What’s the ceiling for Mizzou under Dennis Gates? ...Middle East

ST. LOUIS — The Mizzou Arena… er, Enterprise Center… crowd wanted to erupt.

To hear Jacob Crews tell it, though, maybe the Missouri Tigers didn’t.

Crews raised some eyebrows with comments he made in the postgame locker room, saying Miami simply wanted to win more.

Yes, Miami wanted to win more. A Mizzou player said that. After an NCAA Tournament game.

(The NCAA Tournament remains a single-elimination affair, for those who need a reminder. If you’re ever going to want something in the game of college basketball, it should be to win every NCAA Tournament game you’re lucky enough to play in.)

#Mizzou Jacob Crews: “They wanted it more… they played harder” pic.twitter.com/FuRsPmXDn8

While Crews was putting his foot in his mouth with a quote that might not have drawn as much attention if a battered Mizzou fan base wasn’t looking for a scapegoat to its lifelong woes, coach Dennis Gates was saying all the right things in his own postgame press conference when asked how he’ll remember this team and this season.

“How I will remember this season? I’m pretty difficult on myself,” Gates said. “I’m hard on myself when it comes down to coaching. I don’t think any coach could have brought the team to this place based off of where we were, dealing with the injuries that we dealt with. So I pat myself on the back at the same time.

“But there was still sort of a goal in mind. I want to win a national championship, and I didn’t. So for me that’s a failure. It’s just that simple.”

As a passionate fan base once again grows restless, there has been some social media grumbling about whether or not Gates is the man for the job moving forward.

So let’s dive into that topic. Does Gates deserve Year 5 in Columbia? What is Mizzou’s ceiling with him as the head coach?

First, we need to take a trip through time.

A lifetime of Missouri (I mean, misery)

Being a Mizzou fan is a study in pain tolerance dating back generations.

My buddy Brendon Steenbergen wrote a book called “Respectable Roughnecks” about the 1960 Mizzou football team, which was robbed of a potential national title when rival Kansas played an ineligible player in the Tigers’ lone loss of the season.

I was 6 months old when the infamous “Fifth Down” game took place against Colorado in 1990. Naturally, the Buffaloes rode the waves of an unearned win against the Tigers all the way to a share of the national title.

The NCAA has hammered Mizzou for self-reporting violations, where other schools avoid punishment altogether with a strategy of “deny, deny, deny.”

There have been plenty of ridiculous things to happen to the Mizzou football team over my lifetime (even as current coach Eli Drinkwitz has brought the program back to relevancy, and then some), and I’ll leave it to Tiger fans to decide how many they want to relive on social media, but the one that stands out to me most took place against Kentucky back in 2022.

The Wildcats’ punter chased down an errant snap and was tackled dozens of yards behind the line of scrimmage. However, apparently the punter’s tackle box extended all the way to the moon and back. (The NCAA swiftly changed the rule before the 2023 season.)

The football team has had some truly terrible timing with when it decides to have its best seasons, too. In 2013, the Tigers went 11-1 in the regular season before losing to Auburn in the SEC title game. The Playoff was born the very next year.

In 2023, the Tigers finished the regular season ranked No. 9 in the country after a 10-2 regular season. The Playoff, of course, expanded to 12 teams the following season.

In men’s basketball, things have largely been just as difficult to stomach. Every time the Tigers lose a big-time game, of which there haven’t been too many over the years, it seems to be followed with a stat like this:

Mizzou has more first round losses since 2011 than any Power 4 school IN THE COUNTRY.The Tigers are 1-8 in NCAA Tournament games during this timeframe. pic.twitter.com/YktfqRxLzV

Since joining the SEC for the 2012-13 season, the Tigers have only played on Semifinal Saturday at the SEC Tournament once (losing, of course). Thus, you can expand from there to say they’ve never made the SEC Tournament final, let alone win the damn thing.

The only time the Tigers have won an NCAA Tournament game since Mike Anderson left for Arkansas (another bitter pill to swallow), a first-round win over Utah State as a 7-seed back in 2023, it was promptly followed by a loss to 15-seed Princeton. That plucky group of Ivy League Tigers upset 2-seed Arizona in Round 1, giving Mizzou a much easier (on paper, anyway) path to the Sweet 16. Didn’t matter.

The Tigers have an unenviable history against 15-seeds, as Frank Haith and company lost to Norfolk State as a 2-seed back in 2012.

So while some nationally complained that the 10-seed Tigers got a favorable draw by only having to head to St. Louis for Round 1 of this year’s NCAA Tournament, many Mizzou faithful sensed the impending letdown.

And yet… the fans showed up. The fans wanted it. The atmosphere in the Enterprise Center was electric. Urging their beloved Tigers to come back from significant deficits time and time again.

What the Tigers provided on the court, unfortunately, was this:

The Mizzou Hoops experience today pic.twitter.com/xImHUFabC8

Is this all there is in the world for Mizzou? Are Tiger fans Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill time and time again, only for it to roll back down in humiliating fashion before he ever gets to the top?

