The winding journey of 2 Mizzou Tigers basketball stars was launched in ... Lawrence
True story: The zigzagging journeys that finally led Tamar Bates and Mark Mitchell to their proper college basketball home at the University of Missouri began on the campus of Mizzou’s eternal rival, the University of Kansas.
And heck, maybe not since Norm Stewart declined KU coach Phog Allen’s scholarship offer and chose MU has there been a more momentous development for Mizzou from out of Lawrence.
“Those two guys are important, man,” MU coach Dennis Gates said in a recent Zoom interview with The Star. “They’re important to our history and tradition. And they will be legends.”
To be sure, the duo that met in an elementary school tournament at a KU rec center — and has been allied virtually ever since — has been essential to Mizzou’s stirring turnaround: from an 0-18 Southeastern Conference season a year ago to an NCAA Tournament berth earned in part by three wins over then-top 5-ranked teams.
Mitchell, a 6-foot-9 forward, was named second-team All-SEC by The Associated Press after leading the Tigers in scoring (14.1 points a game). Bates, a 6-5 guard, is MU’s third-leading scorer (13.4 PPG) and was SEC player of the week in December after amassing 29 points in a 76-67 victory over then-No. 1 Kansas.
But they’ll get a chance to enhance their legacy starting at approximately 6:35 p.m. on Thursday in Wichita, where the West Regional No. 6 seed Tigers (22-11 overall, 10-8 SEC) begin tournament play against 11th-seeded Drake (30-3, 17-3 Missouri Valley).
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Win two games there, a severe challenge between the Bulldogs and looming 3-14 Texas Tech-UNC Wilmington winner, and MU would advance to its first Sweet 16 since 2009.
With a fascinating twist in the making: a potential rematch with none other than … KU, the No. 7 seed.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves over the improbable.
And their full-circle story is compelling enough as it is.
Including how it reflects such trust between them, and their families, that Mitchell transferred from perennial powerhouse Duke to an MU program coming off the grim season that greeted Bates after he transferred from Indiana.
“Both of those guys went to a blueblood,” Gates said. “And their experiences at Mizzou outweigh those.”
‘Yin and yang’
It’s a tale of fast forever friends who happen to be the complementary opposites of “yin and yang,” as Mitchell’s brother Brandon put it.
“That just kind of shows the dynamic of their relationship, who they are as people and how they play,” said Brandon Mitchell, an actor, choreographer and dancer based in Los Angeles.
Noting he’s called Mark “Easy” because of his demeanor since he first saw him as a baby, he added, “My brother is quiet, chill, laid back. He has an easy kind of flowing game, even though obviously he can turn it up and do what he does.
“Then Tamar is full of fire … The passion that he plays with, that’s the passion of the Bates family.”
(While we’re on nicknames: Bates is known as “Scoop,” adapted from the rapper “Fatman Scoop” who got the kids dancing. Since Tamar always ate a lot, the family took to calling him Fatman Scoop. Since he never got heavy, they just dropped the Fatman part.)
Their story also is a narrative of virtually entwined families, who knew each other before the sons met through teaching and fraternity associations.
“We circled up around basketball, but we’ve been engaging each other outside of basketball for many years,” said Bates’ father, Tyrone.
And it’s a saga still in the making of proudly representing Kansas City, Kansas — and the Kansas City metro area — as they try to bring to life for Mizzou an energy they’ve shared for so long.
“Playing with people you get close with, it’s kind of something that you dream about when you’re playing basketball in the driveway or something,” Tamar Bates said during a recent interview at Mizzou Arena.
Along with counting down “5-4-3-2-1” and hitting game-winners together, he added, “This is stuff that you kind of fantasize about.”
How it started
Playing on fifth-grade teams (Mitchell was playing up a year), each remembers meeting in a tournament championship game at one of the KU rec centers near Allen Fieldhouse.
Bates’ PowerGroup team won, but Mitchell stood out for the opposing Kansas City Kings.
As he watched the game, Mitchell’s father, Mark Sr., was struck by the sophistication of the PowerGroup team’s approach and intrigued that Bates was lefthanded like his son.
So shortly after the game, he spoke with PowerGroup coach Allen Skeens about the idea of moving Mark to that program.
