Dennis Gates seems a fine hire for Mizzou, but let’s put brakes on national-title talk
As you would likely would have heard at virtually any introductory news conference for a major-college coach, the one on behalf of new University of Missouri men’s basketball coach Dennis Gates on Tuesday at Mizzou Arena abounded with optimism. And why not, really?
After all, it’s a fresh start for the program with yet another man in the role who certainly has a charismatic way about him and obviously is smart and quick-witted and carries a compelling resume.
Never mind that Tiger fans weren’t much familiar with the former Cleveland State coach before his name surfaced in reports over the weekend. None of the cynicism that came with that will matter one iota if he wins, and hundreds were here to cheer for him on a happy day in which anything seems possible.
So there was talk of cutting down nets and hoisting trophies and banners and cultivating first-round NBA Draft picks and, yes, winning national championships. As ever, University of Missouri president Mun Choi was, well, shooting the moon when he said Mizzou basketball is on its way “back and is going to be in charge.”
Forget that MU has never been to a Final Four, hasn’t won a conference title since 1994, hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2010 and is 63-115 in conference play since joining the Southeastern Conference.
We attach this asterisk here not to be pessimistic, but realistic.
From what I can tell, it’s a promising hire.
But even if a day like this is all about belief in the future, that urgency also best be leavened with patience and understanding that right now this enterprise is much more about the journey than the destination.
Whatever is possible ahead depends on navigating the crucial small steps ahead in the wild, wild west of modern recruiting. Accomplished as Gates has been at that elsewhere, it’s a dynamic that necessitates literal buy-in from boosters and fans here and now.
That’s both in terms of attendance and to fund name, image and likeness deals that Gates considers an “equalizer.”
For a variety of reasons that depend on from whom you hear it, that element of recruiting never really took under predecessor Cuonzo Martin. Which is at least in part why another recurring theme on Tuesday simply was about engagement.
“I see him connecting with our fan base and bringing people back …” athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois told a small group of reporters after the news conference. “We need to bring people home.”
That’s part of the equation in an entirely new way nowadays:
If Mizzou fans want to see a return to a bygone era of regular NCAA Tournament appearances, the Show-Me State might do well to show up in all sorts of ways it seldom seemed to for Martin’s teams … and, reasonably enough, all the more so as the program sputtered.
Still, this all starts now with Gates, who minced no fewer words than Mun Choi as he spoke of his desire to win national titles and even to become a Hall of Fame coach through his time here.
Asked about expectations of the trio next to him on stage, including the president, Reed-Francois and university curator Jeff Layman, Gates smiled and said: “Did you just hear the president? It’s no different than what was mentioned … I am not running from it. I’m here to tussle with it. I’m here to fight against our opponents. Not just in the SEC, but in the country.”
Everyone said just what they should say, in other words. And with ample conviction and data about Gates’ history as a recruiter and even a rebuilder.
As a Florida State assistant, he is understood to have been instrumental in assembling four top-20 classes (which is when Reed-Francois, then at Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference, started tracking him).
At Cleveland State as a head coach, he was a two-time Horizon League coach of the year and went 31-10 in conference play the last two seasons. Significantly, that was after inheriting a distressed program when Dennis Felton was abruptly fired three years ago this summer.
His move there came after a momentous and telling decision: Take the Cleveland State job, or stay with mentor Leonard Hamilton and a team they believed was national championship caliber? (The Seminoles won the ACC and finished the COVID-terminated season ranked fourth.)
“Well, every friend of mine in this business said I’m committing career suicide by choosing Cleveland State. There were three guys in the program (and no staff for two weeks),” he recalled. “I had to do all this in two weeks. That same team that we put together, they won championships, they cut down nets, held up trophies and they raised banners.”
Considering that he did all this amid COVID and radical changes in the game including the emergence of the transfer portal and NIL opportunities, he’s demonstrated a feel for seizing the moment and for the current game and a knack for adaptability.
“You’ve got to be able to pivot in a unique time in college basketball but also our world,” Gates said.
It seems reassuring, too, that Gates evidently has been adept at pivoting much of his life. As he spoke about his upbringing in Chicago during the news conference, a background that included being recruited by Norm Stewart at Mizzou before choosing the University of California at Berkeley, Gates referred to how he had “tried to throw it all away.”
In an interview with The Star afterward, we asked what he meant by that. “When you’re growing up in impoverished situations and communities …” he said, “there are things that can pull you to the left and pull you to the right.”
Vague as that statement was, he was clear that basketball became a compass to his true north.
From his collegiate career in Berkeley, where he served as a three-year captain, to eight different coaching stops along the way, he’s earned a stellar reputation and surely has a fine chance to reset Mizzou.
You might even say he’s 1-0 here after Tuesday.
But let’s remember that it was an exhibition game, and the real work is ahead.
Now, certainly, you can see his appeal and the substance of his history. And, sure, it’s fun to imagine a future where Mizzou basketball is, in fact, “in charge.”
But after the tumult of the last decade-plus and all the instability, really, since Norm Stewart’s 32-season career here ended in 1999, right now this is about negotiating the intermediate steps: through the building block of recruiting, including harnessing the transfer portal and NIL opportunities and engaging the hearts and minds of fans.
It’s been nearly an entire generation now, alas, since MU has enjoyed consistent competitive success.
So it’s fine to express lofty hopes.
But any real promise that this day offers stems from Gates simply making good on first things first, which is plenty ambitious in itself right now.
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 6:57 PM.