All 11 members of the Mizzou staff were available today (it sounds like a lot, but it's pretty standard for a high major program). Here's the rundown of all of the support staff (those outside of Dennis Gates, C.Y. Young, Dickey Nutt and Kyle Smithpeters).
Mitchell will have some more for you all later this week in story form and I already posted Gates' comments about all of the junior college and transfer additions. I talked to quite a few of those there today and just wanted to post some notes and quotes beyond that:
*Director of Athletic Performance Sean Conaty: Conaty said he has been spending a lot of individual time with Kobe Brown, Kaleb Brown and Ronnie DeGray in the last few weeks. The players are all going home for four weeks and then the full squad will be back the first week in June. He said they're having staff meetings in the next four weeks to lay out the full plan for the summer.
"Guys are going to be almost every single day in with us. Monday is going to be plyometrics, speed, agility, right into a lower body lift, Tuesday's when we get our mobility or upper body lifting and some conditioning and we've got to map out, Wednesday might be the recovery day, Thursday, same thing, speed, agility, lower body, Friday upper body and then team conditioning. We're kind of restricted to four hours of Strength Conditioning, four hours on the courty, you know NCAA rules, but even this spring you see a lot of our guys coming in on the weekends extra, wanted to get some recovery yoga, wanted to get an extra lift. So again, I think it's that relationship piece, them kind of trusting us and just wanting to get extra volume in with us."
Conaty comes to Mizzou from Oregon State. He said when he was at OSU he would put together a budget asking for everything he wanted at the beginning of the year knowing it would get cut in half. He said when he got to Mizzou he walked in the weight room and every single thing that had been on his list was already here.
Conaty's connection here was through Matt Cline, the Chief of Staff, when they worked together at Eastern Michigan and Cline introduced him to Dennis Gates. Conaty was also at Buffalo and worked under AD Mark Alnutt, a Mizzou guy.
"(Cline) spoke highly of coach Gates. He introduced me to him a few years ago, and honestly, I've been following coach Gates' career the last few years and the whole time I've been following him, he was actually following my career. So we built up a relationship the last few years, and he's just he's an elite person. Anyone who's who's met and kind of spends any time with him see that real quick. And when you got high standards, you want to be around other people that have high standards. And so last couple years, I knew eventually we would get to lock arms and get the chance to work together. And so sure enough, as soon as I got the job, they gave me the call and just jumped at the opportunity."
*Assistant coach Dickey Nutt: First of all, I'm not sure Missouri hired Dickey Nutt. They may have hired Houston Nutt. Because I can't tell the difference between the two of them.
Second, he talks as much as any human I've been around. Very likable dude. He was a head coach at Arkansas State and SEMO for a long time and had a pretty good view of Mizzou basketball when it was a lot better than it has been lately.
"I found out real quick that the state of Missouri is different. Basketball educated and no cut to Arkansas, I love Arkansas, I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, but it was different in Southeast Missouri State. Our fans were there but we played Murray, whatever it did, I mean they was there. But more than that, if we put on a clinic, we'd have 200 people at a clinic and that tells you a little bit about the high school coaches. We talked about, Gene Bess, Ronnie Cookson, those guys are legends, the McFerrin brothers, they're all legends and I found out real quick that, man, this is a basketball area, and then you look at University of Missouri, we brought a team in here every year and played, always played and don't want to talk about the outcome but we played, but we loved the facility and you look at this and as you said the only Power Five job in this in this state and especially, and I think our fans are in for a treat because they're gonna love Coach Dennis Gates. They're gonna love the way he operates. He donn't play. He's the most disciplined guy you'll ever be around, but I'm gonna tell you what, he loves his players. I've never seen anything like it and they have to love it. You know, we're on the phone every day with our current players right now. On the phone and we have guys say, 'Hey, coach. I can't believe you call me twice a week.' That's the way Coach Gates has it. And so I think that will make a huge difference with the development of our program, so we're excited about that."
