Three reasons Missouri basketball is likely to retain Dennis Gates for next season
Dennis Gates isn’t hiding, but he is choosing to look forward.
“You know, the season hasn't gone how I've personally wanted it to go,” Gates said Monday while meeting with the media. “But the season’s not over. It’s a new season.”
The Missouri basketball coach is talking about the win-or-go-home SEC Tournament, which Missouri enters as the No. 14 seed and faces 11th-seeded Georgia, with the game slated for Wednesday evening in Nashville, Tennessee.
When the postseason is up, and all regular-season clues point toward an early curtain call, what happens to Missouri basketball?
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A bad season — a century-old-record-tying bad season — changes a lot. An 0-18 conference is cause to at least consider questions about the direction of the program and its head coach.
But, with a successful season, historic recruiting wins and an extended contract under the belt, those questions might be best saved for later down the line.
Here are the three main reasons, even amid a historically bleak campaign, that Missouri is likely to stick with Gates as its coach into the new season:
Missouri basketball coach Dennis Gates’ buyout
On March 10, 2023, Dennis Gates was awarded a contract extension shortly after defeating Tennessee in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, which followed taking the Tigers to a double-bye in Nashville.
One year later, after an 0-18 SEC campaign and with an upcoming first-round game in the tournament, Dennis Gates’ buyout stands at approximately $21.5 million.
Gates is currently signed through the 2028-29 season. He is due to earn $4 million this year, with annual increases of $100,000 through the end of his deal, which maxes out at $4.5 million in 2028-29.
In the event Gates is fired without cause, Missouri owes the coach the remaining value of his contract.
That’s a hefty tab if that’s the route MU goes when this season ends.
Of course, that isn’t an impenetrable safety net. Colleges around the nation have shown an increased willingness to trigger extortionate buyouts if the will is there.
But, just one year after extending Gates, it’s likely to be one of the main dissuasions for the athletic department, which is also currently looking for an athletic director to fill the role left behind by Desireé Reed-Francois, who hired and extended Gates.
Recruiting at an all-time high
While Missouri’s present looked grim as the Tigers’ losing streak hit 18 games, the future looked several shades brighter.
Four-star shooting guard and MU signee Annor Boateng was the championship MVP as Little Rock Central won the Arkansas Class 6A title. Four-star small forward and Missouri signee Marcus Allen had seven points and eight rebounds as Miami Norland won the Florida Class 5A championship.
Under Gates, recruiting is at an all-time high for Missouri basketball.
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Mizzou has the No. 4 recruiting class arriving on campus for the 2024-25 season, according to 247Sports composite rankings, where only Duke, Kentucky and Rutgers are ranked higher. In the Class of 2025, the Tigers secured the commitment of Tolton High five-star point guard Aaron Rowe, who is 247Sports 25th-ranked player nationally in his class.
That’s as good for MU as it's been in the recruiting-ranking era.
In addition to Boateng and Allen in the Class of 2024, Missouri will add four-star centers Peyton Marshall and Trent Burns and three-star point guard T.O. Barrett. All five are ranked among the top 150 prospects in the country, per 247Sports’ rankings.
In all likelihood, Gates will get a chance to work with his top-ranked signees, who will join current freshmen Anthony Robinson II, Trent Pierce and Jordan Butler in Columbia as Gates’ roster begins to fit his vision.
Success on the recruiting trail is one of the reasons football coach Eli Drinkwitz’s job security never came under any serious scrutiny despite three years of .500-or-worse ball. The Tigers, and Drinkwitz’s consistently top-25-ranked signing classes, went 11-2 and won the Cotton Bowl in Year 4.
Year 1 success isn’t too far distant
Dennis Gates has shown what it looks like when it’s working — and recently.
The Year 1 turnaround in Columbia defied all preseason expectations, as Gates’ Tigers went 25-10, reached their first SEC Tournament semifinal and won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in a decade.
Kobe Brown was developed into a first-round NBA Draft pick. D’Moi Hodge, similarly, advanced under Gates’ tutelage enough to sign a two-way contract to the league.
The Tigers had been picked to finish 11th in the conference in Year 1 under Gates.
Gates’ contract extension, at least in part, was to deter potential poachers.
Now, Year 3 is likely going to be key to Gates’ future, or at the very least in shaping popular opinion among the Missouri fanbase. The incoming talent will need to hit the ground running. The transfer portal, which opens this upcoming Sunday and remains open until May 1, will be vital in filling out next season’s roster.
If 2023-24 truly was a freak occurrence caused by an unfortunate amalgamation of roster turnover, portal misses and injury woes, that’ll begin to show come next November.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: 3 reasons Missouri is likely to retain Dennis Gates for next season
