Speaking this week to a ºüÀêÊÓƵ country club ballroom packed with Mizzou sports donors, Dennis Gates pulled from his pocket a pen.
He held it up to the crowd, asking if his audience remembered the movie, “Men in Black.â€
Mizzou’s third-year men’s basketball coach joked he was, like the characters played by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, going to erase all memory of last season.
Hey, if it can wipe away encounters with aliens, maybe it’s worth a shot to chase the hangover of zero wins in conference play.
Did it work?
Perhaps not quite as well as it would in Hollywood, but the good news is Gates has done a lot more since last season’s dud than create a good speaking engagement stunt.
Maybe he should have pulled out an updated roster instead.
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Because on it, you can’t find any sign of last season’s bummer.
If folks tuned out due to last season’s loss parade, which would have been understandable, now could be the right time to check back in on Gates’ program.
He and his staff successfully held together an incoming freshman class of prep talent that scouting service 247Sports ranked No. 5 in the nation. That’s not easy to do when those high school seniors were watching loss after loss from the program they are set to join. Not one bailed. Impressive.
The staff didn’t hesitate to churn the roster after disastrous results, but while doing so managed to keep most of the most promising returners. With the exception of big man Jordan Butler, who left for South Carolina after showing some encouraging signs, the talented young players who weathered tough introductions to the SEC as freshmen will be back, and they should be better because of the experience.
“This is their first offseason knowing what they know,†Gates said. “They have to walk in the gym different. They have to carry themselves in a different manner.â€
Second-leading scorer Tamar Bates returns after stepping into the spotlight last season under dire circumstances. Same for Caleb Grill, the 3-point shooting defensive specialist whose season-ending injury before the start of conference play became, in Gates’ eyes, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.â€
If the staff stopped there, I’d be less optimistic.
Youth is exciting, but the SEC tends to chew it up and spit it out.
The staff kept going. It constructed what is believed by 247Sports the No. 12 transfer class in the nation.
Duke transfer Mark Mitchell, a Kansas City area native who passed over Mizzou coming out of high school, was the No. 17 transfer in the portal after starting 67 games for the Blue Devils over the past two seasons. He averaged 11.6 points and 6 rebounds as a sophomore last season, making nearly 60% of his 2-point attempts.
“He brings an internal and external type of impact,†Gates said. “The external is, ‘It’s a cool thing not to be at Duke, but to be at Mizzou.’ That’s what he brings. He brings the fact that you don’t have to leave this state. The grass isn’t always greener. Internally, he brings a dynamic player. A possible all-conference guy. A high impact guy who has the potential to play at the next level in the NBA.â€
Now dig a little deeper on the other incoming transfers ...
Iowa graduate transfer Tony Perkins is a Big Ten veteran with 81 starts beneath his belt and a scoring and assist average that increased every single year, up to 14 points and 4.6 assists per game last season. He was ranked as the No. 56 player in the portal.
Northern Kentucky graduate transfer Marques Warrick is a Horizon League veteran of 121 starts whose four-year career as a prolifically scoring starter makes him the leader — yes, the leader — in active Division I players in career points scored. That’s no small thing. All Warrick has done since he started playing college ball is score.
And UT-Martin transfer Jacob Crews (19.1 point average) made 56% of his 2-pointers and 41% of his 3-pointers in the OVC last season, while averaging 8.2 boards.
These are some of the reasons, beyond pleasantries, that new Mizzou athletics director Laird Veatch stood up in front of that same room Gates addressed this week and made a point to tell all who were listening that Gates has his full support and trust.
Gates simply didn’t have the kind of offseason struggling coaches tend to have.
The momentum he created from his team’s surprise trip to the NCAA Tournament in year one is not entirely lost, clearly, and whatever was put on pause can be in motion again if he gets the most out of this group. The talent’s there. It’s a challenge few coaches coming off a season like last one put themselves in position to solve.
If Gates can get back to the NCAA Tournament in year three, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones may be referencing his ability to make people forget something scary.