Nutt was let go as a head coach and he had planned to take the money SEMO owed him for a couple more years and reassess. That's when Leonard Hamilton called him to be a video coordinator. He talked about how a lot of coaches might not take that job because it requires humbling yourself.
"Sometimes it's kind of hard to be in a role such as that because you're in a servant role. I mean, you may be sweeping the floor before practice if your managers are not there. And so you're a little bit different. I mean, you're putting all the luggage on the plane, and you're handing out food whereas for 19 years, we're calling all the shots and everything done. Different role but, you know, I was blessed with a wonderful family, very supportive family. My brothers are all coaches. My dad was a coach. When he was living. And I had that being a service, it didn't bother me. Because I loved Leonard Hamilton."
When Nutt got to FSU, he had an office across the hall from a young assistant named Dennis Gates.
"I watched him on a daily basis interact with his players. I watched him recruit guys like Dwayne Bacon, Jonathan Isaac, Trent Forrest and I mean, I can go on and on and on. But not only that coach Hamilton put his arm around me one day and said, 'Hey, that's one of the smartest coaches I've ever ever had.' I said. 'Really, that one right there?' Coach Dennis Gates. And I found out real quick, man, you talked about a genius. You know, he's ahead of the game in a lot of ways. I tell him all the time, you got to dumb it down for me. But I watched him three years and he comes in one day said hey, I'm going to Cleveland and keep in mind now he could have stayed right there in a comfort zone. He's in the ACC making money. So he jumps into a pool of sharks going to Cleveland, Cleveland State, which is probably one of the toughest places in the world to build a program and I watched him for three years build that program. And I watched him lay that foundation and watch him develop that culture. I watch him tell that young man 'we're not gonna do it like this. We're gonna do it like this.' And man, you're talking about buying a coach of the year back to back I don't know how many times that happens in the country. Not only that, but conference champs back to back, going to the NCAA Tournament getting beat by Houston. So I was so pleased and so when he was up for different jobs, Power Five jobs around the country, I was holding my breath and it would be Missouri because I know this area. Then when he got it then I had another worry, will he call me? And he did so I'm excited about that."
Mitchell will have some more for you all later this week in story form and I already posted Gates' comments about all of the junior college and transfer additions. I talked to quite a few of those there today and just wanted to post some notes and quotes beyond that:
*Director of Athletic Performance Sean Conaty: Conaty said he has been spending a lot of individual time with Kobe Brown, Kaleb Brown and Ronnie DeGray in the last few weeks. The players are all going home for four weeks and then the full squad will be back the first week in June. He said they're having staff meetings in the next four weeks to lay out the full plan for the summer.
"Guys are going to be almost every single day in with us. Monday is going to be plyometrics, speed, agility, right into a lower body lift, Tuesday's when we get our mobility or upper body lifting and some conditioning and we've got to map out, Wednesday might be the recovery day, Thursday, same thing, speed, agility, lower body, Friday upper body and then team conditioning. We're kind of restricted to four hours of Strength Conditioning, four hours on the courty, you know NCAA rules, but even this spring you see a lot of our guys coming in on the weekends extra, wanted to get some recovery yoga, wanted to get an extra lift. So again, I think it's that relationship piece, them kind of trusting us and just wanting to get extra volume in with us."
Conaty comes to Mizzou from Oregon State. He said when he was at OSU he would put together a budget asking for everything he wanted at the beginning of the year knowing it would get cut in half. He said when he got to Mizzou he walked in the weight room and every single thing that had been on his list was already here.
Conaty's connection here was through Matt Cline, the Chief of Staff, when they worked together at Eastern Michigan and Cline introduced him to Dennis Gates. Conaty was also at Buffalo and worked under AD Mark Alnutt, a Mizzou guy.
