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BASKETBALL Notes from Dennis Gates today

Had a quick media session in advance of the Coastal Carolina game:

*Wants to find more minutes for Ronnie DeGray and Mohammed Diarra. Needs to get them in the rotation.

*Rebounding needs to improve. Feels like they've lost their "rebounding shell" which I guess mostly means blocking out?

*Wants to improve points in the paint, mentioned more touches inside for Kobe Brown and Noah Carter

*Says they've gotten a little too reliant on shooting jumpers

*Says Isiaih Mosley has made "tremendous growth." Said at Missouri State he would take possessions off on defense to preserve energy for offense. Says he doesn't want him to do that here and he's made great strides, leads the team in charges taken.

*Coastal Carolina is averaging 95 a game in three games. Gates has great respect for Cliff Ellis, who's one of the ten winningest coaches in the history of college basketball. Ellis coached at Auburn quite a while ago, he's in his 13th year at Coastal. I looked it up and he's in his 46th year (!!!) as a head coach in college basketball.

BASKETBALL CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM MIZZOU ARENA

This won't be long, but a few things:

*7459 in attendance. For a non-con game against a bad team the night before Thanksgiving. When quite a few of those people are coming back Friday. Pretty good.

*I really like some of the things Dennis Gates says. "I give my guys all the freedom in the world offensively. They have no freedom defensively.”

Said that he'll pull a guy if he hesitates before shooting an open shot or doesn't take one. Praised Kobe Brown for taking the clipboard from him and drawing up a play during a timeout. This dude REALLY seems like somebody players will like playing for.

*I'm not going to go overboard yet because it's six games. But none have been particularly close. The margin of victory in the last four is 30.75 points per game. They're leading the country in assists. They play fast as hell. They forced 27 turnovers. They've had at least 10 points in transition in every game and more than 20 four times. After watching them pound the ball into the floor and move at a snail's pace for what seems like a decade, that's fun to watch.

*I have to see him do it against better competition, but D'Moi Hodge looks like a guy that wants to make a run at all-SEC honors. The stat-stuffing lines continue.

*Tonight is the first night I've seen the Isiaih Mosley everyone was so excited about. I admittedly never watched him play a game at Missouri State. He scored 23 points in 23 minutes on 15 shots. And quit worrying about whether he's out there at the opening tip or not. He's consistently among the top three in minutes played. He's out there when it matters. And bringing a dude with that kind of ability off the bench is a hell of a thing to have. The 31-win team in 2012 brought Mike Dixon off the bench. He was clearly one of the five best players, but it worked because you brought fresh legs and energy and instant offense off the bench. You don't just toss the five best players out there at the opening tip every time. Rotations matter. If Mosley continues this role all season, he'll have a shot at SEC sixth man of the year.

*Hope you all have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll be around because my oldest son can't get back to Columbia until Friday morning so we're celebrating on Saturday. I have a hunch there are going to be a couple of announcements that will interest you tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned.

BASKETBALL More Good.

Look, we still don't know how good this team is. Is it an NIT squad? Dare we dream bigger? I honestly don't know.

What I DO know is that Mizzou is now the only team in the country to post a minimum of 20 assists in each of its games (27 tonight on 35 made buckets) That's not good, that's fantastic.

Plus, guys I know even less well than the players getting the bulk of the minutes (including the AD's son, and the super-popular kid who reminds me of Smeagol before he went all ring-goofy) got more than a shot clock worth of action out there...so that's really good.

They're fun to watch. They legitimately play hard. And they can score from multiple levels with several different options. They pressure the ball. They help and communicate. I mean...yeah.

We'll see, kids. We'll see. These guys have my attention.

Drink thread

What are you drinking today?

I am in Kansas City drinking KC Bier Dunkle. I know there are plenty of people that drink their bourbon today, and I do have a Goose Island Bourdon County ready to go later. Not a bourbon drinker but I do like bourbon barrel beers, and just purchased 5 bottles of Caramel Salted Crown, damn that's good.

Anyway, list what your having today, beer, Champagne, bourbon, whisky, whatever!!

M-I-Z

How lucky are we?

On this Thanksgiving morning, I’m marveling at how thankful I am for Power Mizzou and the fandom that links us together.

What an incredible University we share that allows black and gold blood to flow through our veins.

Even when things aren’t always going well, we still are blessed to have the love for our Tigers in common. We still believe and we still cheer our souls out at games.

