Pourover: Dennis Gates appears to be out to prove something

Missouri’s hot start has been a shot across the bow that last season was an aberration.

Towards the end of a 20 game losing streak that ended November 8th of this year, I was still bothered by the narrative surrounding last year. It annoyed me that people poked fun at Missouri and Dennis Gates for the 0-18 effort in conference play.

Mizzou was not clown show bad last year. It wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t… that. Watching Caleb Grill this year and noticing John Tonje powering top 25 Wisconsin is hopefully enough to tell you that much. Last season Missouri faced injuries to their two best players and then ran into some of the worst late game luck a team has seen. So much so that Ken Pomeroy wrote a blog post about it.

The good news for me, and most other Mizzou fans, was the fact that Dennis Gates felt the same way.

It’s still early, but we might be in the early stages of the DENNIS GATES REVENGE TOUR™.

Watching a season like last year is one thing, Gates lived through it. So did Tamar Bates, and Anthony Robinson II, Aidan Shaw and Trent Pierce. Of course Caleb Grill did as well, but in street clothes and from the bench.

Seasons like last year sever most locker rooms.

While there are 10 new players on this roster, there was nothing that resembled a fractured locker room at any point during the fall of last season. Nothing to hint there was any issue whatsoever with the Gates regime. As losses piled up, the circle got tighter. As evidenced by this exchange with Grill and Gates caught on camera and then posted to the MizzouHoops social media account.

College Basketball is a business, and high major coaches make a lot of money to field competitive teams and win games. So there aren’t concerns about margins or if you’re being unfair or running up the score. You’ve got to stand on business, so to speak.

But, to borrow another phrase, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Eli Drinkwitz’s post-Tennessee game reminder to Josh Heupel is an important reminder that coaches remember. If you were part of what it felt like to sit through a loss in each and ever conference game, you remember.

Dennis Gates remembers.

His 2023-24 team finished KenPom.com’s rankings 145th overall. Just one year after being the toast of the SEC and winning the first NCAA tournament game for Missouri is over a decade, Gates was in the same company of a select few coaches to lose every conference game. The embarrassing finish likely led to an underestimation for the reputation Gates himself had built up prior to that season. Surely no coach could recover from an 0-18 season in league play.

But after watching his team blitz Kansas, nearly take down Illinois despite not having Caleb Grill and shooting poorly on the game, and then whipping Florida on the road, I’m beginning to feel like we’re in the midst of the DENNIS GATES REVENGE TOUR™. Florida beat the tar out of the Tigers last year. Bill Self’s squad have wrecked Gates and his team the previous two years.

This team may be flawed but they take the floor and look like they could be the best team in the SEC for about 25-30 minutes of game action.

Mizzou is now a top 30 team in KenPom. When SEC play began they were sub 50. That’s a 20 spot boost in 5 games. They’ve beaten the expected margin in each game.

I’m not sure where this goes. It’s a long conference season. Missouri is still projected to go 10-8 in the SEC, and much of the remaining schedule is more difficult than what’s behind them.

But still. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of this team yet. We’ve seen them touch on the best version of themselves but the top is still unknown. They’ve started out shooting well but their shooting numbers have regressed in each of the last few games. The offense has become stagnant. It’s easy to forget how good this conference is and the level of quality of teams even at the bottom of the conference. Mizzou isn’t at the bottom. They’re working their way towards the top.

I’m not sure where the ceiling is but I don’t think there is a team in the country Missouri can’t beat if they play their best. So let’s see where this goes and enjoy the ride.

I’ll have a Study Hall for the Arkansas game tomorrow. For now, Mizzou is 4-1 and hold one of the four best records in the best league in college basketball.