The good news for the Tigers is that they’ve seen the basement floor.
And what was stored underneath the floorboards.
Missouri basketball opens Year 3 of Dennis Gates’ tenure as coach Monday against Memphis on the road, which will mark Mizzou’s first chance to win a game since Dec. 30, 2023. The Tigers went 8-25 last season and didn’t win an SEC game.
There are, however, plenty of reasons to assume the new season won’t look much like last year’s calamity. Missouri has six new transfers in a class that 247Sports ranked as the 13th-best haul of the offseason. Gates and his staff brought in a loaded high school crew, with five top-150-ranked players making up 247Sports’ No. 5-ranked Class of 2024.
So, what does the new campaign have in store for Missouri?
The misery of 2023-24? The blistering and unexpected heights of Gates’ debut year? Or, will it be something in the middle?
Here are three predictions for Missouri in 2024-25:
Missouri basketball makes the NIT
Bold? For a team that technically is still on a 19-game losing streak and hasn’t won in the calendar year 2024, we think so.
There are case studies in both the successful and unsuccessful columns after Gates has retooled his roster. The coach’s first squad looked almost nothing like former HC Cuonzo Martin’s last, and MU went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Gates rebuilt again in Year 2, and … the less said the better.
We say the Tigers split the difference in Year 3 with a no-frills NIT appearance, which might not be a jump-for-joy result for Mizzou fans, but it would be a significant step in a positive direction.
For reference, Texas A&M was the lowest-seeded NCAA Tournament team from the SEC, with a 21-15 overall record and a 9-9 SEC record, including three top-25 wins.
LSU (17-16, 9-9) had three top-25 wins and made the NIT field, and Ole Miss (20-12, 7-11) turned down an NIT invitation last season.
We expect Missouri’s regular-season record to look more like the latter.
Missouri wins opener, starts season 8-0
Let’s get one prediction out of the way early: Missouri is going to beat Memphis on the road on Monday and quickly end the slide. Memphis seems gettable after mass turnover on the coaching staff and plenty of new faces, like Missouri, to gel before getting to the crux of the campaign.
After that (and, no, we have not forgotten Jackson State) Mizzou shouldn’t have too much trouble running the table until early December.
Here’s who visits Mizzou Arena once MU returns home, partnered with their respective KenPom preseason rankings out of 364 Division-I teams: Howard (217); Eastern Washington (282); Mississippi Valley State (364); Pacific (286); Arkansas-Pine Bluff (355); Lindenwood (346); California (135).
Even Missouri’s winless conference team of last season only dipped as low as 145 in the basketball analytics site’s rankings.
Kansas and Illinois shape up to be NCAA Tournament shoe-ins and the toughest tests in MU’s nonconference. A loss in Memphis doesn’t spell disaster, but a win would quickly put any ill will in the past.
We say Gates’ Tigers get it done.
Mark Mitchell puts up Kobe Brown-like numbers
Mitchell was Missouri’s blockbuster offseason addition. The Duke transfer and Kansas City, Kansas, native was 247Sports’ 14th-best available player out of the portal.
Missouri was crying out for a star of the show last season. Injuries hurt, but the go-to, ever-reliable element lost with Kobe Brown was equally as impactful on the team’s down season.
Mitchell started 67 of a possible 68 games during his two seasons at Duke. He averaged 10.3 points and 5.2 rebounds over that spell. He’s a career 50.5% shooter from the field, and after a barren year from 3 last season owns a 31.9% career clip from deep.
Let’s compare that, quickly, to Brown before and after entering Gates’ system. The Missouri star went from 12.5 points per game as a junior to a 15.8-point average as a senior. He went from 48.1% in the field to a 55.3% rate. This one’s jarring: Brown went from a 20.6% shooter from 3 to a 45.5% mark.
We don’t expect Mizzou to use Mitchell exactly like Brown. Different players, different styles. But don’t be surprised if there’s some crossover. And don’t be surprised if Mitchell, like Brown, discovers some shooting touch.
If Missouri can get an All-SEC type year out of Mitchell, there’s a path to the Big Dance.