While Skeens has coached hundreds of games since, on Monday he recalled that game.
He remembered that Mitchell could go to his left or right so easily it took him most of the game to figure out he was lefthanded — a distinction he always figured was an advantage.
After talking with Skeens and Tyrone Bates, Mark Jr. joined up with Tamar’s team — setting a tone for what would happen again last year.
In between, the friendship blossomed.
While they went to different high schools (Bates to Piper; Mitchell to Bishop Miege), they played several years together with PowerGroup and later in AAU ball with KC Run GMC.
(After Bates aged out of PowerGroup, Skeens said, Mitchell and Mizzou forward Aidan Shaw from Blue Valley High were teammates on Skeens’ team that won the Jr. NBA World Championship in 2018; the Bates and Mitchell families also feel connected to the Shaws. And MU’s second-leading scorer, Caleb Grill, is a Wichita native.)
Even about a 15- or 20-minute drive apart at the time, Bates and Mitchell were at each other’s houses so often that Mitchell can’t count the number of sleepovers.
Or approximate how many hours they shot around with each other and other friends. Or played video games.
And who knows how many times they’ve made each other laugh at meals or in the odd hours of travel and in hotel rooms.
Or had each other’s backs.
“Obviously, time is the currency that you can’t really get back,” Bates said. “And we’ve spent a lot of time together.”
‘Finding my home’
They would have spent more together if they’d made the same college choice from the get-go.
That could have been at KU, where each reportedly received offers at various times.
And it could have been sooner at Mizzou, where they took a recruiting trip together.
For a variety of reasons, though, they made other choices before turning to what now seems to have been inevitable.
“It hasn’t been a straight-line route to where they are,” said Skeens, who called it gratifying to see them navigate some ups and downs to “be where they should be.”
In fact, their story now stands for something else, too: a reassuring illustration of the upside of the oft-capricious transfer portal era.
“Finding my home,” Mitchell called it.
Bates played his final year of high school at IMG Academy in Florida. He originally committed to Texas before spending his freshman and sophomore years at Indiana.
With an infant daughter and seeking a better overall sense of his place, he entered the transfer portal. Then he made numerous calls — including to former and then-current players — to vet coaches vying for him.
He found Gates to be honest, sincere and attuned to his aspirations as a player and needs as a father.
“The most important thing,” he said, “is opportunity fit.”
The appeal no doubt was amplified by MU coming off its first NCAA Tournament win in 13 years in Gates’ first season.
But even when MU finished 8-24 overall last season, Bates didn’t flinch. By then, he had bought into the culture and to the “control and calmness” of Gates.
So much so that he effectively doubled down by trying to persuade Mitchell to join him when he decided to leave Duke.
“Who would go (from Duke) to a team that was (0-18) in their conference?” Mark Mitchell Sr. said. “Well, we did.”
Most kids talk about being impact players, Gates said, but are afraid to go to a place that wasn’t winning.
“He wasn’t afraid,” Gates said. “That’s strong.”
That was because, Mitchell’s father said, they “trusted the word of Scoop and Tyrone Bates” about MU being an “underrated first-class program.”
And, Brandon Mitchell said, because they were so impressed with Gates and the program’s emphasis on personal analytics and development.
“Literally after every conversation that we had with any university, we had questions,” he said. “After we talked to Coach Gates, we had no questions.”
‘Something that we’ll tell our kids’
And plenty of answers — including a transition surely eased by their past together.
While Mitchell started 67 games in two seasons for Duke and averaged 10.1 points there, he has felt liberated by Gates “unleashing my versatility.”
“He’s gotten back to who he is,” Bates said.
Meanwhile, so has Bates.
Although his stat line is similar to last season, he’s clearly asserted his will more than ever since being named captain.
Maybe particularly when it comes to Mitchell.
“He knows how to get the most out of me, knows when he needs to get on me, things like that, better than other people,” Mitchell said.
As it happens, that’s vice versa at times.
Befitting their brotherhood — and a rare chance to fulfill it all the more.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Bates said. “This is something that we’ll tell our kids about. Because me and Mark, we’ve got a relationship that’s going to last a lifetime.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 1:13 PM.