Published on Show Me Mizzou Dec. 19, 2024
Story by Tony Rehagen, BA, BJ ’01
There’s no other way to put it: Last year was a disappointment for Missouri Tiger men’s basketball. Following a 25-win campaign and return to the NCAA Tournament in Coach Dennis Gate’s first season in Columbia, the Tigers went 8-24 in 2023–24 and 0–18 in Southeastern Conference (SEC) play — in an injury-marred season that everyone is eager to move on from.
There’s a strong feeling of optimism at Mizzou Arena as the calendar turns to 2025 and conference play begins again.
This is the era of the transfer portal, which allows student athletes to jump from school to school without having to sit out a year. As a result, coaches are essentially building their teams from the ground up every year. This offseason, Coach Gates and his staff reached into the portal and pulled out one of the country’s top-rated classes of transfers, including former McDonald’s All-American Mark Mitchell from Duke and the top returning scorer in all of college basketball, Marques Warrick from Northern Kentucky.
Coach Gates was not just content to reload with juniors and graduate students to try and win quickly. His staff also managed to recruit a highly touted class of incoming freshman. The class consists of five four-star prospects that he hopes can contribute this year and matriculate through the program to provide a foundation for the future.
Along with seven returning Tigers, including last year’s second-leading scorer, senior guard Tamar Bates, and former Iowa State standout Caleb Grill, who missed most of last season with a wrist injury, 11 new faces will compete on Norm Stewart Court this year. According to Gates, this new crew is not interested in turning the page on last year’s SEC failures. “They are eager and determined to build their own story,” says Gates.
In the huddle with Coach Gates
As the Tigers approach the beginning of league play, Dennis Gates emphasizes depth and flexibility.
On the returning Tigers shaking off last season’s disappointment:
“I think they’ve been taught to shake things off from an early age. We have resilient guys, guys that have been through things. They weren’t born with a silver spoon. Adversity has faced them in their life at some point. And they’ve been taught by their parents, so I appreciate all our parents out there, because those are also my extension of the coaching staff. They do a great job of talking to their young men, talking to the players when they need to, encouraging them when they need to.”
On the transfer portal:
“We have to continue to change with the times. But retention is essential. You have to return a core of guys that can carry through the identity you want on that court. Gradually we’ve increased our high school class, which decreased our portal class. Hopefully those high school classes continue to matriculate forward within our program and not matriculate out just because it’s more popular to be in the transfer portal than it is to be a four-year student athlete. For me, it’s trying to make sure the right guys stay in the program and that they are able to carry the tradition forward.”
On getting a team with 11 newcomers to gel:
“You strip everything down to bare bones. Whenever you have a new program or a new team, a new season, you have new personalities in the locker room. You want to make sure that these guys are connected in a certain way, not just physically when they go out and perform, but emotionally and mentally, and that they have the endurance to stick together and sharpen each other’s blade every day. It takes a team to get better over a period of time, but also through the challenges that they face when they go against each other in practice. And our guys have been competing at a high level.”
On earning the fans’ trust back after last year:
“The fans have done a tremendous job. It is our tradition, that is what this university, what the institution, what our sports grant programs are about. Our fans are third-, second-, first-generation fans as it relates to their connection, not only to this institution, but Missouri, right? They wear that with pride. They put on our school colors, sing our fight song with their heads high each and every day. What I would say is I’m impressed with having 10,000, having 11,000, having these fans in this building on our last game. It gives us the momentum, but also the belief and I truly believe they’re the fuel that gives us opportunity. This can be an unbelievable home court advantage.”
Transfer playmakers
Every season is a new adventure now that the portal allows would-be stars to find a setting that suits them.
Mark Mitchell | Junior | Guard/Forward | Duke
The Tigers targeted Mark Mitchell, a two-year starter for perennial powerhouse Duke University, almost the second he entered the portal. But to land the touted transfer, Coach Gates had some help. “We had the Bates family — Dr. (Tyrone) Bates and Mama (Lajasima) Bates — help us in the recruiting process,” Gates says. “Mark hasn’t looked back since.”
The Bates family includes returning Tiger senior Tamar Bates and his parents. Bates and Mitchell have known each other since fifth grade, and the pair played Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball in Kansas. Both were heavily courted by Mizzou before Gates arrived; both chose other paths (Bates attended Indiana). Now both have ended up in CoMo, where they’ll try to reignite this program. “I’m a little older, more mature,” Mitchell says. “But I’m still the same kid that loves basketball. And I’m still chasing my dream. I think the way Coach Gates runs his system fits me. I think there’s something he can unlock in me.”
Mitchell is referring to Gates’s success with versatile big forwards and the coach’s use of analytics to put players in position to succeed and grow — even an accomplished player like Mitchell, who started 67 of 68 games for the Blue Devils and averaged 11.6 points and 6 rebounds per game last year.
