STUNNING TURNAROUND: Dennis Gates & Missouri Deserve ALL The Credit

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After this dramatic in-season turnaround by Missouri basketball, is that enough to renew

your faith in Dennis Gates?

Well I'll tell you this, based on the parameters of the award, he should have at the very least

BSEC coach of the year.

You are locked on Mizzou, your daily podcast on the Missouri Tigers, part of the Lockdown

Podcast Network, your team every day.

Hey, all you true sons and daughters, I'm John Miller, your Mizzou Mafioso, and the

central scrutinizer of Missouri Tigers football and basketball, and thanks for listening

to two locked on Mizzou, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports

podcast network.

And on today's program, you know what, I want to talk about the boards of stone, no,

not another game of thrones, spin off, but something about Jaden Stone, a spot where he

has not gotten enough credit this season.

I also want to talk a little bit about tomorrow's Missouri Oklahoma basketball game, but before

I start to lavish some praise on the Dennis Gates, I do want to start by telling you that

this program is brought to you by game time and FanDuel is giving you a way to turn your

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And I got to say, first of all, I will say Missouri with a bunch of tough basketball games

left to be played to in the regular season, at least one in the in the SEC tournament.

And we assume at this point, and I think rather safely, the Tigers will be playing at

least one game in the NCAA tournament as well.

So the Tigers could still lose for straight basketball games to finish out the season.

So let's not to modify the wolf from pulp fiction.

Let's not start patting each other on the backs just yet.

But having said that, I'm a Dennis Gates guy, and I hope you are too, at this point.

And to me, this season really confirmed my beliefs after I obviously wavering just a tiny

bit in December, although not so much on Dennis Gates in general, but definitely on the

team this season, because this has been a truly stunning turn around and not even so much

that Missouri turned it around.

It was a lot of it by my pessimism was about timing, because of course, Jaden Stone had

sat out all the way through the Illinois game, Trent Pierce, the same thing.

And it just seemed like, hey, even if these guys come back and make a big difference,

as far as timing goes, it just felt like it's going to take a while for this Missouri team

to start hitting on all cylinders.

I was just really surprised by how quickly Missouri turned it around with the returns of those

two players against Florida, Missouri wins that first SEC ball game against the Gators,

and goes on the road wins for its first time ever in Lexington against Kentucky.

Simply put, I just would have thought it would have taken more time than that.

And even my biggest long running Dennis Gates complaint, by the way, really has not been

nearly as glaring to me in SEC play, especially as the season has gone along here.

To me, over helping was the thing I've always complained about, especially on defense

just too much aggression defensively, I think the Tigers have settled in here largely

in part to suddenly having two effective centers, by the way, when you have, when you

have Trent Burns and Sean Phillips out there being able to clean up a lot of, a lot of

things and help side defense, one of those players out there at all times for Missouri in

recent play, that makes it, that gives you the luxury of not having to help as much.

That guy can be your one help guy and your other guys can stay at home.

I think that's been maybe a little bit of a secret sauce to Missouri's recent success.

Now, I have seen some other people talking about coach of the year honors for Dennis Gates

all all way in there as well.

As for national coach of the year, well, I don't really see that.

There's a bunch of guys Fred Hoyberg off the top of my head.

When it comes to coach of the year, generally speaking, it has to be based on expectations.

In other words, the previous year, you have to come back from something.

I think national coach of the year actually, Dennis Gates probably had a better case in

the previous season, simply because Missouri was coming off the, well, disastrous, O and

19 SEC campaign from that previous year.

As for SEC coach of the year, I think Dennis Gates has the best case, again, based on the

traditional parameters of outdoing expectations, usually in the NFL, for example, you could

have just handed it to Bill Bella check there for a decade straight plus, I guess, if you

want to do, if you were handing out MVPs for coaches, but that's not exactly how the

coach of the year award generally works.

So who outpaced expectations, more than Missouri and Dennis Gates, again, especially heading

into SEC play off of non-conference play when I and it seemed like everybody else was

at their height of negativity on this particular team following bragging rights, who would

have predicted this?

