How new Missouri basketball assistant Rob Summers wants to develop the Tigers’ big men

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — He’s hard to miss.

Rob Summers, who was named as Missouri basketball’s newest assistant coach on April 2, isn’t stealthily slipping through many crowds.

Without paying careful attention to the large crowd gathered at the Chicken and Pickle crowd at Mizzou athletics’ Kansas City leg of the 2024 Come Home Tour, the second of seven spring fundraising stops, you might miss the multiple Missouri student-athletes, Tamar Bates and Aidan Shaw among them, amid the masses. Even Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz can glide through the group to the main event center without whipping too many necks.

Summers, the 7-foot former college big man, isn’t going to slip past you, though.

Missouri coach Dennis Gates didn’t let him slip away this year. The duo coached together when Gates was at the helm of Cleveland State. Now, they’re reunited in Columbia, with Summers tabbed as the man to coach the Tigers’ frontcourt players.

And, oh, how the Tigers need that …

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“(Gates) trusts my post player development,” Summers told the Tribune on Monday. “He trusts that I can get bigs better. He knows that I’ve produced all-conference bigs everywhere I've been. He knows that I have pros that made money playing from the post.

“Obviously, being 7 foot helps with all of that.”

Summers, who in his playing days reached a Sweet 16 and won an NIT title as a center at West Virginia after transferring from Penn State, joins the Tigers after two seasons as the associate head coach at Miami (Ohio), where he worked under Travis Steele.

The Tigers announced his addition to the staff after Dickey Nutt switched roles within the team to become the assistant to the head coach as he continues his ongoing battle with cancer.

Summer comes with a very specific — and familiar — responsibility.

“Rob Summers will bring post development,” Gates told reporters Friday over Zoom. “He's a 7-footer. He played the position. … Inside play is something that I know he will impact, especially with Trent Burns coming in; especially with Peyton Marshall coming in; especially with Jordan Butler here. And also inside play, whether it's Aiden Shaw inside or whomever else we bring in our program, you have to understand having a person with them that's played that position is very important.”

That’ll be near the top of the list of priorities for MU this offseason.

Look at the numbers from last year’s winless conference season for a reminder: Last in the SEC in total rebounding and 13th of 14 in offensive rebounding; 12th in the league, and 252nd of 362 Division-I teams, for points in the paint; 348th in defensive rebounding …

… Oh-and-18 in the SEC regular season.

The Tigers, according to CCB Analytics, were relatively accurate at the rim with a 64.5% conversion rate to rank in the top quarter of all teams, but took a relatively low ranking 28.6% of their total field goal attempts from that position, placing 240th in the country.

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Conversely, Missouri takes an above-average amount of shots from the paint but ranks 266th in the nation with its 38.5% conversion rate. The only shot category the Tigers ranked worse was in above the break 3-point percentage.

Summers has some ideas for how he wants his players to play.

“More physical, being around the paint more, utilizing our big bodies down there,” Summers said. “You know, I enjoy bigs stretching the floor as much as the next person, but I think that what we have to do is we’ve got to assert our dominance down in the low post. Once we assert our dominance down in the low post, we're gonna set the tone.

“I mean, the bigs are the anchor. We're the guy who enforces on the court, and we just have to be that — we are going to be that going forward. People are going to see a lot of difference in my post players.”

Gates and Summers go back quite a way.

Summers said he grew up two streets down from Gates on the southside of Chicago. But he’s a bit younger, so he said he knew Gates’ younger brother, Armon, better than his future boss.

The two crossed paths again while Gates was an assistant at Florida State. Summers frequently met him on recruiting stops. Then, when Gates took the head role at Cleveland State, Summers became one of his first calls.

“They only had two players, but he put a vision out for his program of what he wanted to build as a head coach, and I really bought into it from Day 1,” Summers said. “You know, I felt like it was a recruiting trip for me. I feel like I went to sign with him. I told him, ‘I'm ready to commit.’ I told my wife that I was gonna commit, (and she said), ‘Well, you know, you're not playing anymore, you’re taking a job offer.’”

Now they’re back together.

Summers trusts Gates’ vision. He’s seen it before at Cleveland State, where they won two regular-season titles and a Horizon League Tournament championship in the space of three seasons together. He likes the “synergy” that the pair shared during that run, and that he knows Gates won’t micromanage him as he attempts to build Missouri’s frontcourt.

What will that look like?

Summers won’t share the recipe down to the word. But his been-there, done-that days might offer some insight.

“I'm just I'm just all about being the hammer, not the nail. So, I'm all about ducking in,” he said. “We’ve got to be the hammer, not the nail. … We’ve got to be the most aggressive, most physical players out there at any point in time. Everyone on our team's gonna look down on our end, and they’ve got to see a different beast.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: What Missouri basketball assistant Rob Summers plans for MU's big men