Mizzou's comeback not nearly enough to satisfy Dennis Gates
Through five-and-a-half games, Dennis Gates had shuttled players on and off the court as if he had a secret “per substitution” incentive clause in his contract. Trailing South Carolina State 29-13 twelve and a half minutes in to the game on Wednesday night, Gates continued searching, subbing Connor Vanover, Sean East, and Curt Lewis in to join Nick Honor and Aidan Shaw.
Gates wouldn’t make another lineup change for ten minutes and 25 seconds of game action. In that time, Missouri went on a 26-8 run across the final 7:03 of the first half and the first 3:22 of the second to take a 39-37 lead over the Bulldogs.
“We hunt EGBs, that’s energy generating behaviors,” Shaw said. “We’ve been working on that since I can remember since I got here. Us just focusing on what we need to do to generate energy which was lacking the first couple minutes. We knew what we needed to do and we got out there and just brought a spark.
When Gates turned to a fresh set of bodies, one of them was freshman guard Anthony Robinson. Following a tying basket by SCSU, Robinson scored seven straight points and dished a fast break assist to Tamar Bates that put the Tigers up 48-39. Mizzou’s lead would eventually stretch to 61-39 on the strength of 22 straight points ignited by Robinson’s personal run. The Tigers cruised from there to an 82-59 victory.
Robinson made all four of his field goal attempts on the way to 10 points. He added three rebounds, two assists, two steals and one of Missouri's school-record 12 blocked shots.
“Ant Robinson was the other person who sparked that,” Gates said.
“Just come in and bringing that spark every day,” Robinson said. “Just focusing on the little things and everything will come. Just being out there and being everywhere on the court.”
If the second half spark came from Robinson, one of Mizzou’s least experienced players, the first half spark came in part from one of its most tenured veterans. Vanover made the first three-pointer of his Mizzou career, blocked a shot and scored again. His defensive presence helped slow the Bulldogs’ red hot shooting. Honor drained three consecutive three-pointers from the left corner and Mizzou turned a 16-point deficit into a 31-31 tie in just five minutes and 21 seconds.
Vanover ended the game with five points, four rebounds, two steals and a block in 17 minutes. But asked about what Vanover provided in that first half, Gates turned it around.
“Not good enough. It’s not good enough,” the coach said. “I expect more from Connor and he knows that. I look at when I subbed him back in and he gave up an offensive rebound. I look at him not blocking a shot when maybe a guy physically was trying to go through his chest. That’s what I look at and ultimately he came away with zero fouls. That’s not good enough. I want him to continue to grow and get better in those situations and meet the expectations that I want him to have.”
That was the theme for Wednesday night. The coach who has earned his reputation as an emotionless, even-keeled, stone-faced statue on the sidelines shed that demeanor in his postgame press conference, probably for the first time in 42 of them at Missouri. Even Sunday against Jackson State, Gates remained positive and upbeat, talking about lessons, not losses. Not on Wednesday night.
“We played 30 minutes of basketball. We didn’t play the first ten minutes at all,” Gates said. “It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all. I’m not happy about it, nor am I excited about what we had to do to get to the point of winning the game.”
Gates said he’ll watch the first ten minutes ten times before he watches the rest of the game. His message was far less about the comeback and far more about the effort that made it necessary.
“It’s probably the most animated I’ve been on the sidelines,” Gates said. “That’s just what was needed. I had to challenge some referees on some calls, I had to challenge our players, I had to challenge the game a little bit and I had to obviously let them know we were, who I was. You probably saw who I was tonight based on who I am in practice. I ultimately take a step back, allow these guys to play, but when it’s in disarray like it was tonight, then I have to step in and do my job and ultimately get it back on track.
“When you try to look from the lens of a giraffe, I have to see everything. But also I gotta shrink to the turtle. I got to be able to get in the trenches with these guys and kind of put myself in their perspective and then again try to be a giraffe and see what it is that I’m missing.
Gates is in charge of deciding which players come to the post-game press conference to talk to reporters with him. It’s a nod to not only who played well, but who earned the opportunity to be recognized. And while he recognized the efforts of Robinson and Shaw, neither player flanking him at the table escaped the focus of the giraffe’s lens.
“Ant’s a hack,” Gates said after Robinson picked up three second half fouls. “He fouls too much. He doesn’t know how to play without fouling. For young players who are used to using their hands at the high school level, you have to leave them in and almost embarrass them with a foul out situation. That’s what he has to learn because ultimately if he doesn’t learn that he’s gonna put himself in a bad spot and that can put our team in a bad spot.”
And on Shaw: “If he can dominate the verticality of basketball like his athleticism says he can and should then that’s going to show up for us. There’s nobody that can out jump him….There should not be a time where he’s not almost hitting his head on the backboard. If he’s not doing that, then he’s not playing hard.”
It is a sign, perhaps, that it’s no longer all that early in the season. Missouri is more than 20% of the way through the year and nearly halfway through its non-conference slate. Following a Saturday game against Loyola (MD), the Tigers’ last 24 games feature 21 power conference opponents, Wichita State and Seton Hall.
Mizzou has played six games. It has been blown out by Memphis, had to come back from 18 down at Minnesota, lost to previously winless Jackson State and had to erase a 16-point deficit on Wednesday against a team that came to Columbia dragging the anchor of a 347 ranking on KenPom.
“A pat on the back is two inches away from a kick in the butt,” Gates said. “Tonight we dug ourselves a hole. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. The biggest opponent is ourselves. The person is the mirror is the biggest opponent and we got to continue to conquer that person.”
Up next is a Saturday morning matchup with Loyola, the Tigers’ next chance to prove they’re closer to last year’s 25-10 NCAA Tournament squad than what they’ve shown through the first three weeks of Gates’ second season.
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