How Mizzou’s turnaround hinged on Kobe Brown’s momentous decision not to enter portal
In the aftermath of Missouri firing Cuonzo Martin last year, and even after Mizzou hired Dennis Gates to replace him less than two weeks later, nine MU players turned to the escape hatch known as the transfer portal.
In a time of hurt and confusion, with the enticement of the portal now the dominant dynamic in college sports, each had his reasons to turn elsewhere.
“Transition isn’t easy for anyone,” Gates said Wednesday. “You have teammates. You have brothers in your program. Guys that are in the portal. Guys that are not in the portal. Guys that are on the lines of entering or not.”
Meanwhile, Gates had to zoom into everything everywhere all at once mode, voraciously recruiting what would become a class of eight largely mid-major transfers (and two junior-college players) and freshman Aidan Shaw out of Blue Valley.
That swift and astute work was essential to an astounding turnaround that lifted MU from 12-21 a year ago to 24-9 this season entering its NCAA Tournament South Regional opener against Utah State at 12:40 p.m. Central on Thursday at the Golden 1 Center.
MU is the No. 7 seed; the Aggies (26-8) are 10th-seeded.
If the recruiting work of Gates and his staff is what fueled this resurgence and suggests more ahead, though, perhaps his most vital connection for this team wasn’t as much who he was able to bring in as who chose to stay ... with the velvet touch of “delicate gloves” Gates said he applied.
When star Kobe Brown announced on Instagram in May that there was “no place I’d rather be” and “#heretostay #home #miz,” Gates had what he would alternately describe over the months leading into the season as an “anchor” or “centerpiece” of the team.
Not to mention heart, conscience, soul, rudder and model of everything we still want to love in college sports.
Especially in an era that is increasingly disillusioning amid never-ending realignment and such constant roster flux as to seldom get to know players before they’re gone.
Contrast that with the MU senior who emerged this season as a first-team All-SEC performer (averaging 15.8 points and 6.3 rebounds) and the only player in the nation to both shoot better than 55 % from the field (59.9) and hit more than 40 % from 3-point range (44.7) … while also making 80.2 % of his free throws.
Better yet, Brown has a 3.59 GPA and was named the Southeastern Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year — the first MU athlete to be so recognized since Mizzou joined the SEC in 2012. Brown also earned second-team Academic All-American laurels as just the third Tiger men’s basketball player thus honored. According to his MU bio, Brown’s career plan is to “own a Fortune 500 company” and he’s already launched his own merchandise business: KB24 LLC.
Still better yet, he’s the consummate teammate.
You could point to plenty of ways that shows up, but here’s one case in point:
In MU’s 85-63 win at Georgia last month, Brown figured with the Bulldogs swamping him as they were that the Tigers might be better off with him out of the game. Per Gates’s postgame comments that night, Brown suggested “that we play other guys and not himself.”
“How unselfish is that?” Gates said then.
Add it all up, and it’s one of the most distinguished careers in MU history — one that makes a nice visual for future recruits and that would sure be fitting to see enhanced in NCAA play.
Brown also is eligible to return next season, as noted by Tiger fans chanting “one more year” as he was honored on senior day.
Only time will tell what’s to come.
But this is about his choosing to stay during the uncertainty and sense of loss after Martin was fired, the trust in Gates that he and his brother Kaleb (along with Ronnie DeGray) found that compelled them to stay … and all that it enabled.
In eye-opening back-to-back clobberings of then-No. 16 Illinois and then-No. 19 Kentucky in December, Brown scored 31 points against the Illini and 30 against the Wildcats. And Gates deftly summarized how that came to be.
“That young man didn’t waver when he could have. When it was easy to say ‘put my name in the portal,’ he could have and he didn’t,” Gates said on his postgame radio interview after Missouri’s 89-75 win over Kentucky. “His family didn’t blink, didn’t waver, right? In a world where it’s cool to be in the portal, he thought it was cool to stay.”
Gates, of course, had plenty to do with that. And it say something about his broader approach and read of people that he thought of the situation as not just him taking over a program and meeting new players but being “invited into their space.”
The spirit of the two-way street, and conveying interested in them as people, was what ultimately prevailed.
As Brown and his brother were contemplating what to do and their parents were coming to pick them up for family time at spring break, according to PowerMizzou.com, the new coach asked to meet with them all.
“His first words to me was if he’s not invited to my wedding by the time it’s all said and done and I’ve moved on from college, then he didn’t do his job,” Brown said Wednesday in Sacramento. “I knew then it was more than a business with him. I knew he wanted to build actual relationships. He just cared more than just me putting the basketball in the hoop. ...
“He opened my eyes big-time. It led to me staying.”
That was the beginning of many conversations over the course of weeks, sweeping talks that often had little to do with basketball as Kobe, Kaleb, DeGray and Gates came to learn about each other.
“He didn’t bombard me with attention trying to get me to stay or anything,” Brown said. “Even when he talked to me, he wasn’t trying to persuade me to stay. He was just having a regular conversation. “
That stood out even during workouts.
“He wasn’t trying to let me do the things that I wanted to do so that I would feel comfortable with staying,” Brown said. “He was literally just trying to help me progress my game.”
It was an opportunity to be heard that Gates remains grateful for, he said in Columbia last week, noting that Brown now can see “the plan that I talked about come to fruition.”
All because, he added, Brown “stayed in the moment. He’s never gotten too far ahead of himself nor too far behind. He stayed right there in the moment.”
And that put Mizzou in a moment that speaks to imagination and possibilities — including that sometimes in tough situations the answers aren’t always elsewhere.
This story was originally published March 15, 2023 at 12:39 PM.