‘It’s authentic, it’s real’: Mizzou embraces family culture at SEC Media Days

Jacob Crews and captains Mark Mitchell and Anthony Robinson II represented Mizzou men’s basketball at SEC Media Days in Birmingham, Alabama, on Wednesday, with coach Dennis Gates at the helm.

The fourth-year Missouri coach highlighted the Tigers’ distinctive culture and how it helped the program bounce back from a disastrous 2023-24 season.

“We were able to attract, like, a Mark Mitchell who transferred from Duke University to a program that was 0-18,” Gates said. “That speaks for the culture. That speaks for the institution. Obviously, it speaks for me. He came and wanted to play for me.”

Senior forward Mitchell transferred from a Duke team that was 27-9 overall to a Mizzou team coming off a historically bad season.

The culture Gates fostered through the best and worst moments brought Mitchell to Columbia. And that was a key factor in the Tigers’ success in 2024-25, when they went 22-12.

“I think you can feel winning cultures and a realness of people,” Mitchell said. “Coming from a winning place, like Duke, I could feel this wasn’t a losing place. They had a culture in place and a structure in place for the team.”

Now, Mitchell will enter his second year playing for Missouri and is sharing his knowledge with the new additions, alongside third-year returner Robinson. Gates expects Mitchell and Robinson to lead in both minutes on the court and cultivating culture off the court.

While the two captains will have a pivotal role for this year’s squad, each returning player has goals of leading in different ways. Third-year returner Trent Pierce expressed on Mizzou’s media day his ambitions to lead by example, while sophomore T.O. Barrett plans to help the true freshmen adjust to the world of Division I basketball as seamlessly as possible.

Gates emphasized the importance of player retention in building a team capable of winning an NCAA championship.

“I have a great relationship with my guys,” Gates said. “You guys are able to see it up close just when it comes down to the genuineness of it. It’s authentic. It’s real.”

Building on the past, looking to the future Following last season’s bounce back from the disastrous 8-24 campaign in 2023-24 that saw Mizzou go winless in conference play, Gates reflected on the role of mentor Leonard Hamilton.

Gates talked about Hamilton’s experience of suffering a 7-20 season as coach of Miami in 1993-94 as a part of his own learning experience.

“I was able to learn in transparency through his failures, not the trophies, not the rings, not the nets that were being cut down,” Gates said. “And I knew whatever job I would get, I would have to build it.”

Gates viewed last season as another version of his first season at the helm of the Tigers, and in a climate of rapid turnover in college basketball, he stressed the importance of adapting quickly to assemble a roster.

“All I did was reset the program as if it was Year 1,” Gates said. “Our players bought in; we recruited the right players.”

One of those players was Crews. Crews is entering his final year thanks to the NCAA ruling allowing junior college players to receive an extra season of eligibility. As a veteran, having the opportunity to play his final season of college basketball in a system that he is already familiar with allows him to understand his role and contribute to the best of his ability.

“Really, I learned throughout the year. I started realizing kind of what I was here for,” Crews said on the SEC Network’s “SEC Tipoff” show. “I was struggling mentally. I came off of having a huge year. I had to realize there’s a bunch of other dudes on this team, too.

“I was grateful when I found out, because I knew having another year under my belt with Coach Gates and being able to come back and having the knowledge of this level, I would have a big year.”

The topic of the SEC’s historic 2024-25 season that culminated with 14 of the league’s 16 teams competing in the NCAA Tournament and Florida winning the NCAA championship was something Gates drew on as part of the system that allowed for the major jump in wins.

The Tigers put up a 10-8 mark in league play, with notable wins over eventual champion Florida on the road in Gainesville and a convincing win over then-fourth-ranked Alabama at home. Those victories reflected Gates’ style of play on the court throughout the journey of league play.

“We had some great wins, three of them against top-five opponents,” Gates said. “But our conference, our SEC schedule is bar none the best in the country, and I just think we work on it every single day. It’s a part of my DNA, it’s a part of the system that I’ve built, that I’ve created and a style that I always have wanted to play.”

Gates will look to carry that success into conference play and turn it into the Tigers’ first repeat appearance in the the NCAA Tournament since Missouri’s five consecutive tournament berths between 2009 and 2013.

TPD: Mizzou’s defensive motto

The Missouri roster has grown for this upcoming season. Not in the number of players, as the team shrunk from an 18-man roster last season to a 14-man — leaving one spot open in the wake of a new NCAA rule shifting the max number of players allowed on a team to 15 — but in height and length.

“We have to find a way to make our identity, which I believe is going to be on the defensive side of the ball,” Robinson said at Mizzou’s media day. “We’re going to be long, athletic and block shots. With that, we’re going to have a lot of size and our defense is going to be one of the top in the country, I believe.”

That defensive identity will be led by the motto TPD: tough, physical and disruptive.

With Robinson holding the 2024-25 SEC All-Defensive Team accolade and the addition of 7-foot senior Shawn Phillips Jr., 6-foot-11-inch senior Jevon Porter and 6-11 junior Luke Northweather, the Tigers will be able to protect the hoop with their length at the rim.

In addition to the new players, returners Mitchell (6-9) and redshirt freshman Trent Burns (7-5) just add to the height of this year’s team.

“My expectation is that Mark Mitchell becomes more of an aggressive player,” Gates said. “Texas A&M game at home, I benched him for the last 10 minutes because I didn’t like his aggressiveness, and then he came out and probably displayed the aggressiveness that I thought he should.”

The Tigers will have their first chance to forge their identity in the exhibition game against Kansas State on Oct. 24 at Mizzou Arena.

Copyright 2025 Columbia Missourian

This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 10:51 AM.