‘Leave Ronnie alone’: Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates asks The Antlers for favor
Antlers … Dennis Gates has a favor to ask.
Leave Ronnie DeGray III alone.
DeGray, a two-year Missouri men’s basketball forward who transferred to Wichita State in the offseason, will return to Mizzou Arena on Sunday for the Shockers’ game against the Tigers — the second leg of a home and home.
The forward, who helped Missouri to the NCAA Tournament last March, isn’t likely to play. His waiver request to the NCAA hasn’t been approved. Moving to Wichita State was the second transfer of DeGray’s career, and current rules permit just one transfer per athlete.
But he’ll likely be with the team, and Gates, the second-year Mizzou coach, has a request for the Tigers’ preeminent, often boisterous, student fan club.
“Antlers, if you're listening to me, leave Ronnie DeGray alone,” Gates said. “He's one of us, he's one of us, he's one of us. He was part of our NCAA Tournament team, and I'll give him a big hug when I see him.”
The Antlers, a longtime Missouri student fan group who sit front and center in the student section at Mizzou Arena game in, game out, typically come equipped with homemade signs and not-for-daytime-TV heckles arrowed at visiting teams.
Former Tiger and current Arkansas Razorbacks forward Trevon Brazile likely can attest.
So Gates is getting ahead of the curve.
DeGray played in 50 games, starting 12 times, for Missouri over two seasons after transferring in from UMass. He averaged 6.2 points and 3.6 rebounds per game.
He played 17 times in the 2022-23 campaign, Gates’ first at MU, before a knee injury hampered his back half of the season and caused him to miss Missouri’s March Madness trip.
A little more than a week after San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich grabbed an arena microphone and asked fans to stop booing former player Kawhi Leonard during the second quarter of a game, Gates wasn’t waiting for first tip.
“I'm not aware or sure of what's going on with any NCAA situation, but I wish all my guys love,” Gates said. “Ronnie DeGray is a part of an NCAA tournament team here at Mizzou, and I just want our fans to understand that. And there should be no booing, there should be no negative words said to Ronnie DeGray at all.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: ‘Leave Ronnie alone’: Mizzou coach Dennis Gates asks The Antlers for favor