Jacob Crews | Graduate Student | Guard/Forward | UT Martin
Jacob Crews says that within hours of entering the transfer portal last March, he had fielded calls from no fewer than 20 schools, including blue bloods such as UCLA, Kansas and Gonzaga, coaches all over the country knew about him.
Last year, Crews was the nation’s No. 22 3-point shooter. He hit 41.4 percent from beyond the arc for University of Tennessee-Martin.
He also averaged 19.1 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. But just eight days after he entered the portal, Crews committed to Mizzou. And he did so in large part because Coach Gates acknowledged something about the young man that other coaches apparently didn’t — his growing family.
Crews is married, and at the time, he and his wife, Karmen, were expecting a child. “During that recruiting process with him and his wife, I made it more about his wife,” Gates says. “I guess I’m the only coach that talked about the newborn baby coming soon.”
That’s why Crews’ official visit to Mizzou included a tour of University Hospital, where baby JJ was born in August. “When you have a wife that’s nesting, you look at things from a different perspective. I’ve been there,” says Gates.
Marques Warrick | Graduate Student | Guard | Northern Kentucky
In four seasons at Northern Kentucky, Marques Warrick accumulated 2,246 points, a career total that makes him the nation’s leading scorer among active NCAA Division I players. Last year alone, Warrick averaged nearly 20 points a game. Last April, Warrick entered the portal and chose Mizzou for his final year of college eligibility. So, what was Coach Gates’s assessment of the country’s most prolific and consistent scorer?
“For me, he doesn’t shoot enough,” Gates says, deadpan.
What Gates means is that in four years the Horizon League, most of the competition singled Warrick out on defense to limit his opportunities, and he was still able to score consistently. Gates saw this firsthand as coach of conference rival at Cleveland State during Warrick’s freshman and sophomore years. “I knew what I saw when I first saw him play, and that was tremendous player on both sides of the ball,” Gates says. “He’s also a cerebral dude, who plays the right way. And a guy like that does not shoot enough for me. I just want to see him be aggressive at all times, because sometimes a play breaks down, and sometimes the opportunities aren’t there, but if you have guys able to make the extra, unscripted plays, you have guys who can take over games late and make big plays for us.”
Rookies ready to run the court
While everyone has been jockeying for playing time fromday one, these freshmen understand they are the foundation for the future of Tiger basketball.
Marcus Allen | Small Forward | Miami, Fla.
This year, Coach Gates is emphasizing defense. To drive that point home, he and his staff tapped into their Florida roots to bring in Miami native Allen, an elite defender with a 6 foot 11 inch wingspan who ranked as high as #39 among national recruits. “Coach C.Y. [Charlton Young] has been recruiting me since the moment he got here,” says Allen. “I’m big on relationships, big on loyalty. So, it feels right coming here. Coach Gates brings a family atmosphere — we’re all brothers.”
T.O. Barrett | Guard | Oklahoma City
Ranked as highly as No. 88 in the country, Barrett brings a winning pedigree to this year’s squad. Last year, he led Edmon North High School to its second consecutive Oklahoma State class 6A championship while averaging 15.5 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. Although Barrett is confident in his new team’s ability to win games and aware of the pressure that comes with being part of the much-hyped incoming class of reinforcements, he’s grounded and realistic. “Of course we want to make the fans proud.
We want to win as well,” Barrett says. “But we’re not really worried about any expectations. We know who we are, and we know what we’re capable of.”
Annor Boateng | Guard | Little Rock, Ark.
The final signing of Gates’ prize freshman class, Boateng is also the most highly rated, registering as high as #17 in the nation, the Tigers’ highest-ranked recruit since Michael Porter Jr. in 2017. The program says Boateng is coming directly from Arkansas, where he averaged 15.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game for Little Rock Central. But he has also represented his parents’ homeland of Ghana at the Nike Hoop Summit. “This program isn’t a system, it’s built like a family,” says Boateng. “Everyone demands something of everyone else. We work together perfectly in unison.”
Trent Burns | Center | Cypress, Texas
At No. 65 according to Rivals recruiting website, Burns isn’t the top-rated freshman Tiger — but he’s the tallest. He uses his length to rebound (4.3 boards per game last year for Houston Hoops in AAU), score (6.9 points per game), and blocked shots (1.4 per game). Burns also poses a threat from the perimeter, including beyond the 3-point arc. “Trent fits our system and our five-out offense that we want to run perfectly,” Gates says.
Peyton Marshall | Center | Marietta, Ga.
Mizzou’s first signing isn’t quite as tall as Burns, but at 300 pounds, Marshall dominated underneath the hoop in high school. He’s far from all brute force, though. —Marshall is also a highly touted free-throw shooter and, according to Gates, one of the country’s best incoming passers. With his size and athleticism, Marshall has his eyes set on playing in the NBA and believes Missouri will be a crucial step toward that goal. “The style of play we have translates to the next level and puts you ahead of the other bigs in my style of play and position,” he says. “I trust the coaches and feel like they have my best interests at heart.”
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