Welcome everyone to The Verdict, Preseason Edition. In this series we’re going to be looking at a host of topics in the lead up to the much anticipated 26-27 Tigers Basketball season. Instead of going through the nitty-gritty of every single player as I’ve done in past Player Previews, I’m taking a bit of a step back and looking at some larger scale topics for Mizzou’s team. In this installment we’re going to be looking at the Mizzou Head Coach’s contract situation.
While most of the preseason attention has rightfully shifted to excitement over Mizzou Basketball’s prospects in the 2026-2027 season – and who will and won’t be eligible – there is an underlying story that can’t be ignored. The future of Dennis Gates at Mizzou. It seems counterintuitive that excitement over a season and an impeding contract situation can both be relevant. Yet there’s this elephant in the room. Pointed comments in media appearances are one thing. Combining those with a tenuous employment contract situation and you’ve got a potential scenario.
In the spring of 2023 Gates signed a contract extension that secured his coaching services through the end of the 2028-2029 season. After this season concludes two seasons are left on his deal. In the college coaching world that means it’s decision time. Sure, it’s possible that you have a coach with two years left on the sidelines, it’s just not what you want for a multitude of reasons. This creates a situation ripe for both parties to look around while games are being played. Or in Will Wade’s case, coaching his next team while employed by his current school! The solution from the school’s side is to offer an extension or make it clear that the coach is not worthy of one. The solution from the coach’s side is to accept those determinations or to look for a better situation. Uncertainty is the name of the game, unfortunately.
One week from the season starting this isn’t exactly what I desire to be writing about. I never do, in fact. It’s just something that can’t be ignored. My place has never been to say what employment decisions Mizzou’s Basketball program should make. It’s neither my job nor my desire to do so and I won’t here. What I will offer under these circumstances is context. How has Dennis Gates stacked up against his peers in recent times?
The context I’ll offer can be found in two charts. In the first we’ll take a look at every High Major coach who has been on the job between two and five years and how they’ve fared. We’ll refer to this as the “first contract,” coaches. Not because they’re necessarily on their first deal – Dennis Gates isn’t – but because it offers a solid sample of what other peer coaches have done in a similar timeframe and that typical contracts span four to five seasons.
I find this particularly interesting because Dennis Gates has no true comparisons available. When sifting through the median “Wins Above Bubble (WAB)” rankings – a measure that most accurately reflects how good a team’s regular season was based on whom they beat and where and heavily employed by the NCAA Selection Committee – Gates stands in a bit of a demilitarized zone. The only coaches that fared better yet were in peril for continued employment were at blue blood programs. Mizzou is not that. The only coaches below him have been or will be on the hotseat if their trajectory holds. The tournament performances of those two subsets of coaches offer an identical picture. In between those two camps sits Dennis Gates.
In my humble opinion Mizzou’s head man has done well during his time in Columbia. After all, the program had been a bastion of mismanagement for over a decade before his arrival. He was the first coach since Frank Haith – on the strength of Mike Anderson’s players – to make back-to-back NCAA Tournaments. He was the first coach since Norm Stewart to earn multiple tournament seeds better than the 8-seed vs. 9-seed game. The bar was admittedly low, and he’s cleared it with ease. Even despite the horrendous outcome in year two which saw nary a win against SEC competition, the body of his work has been an improvement. Moreover, Gates has positioned the program well for future success with impressive work on the recruiting trail. Those things are important and constitute work well-done.
Those offering counterpoints will ask is being considerably better than bad the goal? That’s a fair question and certainly varies depending on the respondent. What this chart informs is that we don’t have a solid comparison to Dennis Gates. The answers above him and below him are fairly defined, but with his performance, we’re still flying a bit blind.
Perhaps looking at coaches at current High Major programs that actually survived their first five years at their program could offer more insight? If someone has kept a coach with a similar start to their career as Dennis Gates, how has that turned out? The chart below attempts to do that.
The data reflected here is identical to the initial chart with one notable difference: subsequent years “WAB” performance. My goal here was to not only identify similar coaches in their first five years but to also learn how various coaches have improved or regressed after that point.
Unfortunately, we’re once again left without any clear comparison. The first five season data shows that Dan Hurley and Dana Altman are the only coaches in the neighborhood of Dennis Gates. Dan Hurley won an NCAA Title in his fifth season in Storrs, Connecticut. That comparison is no good unless Gates performs a similar feat. I think we could all agree on how to handle that situation, no? The very recently retired Dana Altman on the other hand is more similar. Granted, he and most of the other coaches here were cutting their teeth in a vastly different environment. His tenure saw a solid start and continued to be solid for well over a decade. The most notable factor in Gates’ favor here is that none of the coaches in his expanded proximity saw any hard regression after their first five years. For a program with recent history that has the topography of Northern Arizona, consistency shouldn’t be ignored.
Suffice it to say we don’t have a clear answer right now based on this analysis. In an ideal world Mizzou’s 2026-2027 campaign is a wild success and an extension is agreed upon. The assembled roster makes it possible. In the event that Mizzou attains a tournament bid without any marquee results otherwise — or worse –and the debate will rage. In either scenario we’re simply without a clear answer historically on what the obvious answer is using these parameters.
I say let’s play the games and revisit this only if we must.