We are located all over the country and are brought together by this beautiful institution. Many of us are alumni and have met our lifelong friends and spouses at Mizzou. Many of us send our kids to be Tigers.

Damn, we are so lucky.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We are truly blessed indeed!

M-I-Z!

FOOTBALL Program progress and improvement

This is really the main thing. Is this team, is this program improving? We haven't seen the progress in the win/loss record to this point. There is more to it than just the win/loss record, though that is important. I asked Drinkwitz about that today. @JHamilton23 is going to write more about it in the notebook for tomorrow morning, but I thought it was worth posting his full answer.

Q: Progress and improvement of a program goes beyond a lot of times just what the what the bottom line says so, where specifically do you feel like you guys have made a lot of improvements this year over where you were last year? And then second part, how important is it that these next couple games that progress does show up in the final record? Over you know, a year ago?

A: "Yeah, I think obviously, when you're talking about success, everybody believes success is linear. It's always up and I think you got to understand the trajectory of what you're trying to accomplish, obviously, you know, taking over this program, there's a lot of challenges when we first started, starting with NCAA sanctions for two years and then COVID and now dealing with the transfer portal and NIL and so you know, we're navigating all those things in the middle of probably the most uncertain time in college football history. I think the things that we have done well is we have been to back to back bowl games which was, I think there's only two other coaches in school history that have done that. We've recruited at one of the highest levels that this program has ever seen. We've drawn fan attendance back to one of the highest levels that it's been since pre 2015. We built a brand new indoor facility and raised money at a high level.

You're seeing progress on the defensive side of the ball, which had not been where we wanted to be the previous season. And then offensively, you know, obviously we are not where we want to be as far as the amount of yards and points, but we are dealing with a pretty young football team, We're starting a redshirt freshman center. Your starting quarterback hadn't played a whole lot, you got you know, maybe your best two offensive weapons are a true sophomore and true freshman. So the future to me is really bright. We're starting a true freshman right tackle. You know, we had a redshirt freshman make his first career touchdown catch at tight end. So I think we're improving the talent. I think we're improving the way we go through the process. And so I see a lot of growth. I see a lot of things to be excited about.

I think you also look back at you know, football is all about gaining momentum and confidence as you continue to build. And, you know, looking forward to what lies ahead. I think there's a little bit more favoring schedules that maybe allow for an opportunity to gain a little bit more momentum and confidence as we continue to build this program and appreciative to our administration for realizing that it's all those things working together to really have a program take off. And obviously we all want to have it to be straight up linear. But very rarely in my life has success looked like that. It's always been a process and building. There's days you stubbed your toe. It doesn't mean you just cut your toe off, keep going and go back to work. And that's frustrating for fans and it's frustrating for people, but it's not frustrating for for me when I see the vision of what we can accomplish and and the vision of where we can go."

NEW STORY AT THE BUZZER: MIZZOU 89, COASTAL CAROLINA 51

*One thing I really like about this team is that the players are allowed to make mistakes and they don’t immediately get pulled and have to sit next to Dennis Gates. There’s something to be said for guys feeling free to play without looking over their shoulder.

*Isiaih Mosley was on one in the first half. You could just tell he was feeling it. But he really didn’t take what I would consider a bad shot. He still looked to pass. You can see he’s going to have a few nights where he has a chance to go for 30 for sure. Between the second half against Mississippi Valley State and the first half tonight he had 32 points in 30 minutes. That’s what you call a volume scorer.

*I think Missouri’s best five is Nick Honor, D’Moi Hodge, Mosley, Kobe Brown and Noah Carter. Is that a big enough lineup that you can play it against high major teams together? I don’t know. But I think those are the five best players on the team.

*Hodge is the most complete player on the team. How’s this for a line: 18 points (7/11 shooting), 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals, a blocked shot and just one turnover.

*The second half became a dunk fest. Coastal ended up with 27 turnovers, leading to 32 Mizzou points. The Tigers had 28 points in transition, which might have been the sum total of the season last year. They’ve had at least 10 points in transition in every game and at least 20 four times in six games.

*Missouri outscored Coastal 48-19 in the second half.

*As we go, this team is going to have to find a way to reverse the free throw ratio. Coming into the game, Mizzou had shot 23 fewer free throws than its opponent. Tonight the Tigers took just eight (all from Kobe Brown) while the Chanticleers took 16. But that seems like nitpicking. We don’t complain about 38-point wins around these parts.

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