How Dennis Gates’ love of puzzle-solving, poise and key mentor enabled Mizzou revival
To understand the makings of the University of Missouri men’s basketball team’s marvelous turnaround, you have to look beyond the mere dynamics on the court — the play that enabled Mizzou to go from 0-18 in the Southeastern Conference last season to a team whose name will be called when the NCAA Tournament field is announced on Selection Sunday.
First, you have to go back to coach Dennis Gates’ childhood in Chicago, where he learned coaches should pour into their players’ lives, never say “I’m tired” and became nicknamed “The Sheriff” in AAU ball because of how seriously he took order on the court.
It also was where he developed a certain zeal for solving puzzles, he said in a Zoom interview with The Star from Nashville earlier this week as the 21st ranked Tigers prepared for the SEC Tournament.
(Mizzou, which was 10-8 in conference play, is 22-11 overall after falling to fourth-ranked Florida 95-81 on Friday night in an SEC quarterfinal.)
“I’m just being honest,” Gates said. “I love it.”
So much so he figures he’d be covered by any word that might label the fascination.
Turns out that would be a “dissectologist” when it comes to jigsaws in particular and, for more general puzzles, an “enigmatologist.”
And the latter term for one who studies or writes word, logic or mathematical puzzles seems apt for what Gates has deciphered on the job.
Especially because he sees that aptitude as a parallel to roster construction — something he can also trace back to being a young teen reading the newspaper to predict NBA Draft selections.
And especially amid the most turbulent time in the history of collegiate sports (because of NIL and the transfer portal) and after a miserable second season that came with a potential added burden from losing the athletic director (Desiree Reed-Francois) who had hired him.
‘I knew how they would fit in’
Even with all that swirling around him last year, Gates was able to stay focused on reconciling the long-term with a top-5 freshman recruiting class while also bringing in the No. 13 transfer class — highlighted by forward Mark Mitchell, a Kansas City, Kansas, native, who arguably has been MU’s best player.
(Mitchell missed the game Friday with a knee injury but is expected to return for NCAA play.)
And by recognizing that last season’s roster still was crucial:
Four of MU’s six leading scorers were in the program a year ago, in fact, and have been central to this resurgence.
Most strikingly, the revival has included wins over three teams ranked at the time in the top 5: then-No. 1 (and now unranked) Kansas, then-No. 5 Florida (now No. 4) and then-No. 4 (now No. 5) Alabama.
“We strategically put people on this team and in (their) rightful place,” Gates said. “Once we figured out our high school kids, once we figured out we had (Mitchell from Duke) — because that was a really key component — we were able to really fill in the scope of this team (with the portal class).”
Those six, Gates said, were “recruited based off of who they were. Not what they did, but who they were as people. I knew how they would fit in.”
It’s always been about finding the fits, really. But all the more so in the churning times — as is evident in examples good and bad all over.
Which takes us back to something else:
What made MU and Gates a fit for such players — including those who stayed — after Mizzou went winless in conference play for the first time since 1907-1908?
It starts with something one of Gates’ most significant mentors, the recently retired Leonard Hamilton, told me a few years ago.
“The more pressure situation (Gates) gets in, the calmer he becomes,” he said. “So very seldom will you ever see him get rattled.”
‘Control and calmness’
Through what guard Tamar Bates called “the storm that we went through,” Gates stayed poised and kept building the culture that he’d launched in his 2022-2023 debut season — when he guided MU to its first NCAA Tournament win since 2010.
“I feel like that’s why we were able to respond this year,” said Bates, who, like Mitchell, is a Kansas City, Kansas, native. “Just because of who (Gates) is and the way that he carried himself throughout being (at) the lowest point that probably any of us have been in throughout our basketball careers.”
The “control and calmness” that Gates displays,” Bates added, “carried over into our own mentality in terms of just staying the course.”
Moreover, Gates’ adept ability to “tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear” while conveying how much he cares matters deeply, Bates and other players have told me over the last couple years.
To Mitchell, Gates has “almost perfected” how to create an environment of players feeling both pushed and loved.
In the process, he’s made players feel, as Bates put it, “we’ve been in his shoes, and he’s been in ours.”
That relatability and sense of the 45-year-old Gates having their best interests in mind is why Bates, who transferred to MU from Indiana, didn’t just not seek to leave after last season.
He became instrumental in persuading Mitchell, one of his oldest and closest friends, to transfer from Duke.
“Every guy on this roster at some point in their career has been overlooked, has been doubted, has been underappreciated,” Bates said. “And (Gates) is somebody who embodies that kind of underdog mentality. Because whether it be through his coaching career, even his playing career at Cal, he might have been looked at that way.”
He added: “But we respect the hell out of him. We know who he is. We know he’s a Hall of Fame coach in the making.”
2 or 3 a.m. phone calls
If that’s indeed so, part of his case will be built by a season like this in the wake of potentially debilitating chaos a year ago.
And that takes us to one other element of what’s made this possible: the aforementioned Hamilton’s vital role in so many aspects of Gates’ success ... but one in particular.
Among the reasons Gates was able to stay unwavering last season was because Hamilton had “delivered me 100 different versions” of when he went 0-18 in Big East games at the University of Miami in 1993-1994.
“For me, it wasn’t something that I’d never heard of,” Gates said. “It wasn’t an anomaly, like, ‘Oh, what’s happening?’
“I heard about it, so therefore I was able to navigate it. Not just while we were in it, but even after the fact. In the right way. I didn’t fire a staff member. … We didn’t strip everything down. We returned players who went through it.”
Gates didn’t have to just remember the example of Hamilton, a three-time national coach of the year for whom he worked at Florida State and gained a reputation as a terrific recruiter.
As he’s been doing for years, he could tap into the wisdom literally any time he wants.
Sometimes, Gates may call him at 2 or 3 a.m.
Their typical initial exchange:
After Hamilton picks up, Gates will hear him clearing his voice and ask, “Coach, what are you doing?”
Hamilton invariably will say, “Man, I was just waiting on your call.”
Now, MU is just waiting for the call from the NCAA for its tournament assignment among its absurdly competitive SEC brethren; the conference may receive as many as 13 NCAA bids, which would break the record of 11 held by the Big East.
Selection Sunday looms after a late-season funk in which the Tigers lost four of their last five regular-season games entering the SEC tourney — and gave up more than 90 points in each.
But fixing that for a tournament run makes for something Gates will relish: another puzzle to try to solve.
This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 6:30 AM.