Missouri basketball coach Dennis Gates held a press conference Tuesday ahead of the No. 15 Tigers’ matchup with No. 4 Alabama.
Here are a few of his quotes I found most telling and what I think was left unsaid in them.
When asked about rebounding against Alabama
What Gates said: “When the ball is not going in, they do a great job of scoring and part of their offense is opportunities to get second-chance points. … The lessons are, we’ve got to block out, we’ve got to be able to hold teams to one offensive possession and that gives our defense an opportunity to do things as well if we end up that way. We’ve got to have guard rebounding and wing rebounding and post-man rebounding. Everyone has to rebound.”
What went unsaid: Alabama out-rebounds teams 44.4-36.5 on average this season with about a third of that average coming on the offensive glass (about 13.75 per game). They posted seven second-chance points on 11 offensive boards against Texas, 12 off 11 offensive rebounds against Arkansas and four off nine offensive boards against Georgia in their past three wins.
So the Tide do score some second-chance points and get a lot of opportunities, but they don’t have an incredible conversion rate recently on those chances.
Making sure the Tigers do a better job on the defensive glass than they did early against Texas A&M, and making sure Alabama isn’t able to capitalize when it does get extra opportunities, will definitely be one of the keys to today’s game.
When asked about playing at Alabama's pace
What Gates said: “I’m not changing the way we’re playing. I’m not going to ever do that. We’re going to continue to have our guys play at a pace, play with confidence, play unselfishly, execute the game plan.”
What went unsaid: Alright, that answers one of my main questions about this game. The Tigers supposedly aren’t going to slow down just to try to mess with Alabama’s pace, which should make this game incredible to watch because it’s going to be constant action back and forth.
This should be about as fast of a game as you see this year, whether that’s a good thing for the Tigers, I don’t know. But slowing down and changing up the offensive strategy probably wouldn’t be good for them.
So get ready for a track meet.
On Anthony Robinson and Trent Pierce playing better the past week
What Gates said: “I think those guys are growing through the adversity and it’s great to see it happen in real time. Some coaches may have changed the lineup by then, or changed something about what has taken place. I’ve allowed these guys, because of what they’ve done and they’ve grown from it, and their teammates have grown from it. I need Aidan Shaw to play better, that’s what I need. I need the rest of our team to continue to grow. Marques Warrick, he needs to play better and at that point, I think we can see a team playing up to their potential.”
What went unsaid: From one callout right to the next.
Gates had been clear for a couple of weeks that Robinson and Pierce needed to play better, we saw Pierce play all of two minutes against Oklahoma and the pair responded with better performances against Georgia.
Now we’re onto the next group.
Gates has said something to this effect about a number of guys this season and usually it has worked, whether it’s been about Tony Perkins or Josh Gray or Tamar Bates or recently with Robinson and Pierce.
The only question for me is Shaw. He’s going to have to play more to play better. The most we’ve seen of him since SEC play started was the Oklahoma game because Pierce was spending the whole game on the bench.
So I’m all for calling the guys out, it’s worked and clearly it’s part of Gates’ relationship with his players and they take it in stride. Hopefully this means Shaw gets to work into the rotation more regularly, I miss watching him jump out of the gym once in a while.
Stay up to date on all the Mizzou news with your premium subscription.
Talk about this story in the story thread and discuss so much more in The Tiger Walk.
Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines.
