McAndrew: Missouri basketball left us all wanting more, so how should we judge this year?
WICHITA, Kan. — Perspective is tricky in the heat of the moment.
But, in the immediate aftermath of Missouri basketball’s 67-57 loss to 11-seed Drake in the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, Mizzou senior Tamar Bates had some to spare.
“We had a great year,” Bates said. “We beat the odds. I mean, after last year, nobody really thought we were going to be anything. Nobody thought we were gonna respond. And we made history in terms of a turnaround from one year to the next. You know, no team in college basketball has ever done what we were able to do.”
Bates is right. If we’re grading on a curve, file this season in the cabinet of success stories. Mizzou went from 0-19 in SEC play to the NCAA Tournament.
More than anything, it was fun.
Watching Bates, who played his final game in college Thursday, tear apart Kansas so that the Mizzou fans could flood the Mizzou Arena floor is a podium-worthy memory from my four years on the Mizzou beat. Watching Caleb Grill, who also played in a Mizzou uniform for the final time in the Drake game, dice Florida up on the road was spectacular. The Tigers’ shootout win over Alabama was an all-timer.
It seemed safe for fans to hope and dream, but those are dangerous drugs in the Mizzou-sphere.
Drake added another heartbreaker to an already long list, and all that potential has gone untapped.
So, what if we’re not grading on a curve?
Then, it’s Year 3 of the Dennis Gates tenure, and Mizzou is 1-2 in NCAA Tournament games with losses to 15-seeded Princeton and 11-seeded Duke and a win over 10-seed Utah State. Wedged in between, there’s a historically dismal year.
That’s what made the 2024-25 team special. The story was remarkable. The ceiling kept rising. It was easy to support the characters.
And it’s what left me wanting for more when Drake shut off the tap.
I know I’m not alone.
Driving back from Wichita on Friday morning back to Columbia, I kept circling back to the same conclusion: More than anything, it’s a shame that this is how the careers of Bates and Grill — the key architects of this turnaround year — ended.
That’s not how this team’s season was supposed to go. The wrestling match between denial and reality was on full display in the postgame locker room.
Gates lost the coaching battle to Drake’s Ben McCollum. The Tigers were outmuscled on the court. Other than a frantic flash in the second half, the Bulldogs beat Mizzou up. It was an altogether underwhelming end, and not the first of Gates’ tenure in Columbia.
The third-year head coach has teased banners and titles and heights unseen. So far, he has two early March exits and one unequivocal disaster of a season.
That doesn’t mean he won’t deliver. It also doesn’t necessarily mean this year was a failure.
Failure and frustration can feel the same. But there’s a difference.
“It's not that our guys were doing something wrong,” Gates said in his postgame press conference. “They made tough shots. Ultimately, that's what March is about: Who is going to make the tougher shots to pull their team ahead? Unfortunately, we were on the other side of it, and I'm proud of our guys, but we had great looks. Our scout team did a great job, and also, we had great preparation.
“I'm proud of that. I'm just not proud of the outcome.”
At risk of sprinting away from this season’s shortcoming too hastily, let’s look at next season.
Bates is gone. Grill is gone. One-year transfers Marques Warrick, Tony Perkins and Josh Gray are gone. The transfer portal opens Monday and we’ll do the usual song and dance. At minimum, you can expect Mizzou to sign at least three transfers. That will depend greatly on if there is any movement the other way.
Expectations are now elevated for Gates. From what he took over, two tournament appearances in three years is fine. But sooner or later, the coach’s promises have to materialize. So far, he has one tournament win in three years, two deflating March defeats and a table with a lot left on it.
The cries from loud but irrational corners of the internet to move on from Gates are ludicrous for a variety of reasons. Conversely, any February murmurings to extend his contract were reactionary and premature.
But Year 4 is important for the Tigers’ head coach. This is Missouri, where it’s the hope that kills more often than most. Gates’ grand ambitions have promised to change that, and it’s coming close to the time that the results need to match the words.
We’re not there yet, though. Thursday’s wounds are still fresh.
For now, I’ll look back on this season and this Missouri team fondly. It was easy to root for the 2024-25 Tigers, which appears to be what made the Drake result particularly hard for the fanbase to swallow. It was fun, and all of a sudden it was over.
Bates gets the nuance in the feelings that produces better than most.
“Obviously it's hard to cope with the fact that the season's over,” he said, “but that doesn't diminish what we were able to accomplish as a group.”
It’s OK to appreciate the fun. It’s also OK to want more.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri left us all wanting more, so how should we judge this year?
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