WealthTrust would like to extend an offer for PowerMizzou members to attend a zoom meeting, link attached, for Saturday at 11:00 AM.
The main subject will be how we utilize our Trend Analysis Methodology to reduce risk in our strategies, during market selloffs. 90% of a portfolios return is based on being in the right asset classes at the appropriate times, even if that asset class is cash.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84925395172?pwd=dTA2eHdGbDRyTHZEb0kxT3ZOdEVpQT09
Meeting ID: 849 2539 5172
Passcode: 100226
"But Gabe, we already know who the coach is. Why are you doing a Rumor Mill this morning?"
Maybe we already know who the coach is. More on that momentarily.
First, I can see that if Dennis Gates does indeed end up being the hire (which I would say is likely, but not certain), I can already tell my role is going to be the opposite of what it was five years ago. When Cuonzo Martin was hired, the board was largely very, very excited and I was the wet blanket saying "I'm not sure this is as good as you guys think it is. I think you're just excited Kim Anderson isn't the coach anymore."
Well, the early results of the Dennis Gates reaction aren't good. At all. But I don't hate the hire. In fact, I kind of like it. It's not the very best hire Missouri could have made, but once we got down to the last few names (and I do feel our last four names were accurate, I think that's been basically proven by the developments of the last 24 hours) I liked Gates as much as any of them. If you preferred Kim English or Todd Golden, I can see that. But the gap isn't wide. The three of them are largely the same candidate. Matt McMahon was the one of the four who was different in the group. He had the most head coaching experience and the best win/loss record, but the least proven track record of being able to recruit high-major caliber players. There are some differences, obviously, between Gates, Golden and English, but I really don't think they're all that significant. Yes, English and Golden were in leagues where they were playing better opponents, but they were also in leagues where they had better players on their own rosters.
Anyway, I like that Gates worked in two high-major conferences and worked under Leonard Hamilton, both as a GA and an assistant coach. He was also a GA for Tom Crean at Marquette. So he's been around a couple of coaches who have won quite a few games. He also was an assistant for Ben Braun, who took over Cal after Todd Bozeman was fired for NCAA violations and went to five tournaments in 12 years, including being the first Cal coach ever to be PAC-12 Coach of the Year. He's a Chicago native and has coached the last three years in Cleveland, both of which are cities that have some basketball talent. Geographically, Gates knows people everywhere.
If he styles himself after Hamilton at a high-major level, he's basically going to try to employ what Cuonzo Martin couldn't: A true positionless basketball system that has high-level athletes all over the floor. Here are some of the names that played for the Noles while Gates was an assistant: Terrence Mann, Trent Forrest, Phil Cofer, Mfiondu Kabengele, Dwayne Bacon, Johnathan Isaac, Xavier Rathan-Mayes, Malik Beasley and Okaro White were all NBA guys. Michael Snaer and CJ Walker were highly-touted recruits for which FSU beat out Missouri, among others. Between 2012 and 2019 (the classes that signed when Gates was on staff), Florida State inked 11 top 100 players (including two in the top ten and three five-stars) and 13 top 150 players.
But enough about trying to convince anyone Gates might not be an outright disaster. The important issue is this: Is he actually going to be Missouri's next coach?
As I said above, it seems likely, but it's not certain. First of all, Pete Thamel's tweet never said he was the next coach. It said he is the leading candidate with definite mutual interest and administrative steps still to be cleared. We knew there was mutual interest. We'd reported that Missouri would interview him. Here's the process that I believe led to him becoming the leader:
From what we were told Missouri and Todd Golden met via Zoom on Wednesday. In retrospect, I now believe that Missouri came out of that with Golden as its top candidate. San Francisco played in the NCAA Tournament and lost on Thursday. I believe Missouri woke up Friday with Golden as its top candidate and plans to continue the process and work out a deal. But then Florida came in and hired him. I assume Florida had talked to him before that and maybe he favored the Gators all along. I can't say that for sure. But either way, Golden was headed to Gainesville and Missouri has to figure out where it's going to go next. I want to be clear that Golden being the top candidate is based on logic more than anyone telling me that. It makes sense if you look at how things unfolded because if Gates was the top guy, he was done playing Tuesday and it wouldn't take until Friday night to iron that out in all likelihood.
Anyway, Gates, Matt McMahon and Kim English were the other coaches we strongly believe were among the top group. I'm willing to admit it's possible there's another coach who is still coaching who was (and maybe still is) in that discussion, but if so we don't know who it is. I was told by someone yesterday afternoon the feeling was Missouri would have its coach by the end of the weekend. This was communicated to me after the Golden news broke but well before the Gates news did. So the simple explanation may very well be that it's Gates. Thamel's tweet hit at 9:39 p.m., nine-and-a-half hours after the reports of Golden to Florida had broken.
The rest of this is going to be some inside baseball stuff in the media business that explains why this might not be finalized yet. First of all, when the Golden news hit, you saw multiple national writers all tweeting the news within minutes of each other. The explanation is very simple: Either an agent, a coach or an athletic director had clearly tipped them all off at the same time that Florida was hiring Golden. But last night, we only saw Thamel's tweet. We haven't even seen anyone confirm it since. I know we haven't personally been able to confirm it beyond having already reported that Gates was on Missouri's list. That's not saying Pete's wrong (he's a hell of a reporter who works his ass off and isn't wrong often). But it is interesting that he's the only one who tweeted the information he did. Could it be as simple as the rest of the national guys were covering NCAA Tournament games and didn't want to mess with "It looks like Dennis Gates is the leader to get the Missouri job?" Sure. But if they got a text from someone they believed with that information, it would have taken about seven seconds to do so. None of them did.
The real question here is how the information came to Thamel. There are only two possibilities:
1) It came from Missouri's side. If that's the case, this is to the point where Missouri's offered him the job and is confident or has already been told he's taking it and all that remains is taking the deal to the Board of Curators for approval. While that's possible, I think Thamel's tweet would have been more definitive that he was Missouri's guy if that was the case. And there was some skepticism among people I talked to last night that is what happened. Why play this incredibly close to the vest all throughout the process only to leak that a guy was the leader at 9:30 on Friday night? Some will say "They're putting it out there to gauge the reaction." I don't buy that. They don't need to. Dennis Gates has been talked about on this board. It's easily accessible how Mizzou fans feel about him.
2) It came from Gates' side. If that's the case, this could be interesting. In talking to other people throughout the night last night, Gates had an interesting day yesterday. His name has been involved at South Carolina. We're under the impression there may have been discussions between the sides. We are told yesterday that Gates was contacted by LSU. One person who covers LSU told us last night the belief is that Gates wants the LSU job. If that's the case and he knows he's got interest from Missouri, it's possible his camp leaked the Missouri interest to speed up the process with LSU and get the other Tigers to come to the table if they want to hire him. I had a couple of different people last night openly say they think it's a possibility that the leak is a negotiating tactic to induce a bidding war and/or drive up the price a little bit.
I don't know who Thamel's source is and I don't want to come off as trying to run down Pete as a reporter. Not the intention here. But he didn't tweet Gates has the job. He didn't tweet Gates has been offered the job. He tweeted that he's the leading candidate. Where that information came from is important, as is where Gates and Missouri are in their conversations.
I hope to get some clarity on these points today. If Thamel's report is accurate, it would behoove Missouri to confirm that somewhere. If it is not accurate, it would also be smart to let someone in the media know that. I do not know if that will happen, but I am going to make every attempt to get an answer today. Because the answer to that question is what determines whether Missouri's search is all but over or ongoing.
As always, stay tuned....
