BenFred: Benefit of doubt on Dennis Gates' side as Mizzou basketball sorts through transfer portal
Feeling down about the Tigers' fate in portal palooza? Don't forget last season's lesson.
STORY QUOTES: Now would be a good time to remember that no one — myself included — thought much about the transfer-portal additions Gates and his staff made entering his introductory season. The overlooked Tigers finished fourth in the SEC and won the program’s first NCAA Tournament game since 2010. I learned a lesson. Did you?
It’s a good reminder that as much as we get excited about portal palooza, using it as one of many ways to help build a complete team is still the best approach. Gates and his staff cast a wide net, pulling players who fit the Tigers’ style in from high school, junior college, mid-major and Power 5 programs. They have done a good job of finding great fits so far, and could have just done it again, with time left to add one or two more.
Name, image and likeness dollars help during a time like this, and Mizzou is still chasing some programs with the amount it can throw around in that space. The Tigers could have certainly used some of the transfer targets that slipped away. But among the many things Gates and his staff proved last season, a couple seem worth remembering now. A few setbacks won’t derail this staff’s forward progress, and a team stocked with players that believe in Gates’ system and their fit in it can produce a product a lot more meaningful (and fun) than preseason proclamations.
