Mizzou completes its winless SEC season. What comes next?
| March 15, 2024 | Sports,
In an all-too-familiar refrain, early shooting struggles and late offensive ineptitude cost the Tigers a win. It was a script that Missouri first perfected in early January against these very same Georgia Bulldogs.
The team fought hard like they have all year and put themselves in a position to win; however, in crunch time, they could not deliver.
The Dennis Gates model was built on empowering individual players to make plays in critical moments with relentless opportunities and ceaseless positivity. While last season and the two before it at Cleveland State demonstrated how beautiful it can be at times, this one demonstrated how it can go wrong.
Yes, injuries to John Tonje and Caleb Grill played a role, but it takes much more than that to finish a season with a record like this.
“Records do not have an asterisk by it,” said Head Coach Dennis Gates following the loss. “No one is gonna have pity on us or pity on me.”
If a team ever needed a helping of pity, it may have been this Missouri team, who was ranked as Kenpom’s most unlucky team this season as they saw game after game slip through their fingertips. Wednesday was no different, as Mizzou led 59-52 with three and a half minutes left, only for Georgia to go on a 12-0 run down the stretch.
Connor Vanover, who was emotional after the game, had perhaps his best performance of the year, recording 10 points and 10 rebounds, but he could not exploit mismatches in the paint that stalled Mizzou’s offense in the second half.
Vanover reflected in the postgame on his year in Columbia, one that was marred by disappointment and injury.
“We just take it each day and cherish each moment,” said Vanover of the team’s consistency of fight.
Nick Honor was similarly reflective in the press conference after playing his final collegiate game.
“Being around those who love and focus on that positive energy,” Honor said about what he learned from being on this year’s team. “Show up every day and give it your all.”
There is much one could say about Dennis Gates’s 2023-24 Missouri Tigers, but not that the Tigers did not fight.
“The results aren’t what I wanted,” said Gates. “But I am absolutely honored to be their coach.”
The results are not what anyone wanted nor expected. After a season where everything went right, this season is a reminder of just how fast these things can change.
The loss of John Tonje was critical, as he was expected to be a double-digit scorer, but Gates admitted that the Grill injury in December was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
That Mizzou team had just come off road wins against Minnesota and Pitt, however, after Grill’s injury, failed to win a Power 5 game the rest of the season.
Were there deeper issues with this team? Probably so. Two injuries should not completely derail a season, but Gates, at least publicly, will not say so out loud.
The pivot begins fairly quickly. What will this team look like next fall?
For a program that entered the season on the back of its first tournament win in a decade and a half coupled with its best recruiting class in school history, everything was trending in a positive direction.
Contrast that with the team that stepped off the floor Wednesday. A team that was in free fall the final three months of the season, accomplishing a feat so horrific, that it has only been done once prior in the history of the conference.
It drives a program to a crossing point, but one thing was clear from last night, Gates is not going to change. Forks in the road present opportunities to change or stay steadfast, Gates has made it clear he will do the latter. Moral victories will win him no favors and he will have to turn around this team fast and ensure that five freshmen are ready to play next November.
While the talent next year far exceeds that of this year, the freshmen made little to no impact this year, and with a new athletic director who will have a shorter trigger than his old boss, the pressure will be on Gates to win.
In his short head coaching career, this has been the first major step back one of his teams has taken season-to-season, which is why this offseason is the most important of his young career.
“I’m going to be as consistent as I can be,” said Gates postgame. His convictions are clear, this program will ascend or fail in his image. He will do it his way no matter what.
The next three months will test him, his values, and this program in a way that they have never been tested before. The answer will not come by way of offseason chatter or recruiting rankings, but it will be the team that suits up next November.
No press conference answer will heal the wounds of this year, and it will be up to next year’s team to show if Gates’s foundations are dug deep enough, or if last year was simply a flash in the pan.