Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
With an upgraded cast around him, the wing can spend his senior season maxing out his touches, reaching his defensive potential, and — ideally — elevating the Tigers.
Over the weeks leading up to the season, this series will dive deep into the players we see making a push for time in the rotation for the 2024-2025 Missouri basketball squad. The pieces read like a birds-eye scouting report. They skew more toward the offensive end of the court for two reasons. First, a player’s offensive metrics are more reliable than defensive data and less team-dependent. Second, it’s considerably easier to describe a player’s qualities with more well-known offensive statistics. As always, we encourage interaction from our readers. Please drop us a comment or find me on Twitter @DataMizzou.
The film credits are given to Matt Harris. Matt has provided all of the film used in this series, and plenty more video and analysis on every player that can be found on https://rockm.plus.
The Player
Out of hardships comes opportunity.
Twelve months ago, I didn’t expect to be leading off Tamar Bates’ senior year preview with a quote from Benjamin Franklin. But here we are, and if the shoe fits…
The road Bates traversed to where he is now in his career hasn’t been particularly straight. A former top-30 prospect, the Kansas native initially committed to playing for Shaka Smart while still leading Texas. But Smart’s homecoming to Milwaukee to take over Marquette led Bates to reopen his recruitment, resulting in a shotgun courtship and commitment to Indiana.
Bates would spend two years under the direction of Mike Woodson and often in the shadow of the Hoosier’s interior players — literally and figuratively. Life happens, and so does change. Tamar would find himself back in a familiar place: Columbia, Missouri.
Petre Thomas-Imagn Images
But even then, the route was anything but linear.
Over Mizzou’s first 10 games, Bates averaged a pedestrian seven points in 17 minutes a night. Then hardship struck when senior wing Caleb Grill was lost to a wrist injury. Bates found opportunity and blossomed. Over the next 13 games, he averaged roughly 20 points in 32 minutes of floor time per game, highlighted by a 36-point explosion against Florida. Yet the Tigers’ team and Bates’ individual results over the season’s last month would cast a pallor on his emergence.
With a new set of teammates and circumstances, now could be the time where Tamar Bates shows the results of his perseverance.
The Numbers
Stats courtesy of Barttorvik.com.
As discussed in depth on RockM+, I can tell a lot about a player by looking at three key metrics:
Minutes Played
Usage Rate
Offensive Efficiency
Collectively, they tell how much time a player is on the court, how involved they are in the action, and how well he utilizes touches that come his way. Using Tamar’s numbers in those three categories, there were just 32 players at high-major players that matched or exceeded his performance. And only seven of them were in the SEC.
Put simply, Bates was outstanding offensively on a team that struggled. That he found success isn’t a surprise, but the speed of his progression might have been.
Bates’ calling card is that sweet lefty stroke. Last year alone, he hoisted 133 jumpers and converted those opportunities into 150 points. Per Synergy Sports, that works out to 1.128 points per possession. It’s not just the fact that Bates routinely drilled those looks but also how they came about.
Around 59% of his shots were taken off the catch and worth 1.120 points, which is above-average efficiency compared to his peers nationally. The remaining 40% of his looks were pull-up opportunities—and inherently less efficient. Yet Bates defied national benchmarks and posted 1.13 points on those looks.
So, if there was a jumper for the taking, Bates was capable.
It translated best when Bates operated from spot-ups or captaining pick-and-roll actions. If there is a knock to be found, it’s this: He passed up too many jumpers to put the ball on the floor. When spacing out as a threat off the catch, Bates averaged 1.056 PPP. When he’d attack, that number dipped to 0.736 PPP. An area to improve upon or, at worst, learn from. Exploit your strengths!
Bates’ performance in the open floor might have flown under the radar, too. MU’s transition offense proved significantly less potent than Gates’ first season in Columbia. Still, anyone paying close attention would have noticed the imprint left by Bates. Nearly a quarter of his touches were on the break and worth 1.253 PPP — efficiency that ranked in the 80th percentile among Division-I players.
Whether leading the break himself, darting wide for look-a-heads or beating defenders down the floor, Bates excelled. Bates’ skills seem ideally suited for a team poised to dramatically amp up the tempo this coming season.
The last area worth touching on in his offensive repertoire is his knack for finding creases on the defense when working away from the ball. Bates’ usage and efficiency as a cutter are exemplary. A year ago, he found 45 such opportunities and cashed them in for 65 points. As we often saw in Gates’ first season, Mizzou’s half-court game is operating at its highest level when the offense is generated through these high-percentage chances.
While Bates’ offensive game has steadily become well-rounded for a wing, his defense could still use fine-tuning. Perhaps Mizzou’s team-wide struggles prevented Bates from showing the best version of himself. Yet there were also moderate reasons for concerns. For example, Bates sometimes struggled to close down shooters on time.
Furthermore, his defense at the point of attack in ball screens can use work. Most notably, he needs to keep opposing ballhandlers from getting two feet in the paint.
There were signs of development, however. Bates did show a knack for making opponents attack him off the bounce with their weaker hand. Out of the four options a potential driver has, attacking with their lesser hand rates at the top.
The Role
There isn’t much mystery in projecting Bates’ role this season. We fully expect him to be a leader on and off the floor, and his minutes should be among the top three Tigers on the roster. He’s projected to play 64.4% of minutes, or slightly more than 25 per night.
That number might seem low, but — as we’ve said a lot in these previews — there might be up to 11 players expecting action on a given night. The upside is that Bates shouldn’t become worn down as the season reaches February. The tradeoff, however, is his counting stats might suffer. But that’s acceptable if he’s optimizing the minutes Gates gives him.
Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images
While Bates’ minutes might get a modest trim, we expect his usage rate to hold steady at around 23%. Per KenPom, that would make Bates a “significant contributor” to MU’s ratio. Ideally, the help MU added from the portal lets Bates shed some inefficient pull-ups on offense. At the same time, bigger and more athletic bodies lift the defensive floor — and keep Bates from scrambling to put fires off the ball.
We were treated to a dazzling display of individual offense for nearly two months a season ago, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see that performance become more common. Even so, a slight improvement in the efficiency column combined with Bates’ other numbers should see him comfortably averaging 12 points to 14 points per contest.
Perhaps more important than the individual numbers will be the heights to which he can elevate the team. Bates has all the makings of a player who can draw NBA interest at year’s end. But I’m willing to wager that the opportunity of putting an exclamation point at the end of his winding road to his collegiate encore will be every bit as meaningful.
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