I mean, truly, who could have seen this coming from Missouri?

Again, let's not start patting each other on the back just yet, but to be sitting here

with a almost surefire NCAA tournament birth at this point, feels pretty darn good and

feels dramatically different than it felt a few weeks ago.

And yes, it does matter a lot to the near future of this program when a big time transfer

portal window is opening in April.

So March is here, by the way, my first March podcast of the year, this is an exciting

time to be a college basketball fan.

But again, back to coach of the year, they're just for a little bit in the SEC, who else?

Well, it's not Stephen Pearl, I can tell you that Pat Knight Jr. is doing his thing down

on the planes as predicted, what about John Calapari?

His team has certainly had a good comeback from last season, but it was still a tournament

team last year and a pretty solid tournament team for Arkansas last season at that.

I don't think anybody shocked.

In fact, maybe give their money, guys, the real MVP down there in Fayetteville, Matt McMan,

of course, at Florida, NATO, it's doing good jobs as always.

But again, based on the traditional parameters of this award, award, I think Dennis Gates

is the guy right now.

He's just a quick standings update for you.

The Tigers now are tied for fourth place in the league, and they have wins over Tennessee

and Kentucky, who are the other teams tied for fourth at 10 and six in the SEC.

So those two teams that Missouri is directly competing with right at this moment, Tennessee

finishes at South Carolina and then Vanderbilt at home and that traditional rivalry game.

Kentucky has a pretty tough finishing stretch at Texas A&M, although the Aggies aren't playing

great basketball right now and then home against the Florida Gators as well, who are almost

certain to win the league and may well have clinched the crown at this point.

The point is there's likely a loss in there for one of those teams.

So if the Tigers are indeed tied with one of those two teams, then they'll have a tie

breaker.

Now three way ties gets a little more complicated.

Seeing the Tigers have beaten Tennessee and Kentucky, I would assume the tie breaker

would go to Missouri at this moment, but I don't want to assume that and I really want

to question it because if the Tigers go two and O down the stretch, well, then Arkansas

would likely then be in a three way tie with Missouri and some other teams as well, considering

Arkansas and Missouri would have split that's where my brain starts to break.

Well, then how do you parse all of this?

Too many variables for me to try to figure out at this point.

So I don't want to go nuts, but I tend to think if the Tigers go two and O down the stretch,

more than likely it's going to work out in a double buy in Nashville in the SEC tournament

for Missouri and coming up on this first March, 2026 edition of locked on Mizzou.

Of course, just tons more basketball to get into, including white deniscates, non-conference

scheduling strategy, clearly worked this season.

By the way, plenty of time to jump on the bandwagon if you're a, well, no gatekeeping here.

Let's put it that way.

If you're a a lax Missouri fan, now's the time to jump on the bandwagon.

Just how much upside does this team have in March?

I want to talk a little bit about that OU game coming up here and just a little bit,

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And there's been a lot of discussion of Dennis Gates in his non-conference scheduling

philosophy, including on this program where I've said, well, I'd sure like to see maybe

some more entertaining games at Mizzou Arena in particular because, well, unfortunately,

the next couple of years, for example, the Mizzou KU game is going to be in Kansas City

at a neutral site where the Missouri Illinois game already the annual game at a neutral

site.

Hey, I'm not complaining.

Not trying to say the bragging rights game should be moved out of St. Louis or anything.

Just pointing out for those of us who are seasoned ticket holders or try to get to most

of these games in person.

There's not always a ton of reasons to get to Mizzou Arena in November.

But regardless, it's hard to argue that Dennis Gates in his scheduling philosophy was bad

this season.

In fact, it's obvious that it worked out.

I thought it worked out in 2023 as well when he was bringing in a basically an entirely

new roster with a whole bunch of transfers and Kobe Brown, by the way, I'm sure there

were some other returners as well, but you get the idea.

I know I'm being a little hyperbolic there, but again, not great for entertainment purposes,

but you know what?

