Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning
1) We start with what might have been Missouri's most impressive win of a very impressive basketball season. The Tigers beat Iowa State 78-61 on Saturday. The Cyclones came in as the nation's No. 12 team (10 in the NET) and led for all of 44 seconds. The game was never closer than ten points in the second half (and only at 10 for 17 seconds). The win might put Missouri back in the top 25. Whether it does or not is relatively immaterial, but it's a nice reward for players and fans to see a number next to your name.
What's more important is that it more or less assured Mizzou will return to the NCAA Tournament. Obviously I have to hedge a little bit here. The only time you can call a team a tournament lock is when it can lose every game the rest of the season and still get in. Missouri cannot lose every game the rest of the season. That would leave the Tigers 16-16 with an 11-game losing streak and multiple bad losses and that team is not getting in. But Mizzou has home games against LSU, South Carolina and Ole Miss. It would be shocking to lose one of those games. That leaves eight other games. Missouri needs to win probably two of them to lock up a bid. Could Missouri still miss out? Sure. But it would be stunning. I've spent most of the season telling you I will not consider the season a failure if the Tigers don't make the tournament. That's changed. Missing out on the tournament would now be a failure because there is no reason to think they will miss out.
2) So let me join the long line of those throwing bouquets at Dennis Gates. The job he has done is remarkable. He took over a program that had bottomed out (well, not completely bottomed out; that happened in 2016). The Tigers won 12 games last season. He was hired on March 22 and had to completely remake the roster. He kept Kobe Brown, which was probably the most important thing on his plate when he got the job. He then scoured the country for transfers. He got one that had played high-major basketball before. Nick Honor at the time looked like a serviceable point guard, possibly even a backup point guard. He had averaged 7.9 points, 2.3 assists, 1.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 57 games at Clemson. He shot 39.4% from the field and 34.5% from three point range. It was fine, but it was nothing special. Honor is now averaging more points, assists, rebounds and steals at Missouri than he did at Clemson and is shooting a higher percentage from the field and from three-point range. His turnovers have gone from 1.0 a game to 1.1. All while playing five more minutes per game.
The rest of the roster was filled out with career mid-major and low-major players. Those players came from John A. Logan CC, Garden City CC, Northern Iowa, Milwaukee, Missouri State and Cleveland State. There was optimism among the fanbase because fans always think the best. But the skeptics weren't unwarranted in their thoughts. How were you going to take a roster full of junior college and mid-major players and turn it into a good SEC basketball team?
Gates has. I'll spend the next couple of points talking about how he did it.
3) The first thing is the reason I liked Gates as a candidate before Missouri had made the hire: Player development.
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