SEC Hoops Preview: Missouri Tigers

Oct 23, 2024 | Uncategorized

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Missouri guard Tamar Bates comes down after scoring on a dunk in the second half of a game against Arkansas on Jan. 31. (Cal Tobias/Rock M Nation)

Previewing the Missouri Tigers Men’s Basketball team. Can Dennis Gates correct course after an 0-18 season last year?

Siri, what’s the definition of disaster?

“The definition of disaster: An occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe; A grave misfortune; A total failure.”

Thank you.

A total failure.

The 2023-24 season was a bizarre one for the Missouri Tigers. Not many teams at the bottom of their conference standings warrant a standalone column from a national analytics guy like Ken Pomeroy, but the 23-24 Tigers did. In early March, KenPom penned a column discussing the miserable season that the Tigers were having. We covered it ad nauseum here as well. On top of generally being a bad team, Missouri also had awful ‘luck’. Luck is something we tried to explain, but it’s one of those statistical oddities that is forever tricky.

Multiple things were true last year: Missouri was not a good basketball team. They had injuries to arguably their two biggest offseason additions, which hit them hard. And they had poor statistical luck. It all resulted in the first winless conference season since A.M. Ebright went 0-5 in the Missouri Valley Conference in 1908.

But hope springs eternal in Columbia, Missouri, and Dennis Gates hopes for a big rebound season.

Previous SEC Previews:

8. Ole Miss Rebels, 9-9
9. Texas A&M Aggies, 9-9
10. Texas Longhorns, 8-10
11. Mississippi State Bulldogs, 7-11
12. Vanderbilt Commodores, 7-11
13. Oklahoma Sooners, 7-11
14. Georgia Bulldogs, 6-12
15. LSU Tigers, 5-13
16. South Carolina Gamecocks, 5-13

Missouri Tigers

Last season: 8 – 24 (0-18 in conference) #145

The Masses Prediction: 12th in conference, 7.1 – 10.9

SEC Media Pick: 13th in conference

Analytics Average: 13th in conference, 60th overall

Cal Tobias/Rock M Nation

HEAD COACH: Dennis Gates | 3rd Season, 33-34

Gates burst onto the scene in the SEC as a first-year coach at Mizzou when his Tiger team upset the apple cart of power in the league by sneaking into the 4 seed in the SEC Tournament. After winning back-to-back league titles in the Horizon League, the moribund Mizzou program required fresh blood and a new outlook. And Gates stepped in and became the ever-present face of the program in year one.

It was hard to argue with his success, which is why the fall in year two was so shocking for many. The Tigers went 25-10, earned a 7-seed and won their first NCAA Tournament game in 12 years. On top of that, they signed a top-five recruiting class before the season and looked primed to reclaim some of the storied fame of the 1980s and ‘90s.

However, signs of trouble emerged early on. An early season loss to Memphis revealed a potentially shaky offense when jump shots weren’t falling. Then a loss to Jackson State raised a small alarm, before further losses to Kansas, Seton Hall, and Illinois sapped the team’s momentum heading into SEC play.

However, Gates still has a reputation for being an intelligent basketball mind, and this was the first real setback in what is very much a young career as a head coach. The question remains whether Gates will take the lessons learned from last year and adjust as needed? Missouri fans, in large part, still believe in their guy.

Over the last 10 years, the Missouri Tigers have been the worst basketball program in the SEC, by KenPom finish. While Mizzou did make three NCAA trips during that period, their best finish in KenPom.com was 40th in Cuonzo Martin’s first season. They’re also anchored by five sub-100 seasons led by Kim Anderson’s disastrous three-season tenure, which is still fully part of this 10-year picture.

The three NCAA tournament trips aren’t the worst in the league. If it makes you feel better as a Tiger fan, Vanderbilt has two trips and four sub-100 seasons. Georgia has one trip and three sub-100 seasons (including 1 sub-200 season!). South Carolina has two trips and two sub-100 seasons. And Ole Miss has two trips and four sub-100 seasons.

The good news is that if this season goes well for the Tigers, they should be able to move themselves out of that bottom spot. There’s still a ways to go.

LOST PRODUCTION

Minutes: 66.89% | 10th
Points: 66.31% | 9th
Possessions: 69.13 | 10th

Whether or not losing production off a lousy team is a bad thing will be answered quickly because Mizzou lost a lot of production. At least part of their error last season was expecting role players from the season before to scale up and not lose as much, and neither Nick Honor nor Noah Carter were able to successfully scale up their usage. Sean East, however, did just fine. The slippery combo guard went from 57.7% minutes and 19% usage to 80% minutes and 26.2% usage rage, and his offensive rating went up 11 points per 100 possessions. East became the primary and secondary offensive option for most of the SEC play. And too often, he was found dribbling around the front court for enough room to get off a soft runner.

Missouri had those three, plus Connor Vanover, leave via expiring eligibility. They also saw a good amount of bottom-of-the-rotation churn when seven of the bottom eight players all transferred out.

Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

Whatever Dennis Gates was selling, Tamar Bates was buying. After spending two seasons as a reserve and passing the ball into the post, Bates transferred to Missouri, hoping to reset his development, and the early results were terrific. Once Missouri hit conference play, the Tigers were already down Caleb Grill and John Tonje. Bates stepped into a primary scoring role, averaging 16.2 points per game in nearly 32 minutes. He shot 48% from the floor and 92% from the free throw line, showing the type of elevation to his game many Missouri fans were happy to see despite the piling up of team losses. With Bates coming back, it would be imperative to backfill some scoring options around him.

