeated the Gamecocks on Wednesday, 67-61, but The Tigers still don’t know who will emerge Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, head coach Dennis Gates has had his assistant coaches go back and watch film on every school.
“Anyone can come out of that game,” Gates said. “Obviously, we just gotta prepare the way that we need to. And our staff is doing their job, I'll do my job, and continue to watch film like I have. But through the season, this is what the SEC prepares you for. You sometimes are playing teams the third time or the second time around at a neutral site.”
Gates is no stranger to making deep runs in conference tournaments. In his first year as an assistant coach at Florida State, he helped the Seminoles win the 2012 ACC championship, their first league title in over 20 years. And in his second season as head coach at Cleveland State, he led the Vikings to the 2021 Horizon League championship, taking the team back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade.
Four players from his Cleveland State team — senior guards Tre Gomillion, D’Moi Hodge and Ben Sternberg and junior forward Mabor Majak — are with Gates at Mizzou now. Several other players on the roster have made multiple trips through conference tournaments. The veterans know what to expect.
“(We need to) keep doing what we've done all year,” senior point guard Nick Honor said. “I feel like every game we played has prepared us for this moment.”
No matter who the team faces first, it won’t be the first time Mizzou’s gone up against them this season. That might work in the Tigers’ favor, though. Missouri is 3-0 against Ole Miss and Tennessee this year. It’s also 4-1 in rematches, its only loss coming against Texas A&M.
Gates thinks it could give MU a bit of an edge in a tournament setting with limited time to plan against each opponent.
“I think, you know, it says something about our team, being able to just go out there and give your very best, knowing what had happened the game before and what could happen now,” Gates said. “You kind of build another scouting report by being in that game and moving forward now and you can make those adjustments. So I just think we do a good job with our staff, our preparation, our players and myself. I think that's important.”
Gates said they’ll have to adapt to playing on a neutral floor again, noting it’s “completely different” from playing on the road. Mizzou hasn’t done so since December, but won both of its neutral site games against UCF and Illinois this season.
It’ll be a pressurized atmosphere — the type that only comes around during March. But Gates thinks his team will be ready when they tip off on Friday at 2:30 p.m. in Nashville, Tenn.
“I just need to see elite focus. It's that simple,” Gates said. “Two teams are going to play well and somebody has to come away with a loss. It's March, there's gonna be possession-by-possession, there's gonna be situations, you're gonna have circumstances — you just can't predict it all. You just hope in that melting pot of a season, from your non-conference all the way through to conference, that you have had enough experiences that can help you along the way.”
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