Arkansas head coach John Calipari had high praise for Mizzou basketball and Dennis Gates, highlighting their turnaround and Gates' ability to rally his players at a dark time.
COLUMBIA — Missouri basketball’s 2025-26 season will likely produce a bid to the NCAA Tournament, but it wasn’t long ago that the season appeared good-for-nothing, a disaster and gone to waste.
Take a trip back to Dec. 22, when the Tigers had just suffered the second-largest loss in program history at the hands of No. 18 Illinois, falling 91-48 in the Braggin’ Rights showdown. The loss marked Missouri’s consecutive loss to a Power Four program and sent the Tigers’ home with little holiday cheer.
Missouri had 12 days of recuperation between the loss and its next game, a looming matchup against reigning national champion and No. 22 Florida. To put it bluntly, many believed the season was lost.
Arkansas head coach John Calipari, who is now one of five men’s college basketball coaches with 900 wins, believes great coaches reveal themselves in those situations.
“The guys where your team struggles a little bit and pulls it together, folks, that's coaching,” Calipari said. “Let it fall apart. Now let me see how you keep your team together.”
If Calipari’s mindset is an accurate litmus test for the greatness of a college basketball coach, then Gates passed with flying colors.
The Tigers would go on to upset Florida immediately after the break. It would also sail smoothly through the latter third of Southeastern Conference play, winning six of eight games from Jan. 31 to Feb. 28.
While it took many until that hot month of February to come around on the Tigers, Gates had faith in his guys throughout the whole journey — peaks and valleys.
“Everybody's excited now, nobody was excited after Christmas on the outside looking in,” Gates said. “But we were excited from the inside looking out… we maintained our frustrations, we maintained our irritability, and we got through it, and we did not lose connection with each other”
Part of it was health — Missouri was missing Jayden Stone and Trent Pierce for important portions of non-conference play, both of whom ended the season as the Tigers’ second and third-leading scorers. The other major part was Gates getting the most out of his guys.
“Part of being a coach is getting individual players to really be confident and play well,” Calipari said. “(Gates and Texas head coach Sean Miller are) both doing that. I mean, they're both having guys, maybe even play beyond what they are. That's when I say ‘That guy's really coaching.’ He's got these kids believing, maybe more than they even should.”
There’s another Calipari test Gates is passing.
Of Missouri’s top seven players in minutes per game, five of them are averaging career-highs in points per game. Even stars who aren’t having career-highs in points per game are in the midst of what could well be their best offensive season — see Stone, who’s averaging 13.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game in his first season at the Power Four level.
Gates’ has coached his Tigers to such a high level that Calipari stated his opponent would be one of his two votes for coach of the year.
Calipari and Arkansas will undoubtedly be dancing in March, and he believes that Gates’ Tigers should be joining them for a tango.
“Obviously an NCAA Tournament team and a team that can advance,” Calipari said. “My guess is Dennis will push them that way.”
Missouri has the No. 8 seed in the SEC Tournament and will play the winner of Kentucky vs LSU at 11:30 a.m. CT Thursday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.