"(Cline) spoke highly of coach Gates. He introduced me to him a few years ago, and honestly, I've been following coach Gates' career the last few years and the whole time I've been following him, he was actually following my career. So we built up a relationship the last few years, and he's just he's an elite person. Anyone who's who's met and kind of spends any time with him see that real quick. And when you got high standards, you want to be around other people that have high standards. And so last couple years, I knew eventually we would get to lock arms and get the chance to work together. And so sure enough, as soon as I got the job, they gave me the call and just jumped at the opportunity."
*Assistant coach Dickey Nutt: First of all, I'm not sure Missouri hired Dickey Nutt. They may have hired Houston Nutt. Because I can't tell the difference between the two of them.
Second, he talks as much as any human I've been around. Very likable dude. He was a head coach at Arkansas State and SEMO for a long time and had a pretty good view of Mizzou basketball when it was a lot better than it has been lately.
"I found out real quick that the state of Missouri is different. Basketball educated and no cut to Arkansas, I love Arkansas, I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, but it was different in Southeast Missouri State. Our fans were there but we played Murray, whatever it did, I mean they was there. But more than that, if we put on a clinic, we'd have 200 people at a clinic and that tells you a little bit about the high school coaches. We talked about, Gene Bess, Ronnie Cookson, those guys are legends, the McFerrin brothers, they're all legends and I found out real quick that, man, this is a basketball area, and then you look at University of Missouri, we brought a team in here every year and played, always played and don't want to talk about the outcome but we played, but we loved the facility and you look at this and as you said the only Power Five job in this in this state and especially, and I think our fans are in for a treat because they're gonna love Coach Dennis Gates. They're gonna love the way he operates. He donn't play. He's the most disciplined guy you'll ever be around, but I'm gonna tell you what, he loves his players. I've never seen anything like it and they have to love it. You know, we're on the phone every day with our current players right now. On the phone and we have guys say, 'Hey, coach. I can't believe you call me twice a week.' That's the way Coach Gates has it. And so I think that will make a huge difference with the development of our program, so we're excited about that."
Nutt was let go as a head coach and he had planned to take the money SEMO owed him for a couple more years and reassess. That's when Leonard Hamilton called him to be a video coordinator. He talked about how a lot of coaches might not take that job because it requires humbling yourself.
"Sometimes it's kind of hard to be in a role such as that because you're in a servant role. I mean, you may be sweeping the floor before practice if your managers are not there. And so you're a little bit different. I mean, you're putting all the luggage on the plane, and you're handing out food whereas for 19 years, we're calling all the shots and everything done. Different role but, you know, I was blessed with a wonderful family, very supportive family. My brothers are all coaches. My dad was a coach. When he was living. And I had that being a service, it didn't bother me. Because I loved Leonard Hamilton."
When Nutt got to FSU, he had an office across the hall from a young assistant named Dennis Gates.
"I watched him on a daily basis interact with his players. I watched him recruit guys like Dwayne Bacon, Jonathan Isaac, Trent Forrest and I mean, I can go on and on and on. But not only that coach Hamilton put his arm around me one day and said, 'Hey, that's one of the smartest coaches I've ever ever had.' I said. 'Really, that one right there?' Coach Dennis Gates. And I found out real quick, man, you talked about a genius. You know, he's ahead of the game in a lot of ways. I tell him all the time, you got to dumb it down for me. But I watched him three years and he comes in one day said hey, I'm going to Cleveland and keep in mind now he could have stayed right there in a comfort zone. He's in the ACC making money. So he jumps into a pool of sharks going to Cleveland, Cleveland State, which is probably one of the toughest places in the world to build a program and I watched him for three years build that program. And I watched him lay that foundation and watch him develop that culture. I watch him tell that young man 'we're not gonna do it like this. We're gonna do it like this.' And man, you're talking about buying a coach of the year back to back I don't know how many times that happens in the country. Not only that, but conference champs back to back, going to the NCAA Tournament getting beat by Houston. So I was so pleased and so when he was up for different jobs, Power Five jobs around the country, I was holding my breath and it would be Missouri because I know this area. Then when he got it then I had another worry, will he call me? And he did so I'm excited about that."
