The frustration has been building for Missouri men’s basketball head coach Dennis Gates.
It boiled over during Gates’ postgame press conference following the Tigers’ 72-67 loss to No. 5 Tennessee on Tuesday night. The defeat was Missouri’s 13th straight loss, dropping Gates’ team to 8-18 overall and 0-13 in SEC play.
Following the game, Gates dropped an f-bomb while discussing his team’s inability to draw fouls.
“We’ve got to do a better job drawing fouls. I think we suck at it,” Gates said. “We’re f—–g terrible. We’re terrible at drawing fouls and we’ve got to do a better job.”
Gates then asked reporters if they had gotten all of what he said and requested that they “don’t bleep that out.”
In terms of raw numbers, Missouri did draw 17 fouls on Tennessee and attempted 21 free throws, making a respectable 15. The Vols, meanwhile, racked up 23 fouls on the Tigers and went 19-of-27 from the line.
That’s not a huge disparity, but Gates surely had some specific instances in mind when making these comments.
It’s been a frustrating season for the 44-year-old head coach, who led Missouri to 25 victories, including one in the NCAA Tournament, in 2022-23, his first year at the school.
The Tigers have not won since Dec. 30, and are in danger of going 0-for-conference play. Missouri has only five opportunities left to win a league game, and their best chances to do so, at least on paper, are unfortunately on the road at Arkansas and LSU.