Then what better way to inject some scoring than to sign 2nd team All-Big Ten point guard in Iowa transfer Tony Perkins, who averaged over 14 points per game and was ranked as the 12th best available transfer per EvanMiya.com? Perkins is the right kind of guard for Dennis Gates’ fast-paced system since he creates 26% of his offense through transition per SynergySports, and his 2.9% steal rate was also nationally ranked. So, a defensive disruptor who likes to get out, force turnovers and push the pace. What might go well with a point guard like that?

At Duke, [Mark] Mitchell was relegated to being a defensive menace and a bit of a garbage man offensively.

How about a flexible hybrid wing, a former five-star recruit, and a fantastic role player for a traditional blue-blood seeking a new offensive role? Missouri got that player in Mark Mitchell. At Duke, Mitchell was relegated to being a defensive menace and a bit of a garbage man offensively. But coming home is a chance to revamp his game like his former AAU teammate, Tamar Bates, did in Columbia.

In all, Gates brought in five transfers, including Marques Warrick, the current active NCAA Division 1 leader in points and minutes played. Jacob Crews, a 6’7 wing forward with a soft outside shooting touch and the ability to rebound in traffic, and Josh Gray, an experienced SEC post player with time spent at South Carolina and LSU. Add those three plus the two above to a top 5 recruiting class, highlighted by Annor Boateng, an Arkansas wing who flirted between being a 5-star and 4-star. Then, cap the roster rebuild with Trent Pierce and Anthony Robinson II, two sophomores who flashed last season, and Aidan Shaw, a hyper-athletic forward looking to live up to his recruiting ranking.

Oh, and Caleb Grill, a sixth-year senior hoping to wipe last season from every Mizzou fan’s memory.

Cal Tobias/Rock M Nation

With so many players to discuss, the roster section was long. However, figuring out the playing rotation may be a bit clearer, mostly because Gates imported some high-value players like Perkins and Mitchell and helped Bates break out last season. Once you get past those three players, the gates open a bit, no pun intended.

Gates’ roster is 15 legitimate high-major players. It’s tough to play 15 players a night. Even at the height of the Gates-Leonard Hamilton Florida State years, Hamilton only had 11 players north of 20% of the minutes played (about 8 mpg). It’s not easy to keep all 15 players engaged, particularly when conference play rolls around, and the roster depth gets trimmed a bit as it’s likely to.

The roster has depth, but much of it is guard and wing-heavy. Perkins and Robinson should be safe at the point guard spot. Grill, Warrick, and Barrett should take care of the combo guard position. At the wing, Bates and Boateng should be good. Multiple combo forwards, Mitchell, Pierce, Crews, and freshman Marcus Allen, can all see time on the wing.

But how does Dennis Gates handle his post rotation with Josh Gray, Peyton Marshall, and Trent Burns? Will those three see all the minutes at the five? If not, how often does Gates play “small ball?”

Regarding scheduling, this might be one of the worst non-conference slates in the SEC. Missouri is locked into playing Kansas and Illinois each year, and they also scheduled a home and home with Memphis last year. Outside of those three games, the schedule is just loaded with Quad-4 home games. Missouri has nine Q4 games; the next most is eight with multiple teams, but the average is around seven.

To compound matters, Missouri has as agreeable home and home setup as anyone in this tough conference if you’re hunting for wins alone. None of the home and home opponents — Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, and Arkansas — set Missouri up for a quad one game at home. Then, only three opponents trek to Mizzou Arena, who currently project as a Quad-1 opponent. Missouri will have to take advantage of their opportunities when they have them.

THE RULING

Most of the early prognostications overlook Missouri as a real threat in this league, and it’s easy to understand why. All you have to do is revisit the 10-year graphic towards the top of the preview to remind people of the type of program Missouri has been in recent years. When the default is a team is going to be bad, it’s easy to pick them towards the bottom.

When there’s this much roster turnover, and you’re importing 10 new players with only one existing player who has been an integral part of any rotation, it isn’t easy to project success. Even for the best teams, having a semblance of roster continuity is still important. There are exceptions each year, but there are also far more which create the rule.

For two years, Gates’ Missouri teams have been porous defensively; they were 180th two years ago and 181st last year in Defensive Efficiency. A big reason for those defensive woes can be tied directly to their defensive rebounding, where the Tigers have ranked in the bottom 10 each year in their opponent’s offensive rebound rate. Two years ago, they could mask their horrible rebounding by forcing turnovers. Last year, they didn’t have the same turnover rate and sent their opponents to the free-throw line at a high rate.

The changes to the roster should naturally eliminate some of those issues. Missouri should be a better defensive team by simply being, at least, adequate on the glass. And looking at the lineup, they should be more than adequate. Up and down the lineup, they have good rebounders. Perkins was one of the better-rebounding guards in the Big 10 last year, Mitchell was a 12 & 6 guy at Duke, Crews averaged over 8 rebounds, and Grill was the leader in rebounds last year before he got hurt. Then everyone else at least has great positional size.

From what we’ve seen of Dennis Gates, he will field a pretty competent offense. Two years ago, the Tigers were flame throwers offensively. He also fielded high-quality offensive teams at Cleveland State. If this team can be closer to the offensive unit they were two years ago, a competent defense might turn the Tigers into a serious dark horse in the SEC.

But the range of being merely competent in the SEC is somewhere between 5th and 11th. Missouri has the roster and talent to be better than a really good portion of the league if this all comes together.

My Results: Missouri Tigers — 7th in Conference, 9-9

About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.

If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.

Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.

The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an indepth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.

GLOSSARY

* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player

GP – Games Played

%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury

%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.

ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.

BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.

PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.

For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.

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