Dennis Gates had no doubts he could win at Mizzou. He was confident he could restore the reputation of Tigers basketball as soon as he arrived in Columbia, Mo.
“We will build a program that all Mizzou fans will be proud of, for how we play, how our student-athletes represent the University of Missouri and how our togetherness and work ethic will lead to on-court victories,” Gates said in his first statement as the Tigers' head coach nearly a full year ago.
Gates had done it before. Cleveland went 11-21 in Gates’ first year as head coach before he led the Vikings to back-to-back Horizon League regular season championships.
It was fair to think it would take him a while to do it at Missouri. The Tigers had gone just 12-21 overall and 5-13 in SEC play and only brought back three players in senior forward Kobe Brown, junior forward Ronnie DeGray III and sophomore guard Kaleb Brown. With the exception of walk-on guard Jackson Francois, the team’s class of 2022 prospects all decommitted and reopened their recruitments. It wasn’t a completely blank slate to work off of, but it required Gates to put together a roster built almost entirely out of newcomers.
He did so mostly by tapping into the mid-major and junior college ranks for players seeking an opportunity to play at the high-major level. He brought in graduate senior guards D’Moi Hodge, Tre Gomillion, and Ben Sternberg and junior forward Mabor Majak over with him from Cleveland State. He picked up another Horizon League transfer in graduate senior guard DeAndre Gholston from Milwaukee. He sought out junior forward Noah Carter from Northern Iowa. He also added two highly-ranked JUCO recruits in senior point guard Sean East II and Mohamed Diarra. Gates acquired graduate senior point guard Nick Honor from Clemson as a stabilizing presence in the backcourt. And he also convinced highly-rated freshman forward Aidan Shaw to recommit to the Tigers.
“I'm excited about bringing a group of guys who come from different places, no different than you have that idea of recruiting, and putting them all on the same page under one culture, under one community,” Gates said at the SEC Media Day in Birmingham, Ala., on Oct. 19. “And seeing how much better they get each and every day, seeing their challenges but also seeing the triumph of them getting through those moments, the perseverance that you see in their eyes, in their face, but also the time commitment that you see those guys really work diligently with each and every day.”
The team set up its non-conference schedule to allow the new faces to build chemistry in a low-risk environment. Eight of MU’s first nine opponents were ranked outside the top 100 in the country by KenPom. The team played all eight of them inside Mizzou Arena. The other game came against Wichita State on the road. The Tigers won all nine contests, though none of them quite proved how good the team could be.
Missouri cast doubt on its potential ceiling with a 95-67 loss in the Border War against Kansas on Dec. 10. But its 68-66 win over UCF on a neutral floor in the next game was a turning point in the season. Gholston hit a buzzer-beater to defeat the Golden Knights and the team rode the momentum to beat Illinois and Kentucky in its next two games, showing the rest of the country they were a team to look out for.
The team finished the regular season at 23-8 and 11-7 in SEC play, finishing in fourth place in the conference despite being predicted to place 11th in the league’s preseason poll. They reached the semifinal round of the SEC tournament for the first time in program history, then advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in 13 years.
The team was helped by the emergence of Kobe Brown as an All-SEC First Team selection. But it was also helped by the fact that every newcomer that Gates brought in contributed to the team’s win total.
Some players may return to the team next season — Hodge, Gomillion, Sternberg and Gholston are the only players without any more eligibility. But if the Tigers can build on the experience of going through their first year with Gates and lean on the continuity they lacked this season, they could make even more noise in the near future.
“I'll say (Gates is) great at recruiting and getting to know the real us, you know, building that relationship with us and our families and our siblings, getting to know them,” Honor said. “And then just really scouting and seeing what we can really do. Any one of us could have went somewhere else and you know, had the green light or shot all the shots. But we all wanted to come together and ultimately win a national championship. We fell a little short but I wouldn't want to be on any other team. So I’m thankful for that.”
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