That brings us back to Gates.

Does Dennis Gates deserve another year?

Dennis Gates is beloved by his players. You can sense their loyalty to him every time they speak in public.

Gates is a leader of men. A guy who doesn’t back down from any questions. When the Tigers disappoint, he takes every ounce of criticism. When the Tigers thrive, he’s the first to pass the credit to his players.

But at the end of the day, college basketball coaches at this level — men’s and women’s — need to win NCAA Tournament games. Anything less than the second round should be seen as an abject failure for the Tigers.

I know Gates said anything short of the national championship fails to live up to his expectations, and he’s certainly right to say that. But let’s be real — most reasonable Mizzou fans would settle for a Sweet 16 berth next year as a show of progress.

To make sure I wasn’t looking at this through black-and-gold-tinted glasses, I reached out to my colleague (and certified ball knower) Neil Blackmon for his perspective.

Back during the offseason in which Mizzou hired Dennis Gates, I really wanted my alma mater to hire Todd Golden. He was at the top of my early wish list and stayed there throughout the process.

Of course, once Florida was on the table, he was always going to take that instead of the Missouri job, and I accept that. But where would Mizzou be now with Golden? We agreed that Mizzou would probably be a second-weekend tourney team under Golden.

“Golden is a top 5 coach,” Neil told me. “And Missouri has the potential to be a top-5 SEC job. Fan base is awesome. Tradition is good. NIL is solid.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Mizzou is a potential sleeping giant that, much like the crowd in St. Louis on Friday night, is waiting to erupt.

I’m of the mindset that Gates should (and likely will) get a fifth year at the helm of the Tigers, but there’s going to be a lot of pressure this coming season. And it simply can’t go the same way his second year in CoMo went.

When Gates was hired away from Cleveland State, he did a great job assembling the roster for the 2022-23 Mizzou squad. He convinced star Kobe Brown to stay. He supplemented that star power with D’Moi Hodge and Tre Gomillion, who followed him from Cleveland State. Sean East II blossomed into a star out of the JUCO ranks. DeAndre Gholston, Noah Carter and Nick Honor were all key transfers who contributed in big ways. Aidan Shaw showed flashes of brilliance as a freshman.

That team made the NCAA Tournament, winning the aforementioned game against Utah State before dropping the stunner to Princeton.

That offseason, Brown left for the NBA, while Hodge and Gholston ran out of eligibility. Gates and his staff went from the 8th-ranked transfer class in 2022 to the 40th-ranked class in 2023, per 247Sports.

Caleb Grill would go on to become a key player for future Tiger squads, but he suffered an injury early in the year. John Tonje, who went on to stardom at Wisconsin, suffered a season-ending foot injury early on.

East and Tamar Bates stepped up and did their best, but the roster simply lacked depth and didn’t have enough firepower to replace the Brown/Hodge/Gholston trio’s production. The result was a disastrous 8-24 season in 2023-24, and an embarrassing 0-18 mark in SEC play.

I say that to say this — Gates needs to find his Mark Mitchell replacement ASAP. Ditto Jayden Stone. The plan can’t be to hope Anthony Robinson II stays and plan for T.O. Barrett, Trent Pierce and Trent Burns to replace all of the things Mitchell and Stone brought to the Tigers.

Gates needs to hit the portal hard and effectively. Robinson and Barrett are solid pieces in the back court. Pierce and Burns are strong players. But the Tigers need a new wing scorer to replace Mitchell. They need a guy who can drain 3s like Stone did when healthy. They need another post presence to pair with Burns.

Mizzou has 5-star guard Jason Crowe Jr. signed to a letter of intent, along with a pair of 4-star players, but that group needs to be supplemented by at least 2 impactful transfer additions who can step into the starting lineup immediately, along with a bit more depth built through the portal.

I’m fine with Mizzou giving Gates another year, but the pressure is on. Build a roster that makes sense. Forget a national championship… just win an NCAA Tournament game (or preferably 2).

Make it to the Sweet 16 and a potential trip to Kansas City awaits. Tiger fans would make that atmosphere incredible once again.

Some day, a Mizzou team will take advantage of that energy.

Some day, this sleeping giant will wake up.

What’s the ceiling for Mizzou under Dennis Gates? Saturday Down South.

Hence then, the article about what s the ceiling for mizzou under dennis gates was published today ( Sunday 22/03/2026 - 03:44 PM ) and is available on SATURDAY DOWN SOUTH ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( What’s the ceiling for Mizzou under Dennis Gates? )

Also on site :

• Today's Famous Celebrity Birthdays for March 22, 2026: Reese Witherspoon, William Shatner
• Firefighters rush to Morrisons convenience store in Oswestry after report of fire
• Iranian Revolutionary Guard: 200 Killed and Wounded Among Zionist Enemy in 73rd Wave