Pending approval from the University of Missouri Board of Curators, Cleveland State's Dennis Gates will be the next head basketball coach for Mizzou, sources have told PowerMizzou.com.
To officially hire Gates, a contract must be approved by the University Board of Curators. By state law, the Curators are required to issue a 24-hour public notice prior to the meeting. That notice has not been issued at this time. But sources have said the only hurdle between Gates being the next coach is the stamp of approval from the board.
Board approval has been an issue at times before in Mizzou's history. In 2006, while Mike Anderson waited to be introduced at Mizzou Arena, the Board of Curators was in executive session deciding whether Mike Alden would be allowed to remain the Director of Athletics and make the hire. More recently, in 2019, Jim Sterk informally brought three candidates to the Curators for review and was told to resume the search and find better candidates. That process eventually resulted in Missouri hiring Eli Drinkwitz.
Assuming similar hurdles do not exist this time around, Gates is likely to be named Mizzou's next head coach some time in the coming week.
Missouri parted ways with Cuonzo Martin on Friday, March 11, following a 12-21 season that ended with a second-round SEC Tournament loss to LSU. Martin went 78-77 over five seasons.
Gates has been the head coach at Cleveland State for three years. He was hired on July 26, 2019 to take over a program that had gone 40-89 in the previous four seasons under Gary Waters and Dennis Felton. Getting a late start, Gates went 11-21 in his first season with the Vikings, but won the Horizon League with a 19-8 overall record and made the NCAA Tournament in his second season. He earned Horizon League coach of the year honors in each of his last two seasons at Cleveland State.
This year, the Vikings went 20-11 and tied for the best record in the Horizon League, but were beaten 82-67 in the conference tournament semifinals by eventual champion Wright State. Cleveland State's season ended with a 72-68 loss to Xavier Tuesday night in the first round of the NIT.
Prior to his tenure at Cleveland State, Gates spent eight years as an assistant coach at Florida State under Leonard Hamilton.
Pete Thamel of ESPN reported on Friday night that Gates was Missouri's leading candidate, but no deal was done.
Terms of the proposed contract for Gates are not known. He currently makes $550,000 a year at Cleveland State with a buyout of $600,000. Mizzou owes Martin $6 million over the next 24 months after the parties mutually agreed to part ways eight days ago.
There has been no official word from Missouri on the hire and will not be until the approval comes from the board. PowerMizzou.com will continue to follow this story and update it as events warrant.
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