In an era where you are having to implement practically a maybe on an entirely new roster

every season, obviously, but a whole bunch of new guys just about each and every year.

It's not just Missouri, that's everybody right now.

Maybe it makes a lot of sense to just say, hey, we're going to play Kansas, we're going

to play Illinois and a couple of power teams like Minnesota, Notre Dame, and other than

that, it's going to be a lot of a lot of Cleveland state, a lot of South Carolina state and

Howard and CMO and that type of deal.

And while that's not the most thrilling thing in the world to watch, it's not going to

get the wives and the girlfriends as Charles Barkley likes to say, sort of your casual fans.

Maybe that's okay because where you really want to get the casual fans is March.

When they tune in, they go, oh, hey, Missouri's in the tournament.

Hey, let's see what happens here.

And my goodness, an actual run in March, something that Tiger fans haven't seen in a long,

long time.

Well, that would go a long way to keeping some of those bandwagon fans around.

And again, no gatekeeping here whatsoever.

If you're just now figuring out that Missouri basketball is fun to watch this season by

all means, I'm the last person who's going to go, if you weren't here at the beginning,

we don't want you now.

No, no, we want you now.

Come aboard by all means.

And by the way, since I briefly mentioned Minnesota there, I should point out that that's

looking like a decent victory for Missouri right now.

The gofers are not going to make the NCAA tournament.

They did just beat UCLA, played a pretty solid game against one of the elite teams in the

country in Michigan and in an arbor recently.

So Nico Medvedev, excuse me, has the gofers playing pretty solid basketball in his first

season.

That's a team I'd watch out for in the future.

He seems like a good coach to me and even one that was bandied about a little bit when

Missouri was looking for was when Missouri hired Dennis Gates in its previous cycle.

So just something to point out there, but back to Missouri basketball.

You do have to question, you do have to wonder how much upside this Missouri team really

has because I do think the Tigers are playing its best basketball and really this this

Trent Burns wrinkle that's been thrown into the season here.

It does make you think, huh, this team has a lot more upside than I thought.

Now, I have seen some fans say that well, the NCAA tournament is basically a crap

shoot.

I got to say I'll push back on that a decent bit.

It's not as though, for example, in the first round, even a four versus 13 type of matchup

is a statistical toss up by any stretch of the imagination.

Those teams win 80, 85, 90 percent of the time.

And especially though the champion is almost always a team that if is, if not a number

one seed is at the very least makes sense and in fact, 75 percent of the time, it is

a number one seed.

And really it's either a one seed, a two seed or Yukon, you go back the last 30 years

or so.

If it's a four or a seven or somebody a little bit off, it's almost always Yukon that is

the team that is winning the tournament.

So I think Missouri can make a run for sure.

I think they have the talent and the makeup and they're really not missing a lot right

now.

But as Missouri's best better than Arizona, Duke, Michigan, some of those truly elite teams,

I don't think so.

That's just my opinion.

Hopefully the Tigers will prove be wrong to say the least.

But speaking of the Tigers, obviously, hey, beating Oklahoma would go a long way for

Mizzou Oklahoma.

The last time Missouri and Oklahoma played the famous double buzzer beater game, Mark Mitchell

winning the game from Missouri.

That was actually Oklahoma's sixth game in a row at the time, which later became a nine

game losing streak for the sooners.

And yet they've won four of their past six, including one against Vanderbilt in Nashville

to pour to Porter Moses credit.

This is a five and 11 team in the SEC that is definitely not packed it in.

Having said all of that, I got to say if Missouri is an underdog in this game, as Ken

Palm's four point projection and with a sooner victory here suggested it will be, I think

that's a mistake.

I really do.

Not only is Missouri playing its best basketball right now, this is just a better team and a team

with more high upside with Trent Burns in the lineup.

I'd also point out that a Tuesday night tip in Lloyd Noble isn't exactly intimidating

anyone either.

I will say Nigel Packen and Xavier Brown lead the way for OU led the way in scoring last

time.

And that's definitely on brand for the sooners.

Those are two really good guards.

They're the best three point shooting team in SEC play.

So that's always a scary combination.

I don't anticipate this being an easy victory for Missouri like the Mississippi state game

was.

And yet I do favor the Tigers here for for the reasons that I gave you again, not an

intimidating atmosphere.

Missouri has much more to play for playing its best basketball.

And by the way, the Tigers have been a solid road team as well.

But one viewer says that I and others of my ilk in the media haven't been making enough

of Jaden stones prowess on one particular facet of his ballgame.

Well, you know what?

When you're right, you're right.

So let's let's talk about that coming up on the program and also just quickly on some

other Missouri sports as well.

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And one viewer who's username on YouTube is frankly far too long and indecipherable

to repeat here, but by God, he makes a great point.

He says not enough has been made of Jaden stones defensive rebounding prowess all year.

He's legitimately one of the best guards I've ever seen on the defensive glass elevates

incredibly high and just always cracking back and attacking the backboard.

Dude is a really good all around player one of five from the field yesterday, but 10 rebounds

five assists to steals.

Ian Pierce returning has brought as much on defense as they have on offense.

That's a great call all the way around once again and by the way defensively, I think

stone has been a really good defensive player in particular.

I don't think of Trent Pierce as a particularly great defensive player, but I do agree, especially

with him playing the three spot as was pointed out in the SEC network broadcast when you

have Pierce or Phillips out there at all times now, now Mitchell can play the four where

he is much more well suited size wise defensively to be sure.

Well, now suddenly you've got Trent Pierce, you've got a huge front court there, three guy

front court there.

So I think that's a really good call and to your original point, well, a defensive rebound

percentage of 16% for Jaden Stone is tremendous and just to put it in perspective, that's a

better number than Mark Mitchell has this season.

And it's only behind Sean Phillips at 19% and Trent burns at a ridiculous 24% of the rebounds

he grabs when he's out there.

I think some of that's the Aussie football in Jaden Stone, who was an Aussie rules football

player before well, trying his handed basketball and figuring out he's really good at that.

And so to get tired of getting hurt all the time and Aussie rules football was apparently

what he said as well, but I think he took some of that toughness and that knows for the

ball that you have to have in that type of game.

I think he's taking it to the basketball court.

And while I definitely thought Jaden Stone was a good rebounder for sure, he was even

better than I thought.

And I haven't talked about it a lot on the program.

So really, thank you for pointing that out and bringing it to my attention.

But also, you know, another thing that I haven't brought up enough is how good of a season

Missouri gymnastics has had once again.

Now this is a Mizzou football and basketball program, but the Tigers beat number eight

Arkansas on senior day yesterday, by the way, looking like another run in March for

the Missouri gymnastics program and finished third overall in 2025 could be on the table

in 2026 as well, just a really impressive program that's happening right now.

And again, just a really entertaining sport and just TV product right now in my opinion

as well.

And really fun family event to go out to in person as well, if you didn't get out to

Mizzou Arena or the Hurn Center this season, I definitely encourage you to do so next

year.

And I got to say, I think the Tigers had a late rally, by the way, the women's basketball

team had a late rally against a top 10 Oklahoma squad yesterday.

And while the Missouri didn't win that game and didn't win a ton of basketball games,

I won more than I probably would have guessed coming into the year.

And I just continue to think that Kelly Harper was a good hire and is a good hire for this

women's basketball program.

I just think the Tigers look like a much more serious operation, not just on the court

this season, but based on everything I've heard and read about off the court, recruiting

wise as well, seems like Kelly Harper has a plan and she's well on her way to executing

it.

A charismatic competitive person is Kelly Harper.

And I really like her a lot.

I can't wait to see what she does and continues to do with this Missouri women's team as

well.

And by the way, thanks as always for listening to the Locked on Mizzou podcast.

Well, you know, if you'd like to check out ad free, if you'd like access, I should

say to ad free audio of Locked on Mizzou, you got to get it with the every day or club

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So until next time, I am John Miller, thanks as always for listening to Locked on Mizzou.

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